The contextual change paradox is still unresolved: comment on Bouton, Nelson, and Rosas (1999)

According to the contextual change theory of memory loss, spontaneous forgetting reflects a retrieval impairment due to subtle and unprogrammed shifts in environmental cues over a retention interval. However, Riccio, Richardson, and Ebner (1984) noted an apparent paradox in this model; specifically, laboratory studies inducing explicit shifts in contextual cues found less disruption of performance as retention intervals increased. Bouton, Nelson, and Rosas (1999) critiqued several of the claims made by Riccio et al. and concluded that the contextual cue theory is still a valid account of spontaneous forgetting. In this comment, the authors address the 3 major criticisms offered by Bouton et al., point out an inconsistency in their argument, and conclude that the original paradox still poses problems for the contextual change theory of forgetting.     

Can the Media Create Public Opinion? A Social-Identity Approach

The media remains a powerful presence in U.S. culture. It gives people news of world and local events, it entertains, and it may even function as a companion to children. Because it functions as a window to the outside world, what appears across its landscape actually may become people's reality. Thus, the potential for distorting their view of that world is high if the picture provided is unrepresentative of actual events. For example, the prevalence of violent acts on television has been linked to increased aggression and escalating impressions of a dangerous world, and the overrepresentation of youth and beauty may be a causal factor of eating disorders. In this article, we explore the possibility that the media may also serve as a powerful creator of the very public opinions it seeks to reflect in its news. Subtle nonverbal cues of newscasters have been shown to influence voting behavior, and the media's overrepresentation of the proportion of blacks in poverty may decrease whites' support of welfare. By portraying a world in which people's opinions are based on their ethnic or demographic group membership, the media may also subtly but powerfully create the very opinions they seek to reflect.     

Economic practices of Jesus movement groups

This paper examines in detail the multitude of ways used by Jesus Movement organizations to raise money to fund their many activities. The research was provoked by sharp differences between fund‐raising methods used by the two largest and well known JM organizations—the Children of God (now called The Family) and Christ Communal Organization (a pseudonym for a group called Shiloh). The COG mainly relied on various forms of public solicitation, while Shiloh depended on working for others and themselves in an effort to become self‐supporting. Seven other JM groups were examined to find out what patterns of support were most prevalent, and to examine possible relationships between sustenance activities and theological developments within the groups. A large number of experimental approaches were taken by JM groups trying to sustain themselves during their sometimes tumultuous histories, leading to a number of general conclusions.     

Video game violence: A review of the empirical literature

The popularity of video games, especially violent video games, has reached phenomenal proportions. The theoretical line of reasoning that hypothesizes a causal relationship between violent video-game play and aggression draws on the very large literature on media violence effects. Additionally, there are theoretical reasons to believe that video game effects should be stronger than movie or television violence effects. This paper outlines what is known about the relationship between violent video-game playing and aggression. The available literature on virtual reality effects on aggression is discussed as well. The preponderance of the evidence from the existing literature suggests that exposure to video-game violence increases aggressive behavior and other aggression-related phenomena. However, the paucity of empirical data, coupled with a variety of methodological problems and inconsistencies in these data, clearly demonstrate the need for additional research.     

Assessment and Diagnosis of DSM-IV Anxiety Disorders

Anxiety disorders, the 2nd most common type of mental disorders, are among the most frequently missed or misdiagnosed disorders (Frances & Ross, 1996). Once they are diagnosed, effective treatments exist for them. This article provides a review of current knowledge on the assessment and diagnosis of anxiety disorders classified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition (American Psychiatric Association, 1994). Emphasis is on the recognition of anxiety as a dominant symptom, frameworks for determining specific anxiety disorders, and patterns of comorbidity.     

