A deliberate practice account of typing proficiency in everyday typists

The concept of deliberate practice was introduced to explain exceptional performance in domains such as music and chess. We apply deliberate practice theory to intermediate-level performance in typing, an activity that many people pursue on a regular basis. Sixty university students with several years typing experience participated in laboratory sessions that involved the assessment of abilities, a semistructured interview on typing experience as well as various typing tasks. In line with traditional theories of skill acquisition, experience (amount of typing since introduction to the keyboard) was related to typing performance. A perceptual speed test (digit-symbol substitution) and a measure of motor abilities (tapping) were not significantly related to performance. In line with deliberate practice theory, the highest level of performance was reported among participants who had attended a typing class in the past and who reported to adopt the goal of typing quickly during everyday typing. Findings suggest that even after several years of experience engagement in an everyday activity can serve as an opportunity for further skill improvement if individuals are willing to push themselves.     

The ideal‐self inventory: A new measure of self‐esteem

This article reports on some research in progress developing a new measure of self‐esteem which we have called the Ideal‐Self Inventory (ISI). The inventory is based on a constructivist approach and simply asks participants to list ten characteristics to describe their ideal self together with the ten opposite characteristics to describe their not ideal self. The ISI has been tested on over 100 student volunteers and correlates significantly with the adult version of the Coopersmith Self‐Esteem Inventory. The applications of this new measure are discussed with particular reference to counselling and psychotherapy.     

Training the supervisor: Integrating a family of origin approach

The replication of intergenerational patterns is considered here within the supervisor-family therapist-and family system, and the proposal of integrating a family of origin approach into the training of supervisors is presented. To become aware of the relation of one's own family of origin issues and their potential impact within the supervision and treatment can effectively improve intervention approaches, benefitting the supervisor, the therapist and the family in treatment. Being considerate of the training needs and levels of supervisors is an important component when integrating family of origin work into the training.     

Structural family therapy with Mexican-American family systems

Characteristics of traditional Mexican-American families with consequent family rules that affect these family systems are discussed along with selected clinical cases. The specific cases discussed involve: (1) interactions with family of origin in intercultural marriages, (2) intracultural differences in levels of acculturation and traditional family rules, and (3) extended family impact in response to severe life crisis. The development of therapeutic processes from structural and strategic family therapy approaches, which reflect appreciation for cultural differences and strengths, is suggested.This material was presented at the annual meeting of the Texas Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, January, 1994, San Antonio, TX.     

Definitions of physical abuse: A preliminary inquiry into children's perceptions

Research and policy-makers have frequently called for operational definitions of child abuse, however neither group has considered including children's perceptions of what constitutes abuse. The purpose of this study was to expand the discussion on definitions of child abuse by examining children's perceptions of physical abuse. This was done by collecting data to begin to document abused children's ratings of the seriousness of various abusive acts and to begin to examine gender and age differences in children's perceptions. The data revealed significant differences in children's perceptions of the seriousness of specific acts of abuse and a significant interaction between age and type of abuse. Although young children generally produced lower seriousness ratings than older children, their ratings were significantly lower on only a few types of abuse. When children's ratings were compared to similar ratings reported in earlier studies of adolescents, community members, and mental health professionals, the children in this study rated the abusive acts as less serious than the adolescents or community members, but very similar to the professionals who work in the area of child abuse and neglect. Although this must be considered a preliminary investigation, the potential implications for various legal and social contexts are discussed.     

Can Becoming My Self Influence My Health?: Exploring the Effects of a Eudaimonic-Enhancement Process on Psychological Indicators of Well-Being and Physical Activity

The current study adopts an intervention approach that begins with the assumption that the quality of a person’s lived experience is at the core of well-being and health behavior change. Specifically, the present study used a well-being enhancement process grounded in eudaimonia to explore the connection among eudaimonia, indicators of psychological well-being (i.e., personal growth, subjective vitality, self-determination, and life engagement), and physical activity. Participants in the intervention group engaged in 8 weekly, group eudaimonic well-being enhancement (the Well-Being Way, WBW) sessions with assessments at Weeks 1, 8, and 12 (follow-up), and were compared to a comparison group that did not participate. A series of 2?×?3 (Group by Time) repeated measures ANOVAs along with follow-up paired comparisons t-tests were conducted to compare the WBW and comparison groups across time. Results indicated that the WBW group exhibited significant increases in two indices of psychological well-being (trait subjective vitality and self-determination) and in their physical activity levels. The comparison group showed no changes in any of the variables. The results of an exploratory regression analysis provided some evidence that WBW participants who experienced the greatest gains in life engagement and trait subjective vitality also exhibited significant increases in level of physical activity. Discussion focuses on the implications of the Well-Being Way approach for the enhancement of positive well-being and future possibilities for eudaimonic-based approaches to health behavior change.     

Emotional constraints on intentional forgetting

One way people control the contents of their minds is intentional forgetting—voluntarily forgetting events after they have happened. The events people would most like to forget are unpleasant and emotional. This study used a directed forgetting procedure with emotional and neutral pictures to examine whether people can intentionally forget emotional events as easily as mundane ones. When the to-be-forgotten list was neutral, participants showed successful intentional forgetting. But when the to-be-forgotten list was emotional, directed forgetting failed. Results contribute to understanding the ways that emotion constrains mental control by capturing mental processes including memory retrieval. Emotion may short-circuit attempts to forget those parts of the past people would most like to forget.     

Multinomial process tree models of control and automaticity in weapon misidentification

When primed with a Black face, people are more likely to misidentify a non-weapon as a weapon. Weapon misidentification may hinge on the distinction between controlled and automatic processes. Various relationships between controlled and automatic processes are cast in the form of five multinomial process models, which are illustrated and compared. It is shown that variants of the traditional Process Dissociation model and the Stroop model are nested within the Quad-Model. Across four different studies, various complexity corrected model performance measures converged to support the Process Dissociation account. This account suggests that the automatic association between race and weapons is subordinate to controlled processing. More generally, these results suggest that the weapon-bias might be alleviated without interventions that directly target stereotypes.     

Focus identification during sentence comprehension: evidence from eye movements

Three eye movement experiments investigated focus identification during sentence comprehension. Participants read dative or double-object sentences (i.e., either the direct or indirect object occurred first), and a replacive continuation supplied a contrast that was congruous with either the direct or the indirect object. Experiments 1 and 2 manipulated focus by locating only adjacent to either the direct or indirect object of dative (Experiment 1) or double-object (Experiment 2) sentences. Reading-time effects indicated that the surface position of the focus particle influenced processing. In addition, Experiment 1 reading times were longer when the replacive was incongruous with the constituent that only adjoined, and particle position modulated a similar effect in Experiment 2. Experiment 3 showed that this effect was absent when only was omitted. We conclude that the surface position of a focus particle modulates focus identification during on-line sentence comprehension.