Effects of positive and negative feedback on behavior control in hyperactive and normal boys

The hypothesis that hyperactive boys have relatively less response to negative feedback than to positive feedback was studied. Sixteen hyperactive boys and 16 controls were compared on two tasks under different feedback conditions. Feedback conditions were no feedback, positive feedback, and negative feedback. Tasks were symbol encoding and correcting spelling words. Hyperactives and controls were compared in amount of time on-task and amount of work correctly completed. Hyperactives were on-task significantly more under conditions of negative feedback than under positive feedback, but negative feedback significantly increased errors on the spelling correction task. Controls were equally responsive to positive, negative, or no feedback. Hyperactives accomplished significantly less than controls on the coding task, but performed as well as controls on the spelling correction task, which was administered to each boy at his own level of spelling ability. The results imply that while consistent negative feedback can reduce off-task behavior for hyperactives, it can also decrease the accuracy of the work they are doing.This research was supported in part by U.S. Public Health Service Training Grant (in Biological Science) No. MH07081. This article is based on a dissertation presented to the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences of Washington University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph. D. degree. The assistance of Dr. John A. Stern in helping with the preparation of the dissertation is gratefully acknowledged. The generous assistance of Dr. Cynthia Janes in helping prepare this paper is appreciated. The dissertation is available from University Micro-films (Order No. 74-13, 799). The assistance of Ms. B. Talent and Ms. S. Weiner in making reliability checks is gratefully acknowledged.     

Performance and activity of hyperactive and normal boys as a function of distraction and reward

Twenty-five hyperactive boys and 25 controls matched for age, social class, and race were compared on three performance tasks (coding, tone discrimination, and connecting dots) in two settings (nondistracting and highly distracting). Control Ss performed significantly better than did hyperactives in all conditions, except during tone discrimination and connecting dots in the nondistracting setting. Distraction decreased performance for both groups on the coding task and for hyperactives on the tone discrimination task, but significantly improved performance for controls on the connecting dots task. Distraction, where detrimental, was not significantly more so for hyperactives than for controls. The effect of reward on coding performance was studied in the distracting condition; reward produced the best performance for both groups, but significant differences between groups were not found.This research was supported in part by U.S. Public Health Service Training Grant (in Biological Sciences) No. MH07081.The participation of the following people in helping to design this research study and collect data is hereby acknowledged: David Bremer, Ted Goltz, Ruth Rosenthal, and Michael Stern.     

Catching up with wonderful women: The women‐are‐wonderful effect is smaller in more gender egalitarian societies

Inequalities between men and women are common and well‐documented. Objective indexes show that men are better positioned than women in societal hierarchies—there is no single country in the world without a gender gap. In contrast, researchers have found that the women‐are‐wonderful effect—that women are evaluated more positively than men overall—is also common. Cross‐cultural studies on gender equality reveal that the more gender egalitarian the society is, the less prevalent explicit gender stereotypes are. Yet, because self‐reported gender stereotypes may differ from implicit attitudes towards each gender, we reanalysed data collected across 44 cultures, and (a) confirmed that societal gender egalitarianism reduces the women‐are‐wonderful effect when it is measured more implicitly (i.e. rating the personality of men and women presented in images) and (b) documented that the social perception of men benefits more from gender egalitarianism than that of women.     

Age-related changes in deferred imitation between 6 and 9 months of age

Six- and 9-month-old human infants were tested in a deferred imitation paradigm in which an experimenter performed a single action with a novel object. Although infants of both ages imitated the action when tested immediately, only the 9-month-olds exhibited imitation after a 24-h delay.     

Continuity and change in personality traits from adolescence to midlife: a 25-year longitudinal study comparing representative and adjudicated men

In the first study, a hierarchical structure of personality traits was identified using data from a longitudinal study tracing two samples of men from adolescence to midlife (i.e., a representative sample of the general population and a sample of individuals adjudicated during their adolescence). The second study examined structural, rank-order, and mean-level continuity. Partial structural continuity was demonstrated through confirmatory factor analysis. Regarding rank-order continuity, the correlations were stronger as age increased, particularly for the adjudicated men. For mean-level continuity, the adjudicated men displayed higher scores from adolescence to midlife for nearly every personality trait related to Disinhibition and Negative Emotionality. Significant decreases were observed in these traits for both samples, supporting the hypothesis of a normative psychological maturation. Although both samples showed this maturation, the adjudicated men displayed a lower rate of change during adolescence and early adulthood. The two samples did not differ in Extraversion and this trait remained more stable, particularly for adjudicated men.     