A comparison of methods for estimating directions in egocentric space

A central issue for researchers of human spatial knowledge, whether focused on perceptually guided action or cognitive-map acquisition, is knowledge of egocentric directions, directions from the body to objects and places. Several methods exist for measuring this knowledge. We compared two particularly important methods, manual pointing with a dial and whole-body rotation (body heading), under various conditions of sensory or memory access to targets. In two experiments, blindfolded body rotation resulted in the greatest variability of performance (variable error), while the manual dial resulted in greater consistent bias (constant error). The variability of performance with body rotation was no greater than that of the dial when subjects' memory loads for directions to targets was reduced by allowing them to peek at targets in between trials, point to concurrent auditory targets, or point with their eyes open. In both experiments, errors with the manual dial were greater for directions to targets that were further from the closest orthogonal axis (ahead, behind, right, left), while errors with body rotation with restricted perceptual access were greater for directions to targets that were further from an axis straight ahead of subjects. This suggests that the two methods will produce evidence of different organizational frameworks for egocentric spatial knowledge. Implications for the structures and processes that underlie egocentric spatial knowledge, and are involved in estimating directions, are discussed, as is the value of decomposing absolute errors into variable and constant errors.     

Reflective judgment: Concepts of justification and their relationship to age and education

This paper describes a seven-stage model of post-adolescent reasoning styles, the most advanced of which is called “Reflective Judgment.” The model outlines a sequence of increasingly complex methods of justification of beliefs. This model demonstrates how people's conceptions of the nature of knowledge, the nature of reality, and their concepts of justification change over age/educational levels. Sixty subjects from three age/educational levels (high school, college, and graduate school) were administered the Reflective Judgment Interview. In addition, subjects were tested on four other factors hypothesized to affect reflective judgment scores. Two were competing theoretical constructs: verbal ability (using Terman's Concept Mastery Test) and Piagetian formal operations (chemicals and pendulum tasks); and two were potentially confounding factors: socio-economic status (using Hollingshead's two-factor index) and verbal fluency (number of words spoken during the interview). Highly significant differences (p < .001) were found on reflective judgment level between the three age/educational groups, and could not be statistically accounted for by scores earned on measures of the other four factors. Whereas verbal ability was found to be closely related to reflective judgment level, the differences between groups on reflective judgment could not be solely attributed to this factor.     

Examining congruence between partners' perceived infertility-related stress and its relationship to marital adjustment and depression in infertile couples

Because studies examining the emotional impact of infertility-related stress generally focus on individuals, there has been little research examining how relationship and individual variables are linked. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of congruence (e.g., agreement) between partner's perceived infertility-related stress and its effects on depression and marital adjustment in infertile men and women. Couples referred for infertility treatments at a University-affiliated teaching hospital completed the Fertility Problem Inventory (FPI), the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), and the Dyadic Adjustment Scale (DAS) 3 months prior to their first treatment cycle. Study findings show that men and women in couples who perceived equal levels of social infertility stress reported higher levels of marital adjustment when compared to men and women in couples who perceived the stress differently. In addition, women in couples who felt a similar need for parenthood reported significantly higher levels of marital satisfaction when compared to women in couples where the males reported a greater need for parenthood. While couple incongruence was unrelated to depression in males, incongruence over relationship concerns and the need for parenthood was related to female depression. These findings provide initial support for the theory that high levels of agreement between partners related to the stresses they experience help them successfully manage the impact of these stressful life events. Possibilities for future research examining the construct of couple congruence are discussed.     

Capturing and holding attention: The impact of emotional words in rapid serial visual presentation

When two masked, to-be-attended targets are presented within approximately 500 msec of each other, accurate report of the second target (T2) suffers more than when targets are presented farther apart in time--an attentional blink (AB). In the present study, the AB was found to be larger when taboo words were presented as a first target (T1), as compared with the AB found when emotionally neutral, negative, or positive words were presented as T1, suggesting that taboo words received preferential attentional processing. Comparable results were also obtained when taboo words were presented as to-be-ignored distractors in single-target rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). Arousal, but not valence, ratings of the emotional words predicted accuracy on subsequent targets in both dual- and single-task RSVP. Recognition memory for taboo words accounted fully for the negative relationships between arousal ratings and accuracy on subsequent targets, suggesting that arousal-triggered changes in attentional allocation influenced encoding of taboo words at the time they were encountered.