De‐escalation after repeated negative feedback: emergent expectations of failure

Research on willingness to make marginal investments (e.g., the escalation and sunk cost literatures) has often focused on project completion decisions, such as the “radar‐blank plane.” This paper discusses a fundamentally different type of marginal investment decision, that of couples deciding whether to continue infertility treatment in the face of repeated failures. Two experiments based on this context show that when people face multiple independent chances to achieve a valued goal but are unsure about chances of success, premature quitting or “de‐escalation” is the norm. Repeated negative feedback appears to induce individuals to see each successive failure as more and more diagnostic. As a result, even a short series of failed attempts evokes beliefs that future attempts will also fail. These emergent expectations of failure, generated by causal attribution processes, associative learning, and/or discounting of ambiguous information, appear very compelling and induce people to forgo profitable marginal investments. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

How does preference reversal appear and disappear? Effects of the evaluation mode

Preference reversal is a systematic change in the preference order between options when different response methods are used (e.g., choice vs. judgment). The present study focuses on procedures used to elicit preferences according to an evaluability hypothesis. Two experiments compared joint vs. separate evaluations and explicit vs. non‐explicit joint evaluations. Subjects had to express preferences between high‐variance gambles (HVGs) and low‐variance gambles (LVGs) either by choosing one gamble to play in a lottery or by assigning gambles minimum selling prices. We show that HVGs are preferred in both choice and pricing conditions when gambles are evaluated separately, and LVGs are preferred in both choice and selling conditions when gambles are evaluated in pairs: i.e., when the evaluation mode is held constant, classic preference reversal disappears. These results support the evaluability hypothesis, and suggest that preferences depend on whether subjects are allowed to compare the options they are asked to choose from or judge, independently of the nature of the scale (i.e., attractiveness vs. minimum selling price) they are required to adopt. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Situational and dispositional coping: an examination of their relation to personality,cognitive appraisals,and psychological distress

Reliable data on the relationships between situational and dispositional coping strategies are sparse. In order to address this gap in the literature, this study examined the determinants and adaptational outcomes of both types of coping. Two hundred and thirty‐three students completed, along with measures of situational and dispositional coping, measures of personality, cognitive appraisals, and psychological distress, the latter variable being evaluated concurrently and prospectively (10 weeks). Results showed that personality shared as much variance with situational as with dispositional coping, but the patterns of relationships were rather different. In addition, cognitive appraisals were found to add significant incremental validity in predicting situational coping beyond trait coping, but primary appraisals were redundant with personality traits, in particular neuroticism. Finally, in spite of the significant amount of variance shared between the two types of coping, they both accounted for individual differences in concomitant and prospective psychological distress, and the relation between dispositional coping and distress was partially mediated by situational coping. The implications of these findings for understanding the relationships between the two types of coping strategy are discussed. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Choosing How to Choose: Institutional Pressures Affecting the Adoption of Personnel Selection Procedures

The gap between science and practice in personnel selection is an ongoing concern of human resource management. This paper takes Oliver's framework of organizations' strategic responses to institutional pressures as a basis for outlining the diverse economic and social demands that facilitate or inhibit the application of scientifically recommended selection procedures. Faced with a complex network of multiple requirements, practitioners make more diverse choices in response to any of these pressures than has previously been acknowledged in the scientific literature. Implications for the science‐practitioner gap are discussed.     

《周氏太极图》原图考

本文以朱震所列周敦颐<太极图>"动阳"二字的标注为突破口,对比杨甲<六经图>、<道藏·周易图>所列及朱熹改造等诸流变图,结合周敦颐<太极图易说>及<易通>的文字叙述,考证了周敦颐<太极图>的原貌.笔者认为,对<周氏太极图>的考辨,应从其"流变"人手,进而求得其图之原貌,然后方可进入考证其图之来源.文中指出:周敦颐以太极为一气,主太极有动静而生阳生阴之说,而朱熹则以太极为一理,而"理不会自动静",动静只是阴阳自身之动静,出于建立其理学系统的需要,便有意对杨甲所列<周氏太极图>进行了改造.于是,通过比较二人太极观之不同,便可从中分辨<太极图>原图与改造图之间的差别,从而分析其二人各自的理学思想.     

丘处机"济世"人格的审美意蕴--全真道审美人格建构(之二)

"济世"是丘处机一生的主要人格特征,它包含三方面内容:积功累德,自善其身;拯世济民,兼善天下;悲天悯物,兼济苍生.丘处机之"济世"根源于人之"善心",仁爱慈善、珍爱一切生命是它的精神内核.丘处机"济世"人格的形成是其立足道教,吸纳儒家思想的结果,包蕴着深刻而丰富的人文内涵,体现出全真道以善求真、以善合真、真善结合的审美追求.本文试图从对丘处机"济世"人格的剖析中,探求全真道的宗教美学思想.     

社会支持的调节作用研究

为了考察社会支持在人格特征和心理健康水平之间的调节作用,利用症状自评量表、社会支持评定量表和艾森克人格问卷简式量表对1102名大学生进行施测。层级回归分析的结果不仅支持了社会支持的调节作用,而且表明社会支持与个体的心理健康水平之间存在三种不同的关系形式,即(1)社会支持的主效应显著,但是调节效应不显著;(2)社会支持的主效应和调节效应同时显著;(3)社会支持的主效应不显著,但是调节效应显著。     

Maternal insightfulness and preschoolers' emotion and behavior problems: Reciprocal influences in a therapeutic preschool program

Mothers' insightfulness, which involves understanding the motives underlying the child's behavior in a complete, open, and accepting way, was examined both at the beginning and at the end of a therapeutic preschool program for preschoolers using the Insightfulness Assessment (Oppenheim & Koren‐Karie, 2002). The goal of the study was to examine the links between improvement in mothers' insightfulness and reduction in children's behavior problems. Thirty‐two children referred to a therapeutic preschool program for a range of behavioral and emotional problems and their mothers participated in the study. Results showed that mothers who shifted from noninsightfulness before treatment to insightfulness after treatment had children whose behavior problems decreased whereas mothers who did not make such gains had children whose behavior problems increased. The social skills of all children improved during treatment. The possible mechanisms linking the gains of mothers and children are discussed within the framework of attachment theory.