Conceptualization and measurement of temporal focus: The subjective experience of the past,present, and future

Temporal focus is the attention individuals devote to thinking about the past, present, and future, and the concept is important because it affects how people incorporate perceptions about past experiences, current situations, and future expectations into their attitudes, cognitions, and behavior. However, temporal focus has not been clearly defined nor situated in a nomological network of constructs. In addition, existing measures of temporal focus suffer from various shortcomings. In this paper, we advance the concept of temporal focus by critically examining its conceptualization, developing a new measure of temporal focus (Temporal Focus Scale; TFS), and evaluating the validity (i.e., construct, convergent, discriminant, nomological, and predictive validity) of the TFS across four studies. We conclude that understanding how individuals focus their attention toward the past, present, and future clarifies their responses to explicit and implicit temporal information, which suggests that a variety of research streams would benefit from incorporating the concept of temporal focus.     

Book reviews

The Tao and the Logos: Literary Hermeneutics, East and West. Zhang Longxi, 1992 Duke University Press xviii + 239 pp., ISBN 0 8223 1218 2, pb $14.50

Ibn Sinā and Mysticism: Remarks and Admonitions. Shams C. Inati, 1996, London, Kegan Paul International, 114 pp., ISBN 0 7103 0482 X, hb £30.00

Ethics in Early Buddhism. David J. Kalupahana, 1995, Hawaii, University of Hawaii Press, ix+ 171 pp., ISBN 0 8248 1702 8, hb $27.00

On Understanding Buddhists. Essays on Theravāda Tradition in Sri Lanka. John Ross Carter, 1993, Albany, State University of New York Press, xiv+215 pp, hb $16.95

To See the Buddha. A Philosopher's Quest for the Meaning of Emptiness. Malcolm David Eckel, 1994 (1st edn 1992), Princeton, Princeton University Press, x + 262 pp., ISBN 0 691 03773 6, pb US$ 16.95     

Structural Model of Coping,Appraisals, and Emotions After Relationship Breakup

The relationship of coping resources and cognitive appraisals to emotions produced by the end of a romantic relationship at 2 separate times was investigated. Participants were 231 graduate students who completed inventories measuring their coping resources, cognitive appraisals, and emotional reactions. The results of the structural model suggested that preventive coping resources affected the appraised desirability of the event as well as initial emotional reactions and that combative coping resources affected subsequent emotional response. The implications of these findings for stress models of emotions and clinical interventions are discussed.     

Orienting and humor responses: A synthesis

Evidence is presented for a hypothesis that a humor response is an instance of a more general orienting response. The two responses both occur to stimulus novelty or incongruity and are identical behaviorally and physiologically, althouth their subjective components may differ. Evidence for the hypothesis is based on a series of paremeters that affect orienting and humor responses identically. Parameters on which the responses show strong parallels are the effects of habituation and the degree of stimulus change. Weaker parallels exist for such parameters as direction of stimulus change, number of habituation trials, stimulus complexity, salience, intensity, and the subject's arousal level. The weaker parallels are also areas in which additional humor research is needed.     

Imageability does not interact with visual field in lateral word recognition with oral report

Four lateral tachistoscopic experiments are reported which tested the hypothesis that the right hemisphere has a selective ability to process highly imageable words (the RH imageability hypothesis). The prediction that performance asymmetry would vary as a function of word imageability, in a lateral recognition task with oral report, was not fulfilled. Results suggested that several previously published studies which hitherto have been regarded as supporting the RH imageability hypothesis may be discounted on artifactual grounds. The implications of these findings for the overall status of the hypothesis were discussed.     

Humor as a negatively accelerated function of the degree of incongruity

The method of limits with weights was employed to determine whether a positive or inverted-U relation described the function between the degree of incongruity and indicators of humor. The degree of incongruity was defined as the difference between the mean of six previous Comparisons and a seventh heavier Comparison ranging from 250 to 7040 grams. Facial expressions and humor and surprise ratings to the seventh Comparison increased in a negatively accelerated fashion with the degree of incongruity. Downward trends in humor indicators with increased incongruity did not occur, and thus the inverted-U relation was not supported. Studies finding an inverted-U relation were interpreted as being the result of the incongruous stimulus coming from another dimension rather than from within the same dimension as the internal standard.     

The clinical validity of the process for assessment of effective student functioning

This report presents the results of a study of the clinical validity of A Process for Assessment of Effective Student Functioning. A clinical team composed of social workers, psychologists and psychiatrists saw 300 representative second and fifth grade children, rated them on interview and test protocols, and summarized the evaluation by single and summary qualitative judgments. The clinical validity criteria were established on the basis of independent evaluations of the home environment, the intellectual and emotional status of the child, and the child's ego functioning. Finally, a clinical criterion score was derived from the overall evaluation of the effectiveness of each subject by each member of the team. The multiple correlations of the three screening measures with the clinical criterion score ranged from .49 to .55 for second grade and fifth grade boys and girls. The clinical criterion scores of children who were screened by the recommended multiple cut-off procedure showed that none of the screened group was rated by the clinicians to have better than average adjustment. The multiple correlation and multiple cut-off procedure showed that the Process was valid for predicting independent clinical judgments of the status of these children. Furthermore, the Process was far more efficient in locating potentially handicapped children than either a carefully designed teacher nomination procedure or teacher referral.     

Food-related stimuli increase desire to eat in hungry and satiated human subjects

In the present study, the effect of food-related cues on the desire to eat chocolate in hungry and satiated subjects was investigated. Subjects (n=46) were randomly assigned to either a hungry or satiated group and then assigned to a group receiving one of the following stimuli: taste (2 M&Ms), sight (a photograph of M&Ms), cognition (a passage describin M&Ms), or control (no stimulus). In each testing session, subjects rated their desire to eat chocolate before and after the 90-s presentation of the particular stimulus. Each subject was then given a half pound of M&Ms so that actual consumption could also be measured. Results indicated that, following the presentation of the sight and taste stimuli, the subjects’ desire to eat chocolate was significantly increased. Furthermore, no differences in chocolate consumption due to state of hunger or type of food-related stimulus presented were found.