Intelligence,classroom behavior,and academic achievement in children at high and low risk for psychopathology: A structural equation analysis

The intelligence, academic achievement, and classroom behavior of 158 children were assessed in a sample that is being followed longitudinally. The sample included children at high risk for mental disorder by virtue of having a parent with a psychiatric diagnosis of schizophrenia or affective disorder, children at moderate risk, and children at low risk, A series of path analyses indicated that in this sample (1) classroom behavior was more likely an affect than a cause of academic achievement, and (2) the influence of parental psychopathology on classroom behavior was mediated by a child's intelligence and academic achievement. We were unable to substantiate an unmediated causal link between parental psychopathology and children's academic achievement or classroom behavior.This research was supported by National Institute of Mental Health Grant MH 24819 to Drs. E. J. Anthony and J. Worland. The authors appreciate the help of the entire Harry Edison Child Development Research Center staff, especially Janet Penniman, Steven Finn, Harriet Lander, Arlene Stiffman, Victor Hesselbrock, Darcy Gilpin, Janice Hensiek, and Crisanne Roberts. Special thanks are expressed to Myra Ferrel and Alice Woods for making arrangements with the schools. Our gratitude is expressed to the principals, counselors, and teachers of the St. Louis area schools and to the children and families who participated in this effort.     

Coping with dialects from birth: Role of variability on infants’ early language development. Insights from Norwegian dialects

Previous research suggests that exposure to accent variability can affect toddlers’ familiar word recognition and word comprehension. The current preregistered study addressed the gap in knowledge on early language development in infants exposed to two dialects from birth and assessed the role of dialect similarity in infants’ word recognition and comprehension. A 12-month-old Norwegian-learning infants, exposed to native Norwegian parents speaking the same or two Norwegian dialects, took part in two eye-tracking tasks, assessing familiar word form recognition and word comprehension. Their parents’ speech was assessed for similarity by native Norwegian speakers. First, in contrast to previous research, our results revealed no listening preference for words over nonwords in both monodialectal and bidialectal infants, suggesting potential language-specific differences in the onset of word recognition. Second, the results showed evidence for word comprehension in monodialectal infants, but not in bidialectal infants, suggesting that exposure to dialectal variability impacts early word acquisition. Third, perceptual similarity between parental dialects tendentially facilitated bidialectal infants’ word recognition and comprehension. Forth, the results revealed a strong correlation between the raters and parents’ assessment of similarity between dialects, indicating that parental estimations can be reliably used to assess infants’ speech variability at home. Finally, our results revealed a strong relationship between word recognition and comprehension in monodialectal infants and the absence of such a relationship in bidialectal infants, suggesting that either these two skills do not necessarily align in infants exposed to more variable input, or that the alignment might occur at a later stage.     

Repeated reminders inrease the speed of memory retrieval by 3‐month‐old infants

In two experiments, we examined the effect of repeated reminder treatments on the speed of memory retrieval by 3‐month‐old human infants. Infants were trained for two consecutive days to kick their feet to produce movement in an overhead mobile. Infants in the one‐reminder condition received a 3 min reminder treatment 13 days after the conclusion of training. Infants in the two‐reminder condition received one 3 min reminder treatment 6 days after the conclusion of training and a second reminder treatment 7 days later (i.e. 13 days following the conclusion of training). Infants in the no‐reminder control condition were not exposed to the reminder prior to the long‐term retention test. In the absence of a reminder treatment, infants exhibited complete forgetting during the long‐term test. Infants exposed to one reminder exhibited retention when tested 24 h after their only reminder, but not when tested earlier. Infants exposed to two reminder treatments, on the other hand, exhibited retention when tested 1, 4 or 24 h after their second reminder treatment. We conclude that the opportunity to retrieve the memory on a prior occasion facilitated subsequent memory retrieval.