How accurately can older adults evaluate the quality of their text recall? The effect of providing standards on judgment accuracy

Adults have difficulties accurately judging how well they have learned text materials; unfortunately, such low levels of accuracy may obscure age‐related deficits. Higher levels of accuracy have been obtained when younger adults make postdictions about which test questions they answered correctly. Accordingly, we focus on the accuracy of postdictive judgments to evaluate whether age deficits would emerge with higher levels of accuracy and whether people's postdictive accuracy would benefit from providing an appropriate standard of evaluation. Participants read texts with definitions embedded in them, attempted to recall each definition, and then made a postdictive judgment about the quality of their recall. When making these judgments, participants either received no standard or were presented the correct definition as a standard for evaluation. Age‐related equivalence was found in the relative accuracy of these term‐specific judgments, and older adults' absolute accuracy benefited from providing standards to the same degree as did younger adults. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

A systematic investigation of the differential predictors for speeding,drink-driving,driving while fatigued,and not wearing a seat belt,among young drivers

Risky driving has been identified as a key contributor to road crashes. Past research suggests that different risky driving behaviours are influenced by different factors, but has not been systematic in its investigation of the factors associated with different behaviours. The present research systematically examined a range of relevant demographic, personality and attitudinal factors (age, gender, sensation seeking, driver anger, time urgency, authority rebellion, perceived relative risk, perceived personal risk, perceived costs, perceived benefits, and peer influence) in the prediction of speeding, drink-driving, driving while fatigued, and not wearing seat belts, for a student sample of young drivers. In addition, relevant mediators of the relationship between gender and risky driving, as well as moderators of the relationship between perceived risk and risky driving, were examined for each of the four behaviours. Results demonstrate that the lists of significant predictors differed between risky driving behaviours. In addition, perceived personal risk was observed to mediate the relationship between gender and driving while fatigued only, and gender was observed to moderate the relationship between perceived risk and risky driving, for drink-driving and not wearing seat belts. Results highlight the importance of designing individual road safety interventions for individual driving behaviours, and suggest factors which might be targeted in younger driver populations.     

Relationship of negative self-schemas and attachment styles with appearance schemas

The purpose was to test, among women, the relationship between negative self-schemas and styles of attachment with men and women and two types of appearance investment (Self-evaluative and Motivational Salience). Predominantly Caucasian undergraduate women (N = 194) completed a modified version of the Relationship Questionnaire, the Young Schema Questionnaire-Short Form, and the Appearance Schemas Inventory-Revised. Linear multiple regression analyses were conducted with Motivational Salience and Self-evaluative Salience of appearance serving as dependent variables and relevant demographic variables, negative self-schemas, and styles of attachment to men serving as independent variables. Styles of attachment to women were not entered into these regression models because Pearson correlations indicated they were not related to either dependent variable. Self-evaluative Salience of appearance was related to impaired autonomy and performance negative self-schema and the preoccupation style of attachment with men, while Motivational Salience of appearance was related only to the preoccupation style of attachment with men.     

Why 8-year-olds cannot tell the difference between Steve Martin and Paul Newman: factors contributing to the slow development of sensitivity to the spacing of facial features

Children are nearly as sensitive as adults to some cues to facial identity (e.g., differences in the shape of internal features and the external contour), but children are much less sensitive to small differences in the spacing of facial features. To identify factors that contribute to this pattern, we compared 8-year-olds' sensitivity to spacing cues with that of adults under a variety of conditions. In the first two experiments, participants made same/different judgments about faces differing only in the spacing of facial features, with the variations being kept within natural limits. To measure the effect of attention, we reduced the salience of featural information by blurring faces and occluding features (Experiment 1). To measure the role of encoding speed and memory limitations, we presented pairs of faces simultaneously and for an unlimited time (Experiment 2). To determine whether participants' sensitivity would increase when spacing distortions were so extreme as to make the faces grotesque, we manipulated the spacing of features beyond normal limits and asked participants to rate each face on a "bizarreness" scale (Experiment 3). The results from the three experiments indicate that low salience, poor encoding efficiency, and limited memory can partially account for 8-year-olds' poor performance on face processing tasks that require sensitivity to the spacing of features, a kind of configural processing that underlies adults' expertise. However, even when the task is modified to compensate for these problems, children remain less sensitive than adults to the spacing of features.     

Considering the role of personality in the work-family experience: Relationships of the big five to work-family conflict and facilitation

Using a national, random sample (N=2130), we investigated the relationship between each of the Big Five personality traits and conflict and facilitation between work and family roles. Extraversion was related to greater facilitation between roles but was not related to conflict, whereas neuroticism was related to greater conflict but only weakly related to facilitation. Conscientiousness was related to less conflict, presumably reflecting efficient time use and organizational skills. In general, conflict was negatively related to work-family outcomes (e.g., lower job and family effort and satisfaction) whereas facilitation was positively related to the same outcomes. Conflict and facilitation were shown, however, to be orthogonal rather than opposite constructs. Implications for work-family theory, for the understanding of personality traits, and for enhanced responsibilities of organizations are discussed.     

Agreement and movement: a syntactic analysis of attraction

This paper links experimental psycholinguistics and theoretical syntax in the study of subject-verb agreement. Three experiments of elicited spoken production making use of specific characteristics of Italian and French are presented. They manipulate and examine its impact on the occurrence of 'attraction' errors (i.e. incorrect agreement with a word that is not the subject of the sentence). Experiment 1 (in Italian) shows that subject modifiers do not trigger attraction errors in free inverted VS (Verb Subject) structures, although attraction was found in VS interrogatives in English (Vigliocco, G., & Nicol, J. (1998). Separating hierarchical relations and word order in language production. Is proximity concord syntactic or linear? Cognition, 13-29) In Experiment 2 (in French), we report stronger attraction with preverbal clitic object pronouns than with subject modifiers. Experiment 3 (in French) shows that displaced direct objects in the cleft construction trigger attraction effects, in spite of the fact that the object does not intervene between the subject and the verb in the surface word order (OSV). Moreover, attraction is stronger in structures with subject-verb inversion (...). These observations are shown to be naturally interpretable through the tools of formal syntax, as elaborated within the Principles and Parameters/Minimalist tradition. Three important constructs are discussed: (1) the hierarchical representation of the sentence during syntactic construction, and the role of intermediate positions by which words transit when they move; (2) the role of specific hierarchical (c-command) but also linear (precedence) relations; and (3) the possibility that agreement involves two functionally distinct components. A gradient of computational complexity in agreement is presented which relates empirical evidence to these theoretical constructs.     

Maintenance of mother-child aversive relationships: A fresh look at an old controversy

Data were obtained from 46 mother-child pairs from the Child Behavior Institute (CBI) at the University of Tennessee. These mother-child dyads were referred for psychological help because of the child’s aversive behavior. Child-parent interactions were quantified using a multi-code, observational system. Correlational and multiple regression analyses (stepwise) were conducted to find the best predictor of the child’s aversive behavior. Results showed that the child’s aversive behavior was significantly correlated with the mother’s aversive, indiscriminate, and compliance behaviors. The regression analysis showed mother’s aversive behavior to be the best predictor of the child’s aversive behavior. Moreover, our results seem to point out that the compliance hypothesis is more effective in predicting child aversive behavior than the predictability hypotheses. It appears that since the two hypotheses are dealing with similar processes, they are more complementary than oppositional. This study used data collected by the Child Behavior Institute (CBI) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The authors are indebted to Robert Wahler, Michael Smith, and Sue Dunn for their helpful comments on this paper.     

A preliminary scale to measure connected and separate knowing: The Knowing Styles Inventory

The present investigation reported the development and validation of the Knowing Styles Inventory (KSI), a scale to measure connected and separate knowing [M. F. Belenky, B. M. Clinchy, N. R. Goldberger, and J. M. Tarule (1986), Women's Ways of Knowing: The Development of Self, Voice, and Mind New York, Basic Books]. In Study 1, principal components analyses for samples of females (N = 300) and males (N = 253) yielded two components, Connected and Separate Knowing. Studies 2 and 3 focused on females exclusively. The results indicated adequate test—retest reliability and internal consistency for both components. Additionally, Connected Knowing was positively correlated with empathic concern, perspective-taking, social desirability, and the femininity factor of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI). Separate Knowing was positively correlated with the masculinity factor of the BSRI and negatively correlated with social desirability. Suggestions for future research were presented.The authors wish to thank Jill Mattuck Tarule for the insight that she offered in the early stages of this project, and they wish to acknowledge the contribution of Nicole Bressler who participated in item development.     

Superheroes for change: Physical safety promotes socially (but not economically) progressive attitudes among conservatives

Across two studies, we find evidence for our prediction that experimentally increasing feelings of physical safety increases conservatives' socially progressive attitudes. Specifically, Republican and conservative participants who imagined being endowed with a superpower that made them invulnerable to physical harm (vs. the ability to fly) were more socially (but not economically) liberal (Study 1) and less resistant to social change (Study 2). Results suggest that socially (but not economically) conservative attitudes are driven, at least in part, by needs for safety and security.