Asymmetries in the perceptual span for Israeli readers

Native Israeli readers read Hebrew and English text as their eye movements were monitored. A window of text moved in synchrony with their eye movements and the window was either symmetrical about the fixation point or offset to the left or right. When subjects were reading Hebrew, the perceptual span was asymmetric to the left and when they were reading English it was asymmetric to the right. The results point out the importance of attentional factors in reading.     

Manager behavior in a social context: the impact of impression management on attributions and disciplinary actions

Two experimental studies were run to test the effects of subordinate impression management on the appraisals and responses of a manager, following an incident of poor performance. Two common impression management tactics, accounts and apologies, were manipulated in each of the studies. Subjects in both studies were experienced nursing supervisors. On the basis of the "discounting effect" reported in the attributional literature it was hypothesized that accounts of external causes for poor performance, i.e., excuses, would lead subjects to (1) attribute less responsibility to the subordinate, (2) be less personal in their responses, and (3) be less punitive in their responses. Apologies, because of their "equity restoration" effects, were expected to influence subjects' disciplinary responses to the poor performance, without necessarily affecting their attributions of responsibility. Experiment 1. which employed written stimulus materials and a repeated-measures design, provided strong support for all hypotheses. Experiment 2. which employed a film stimulus and between-subjects design, provided strong support for the accounts hypotheses but only minimal support for the apology hypotheses. The results highlight the importance of social information cues in the appraisal of performance.     

You must leave before you can cleave: A family systems approach to premarital pastoral work

We advocate the use of a family systems approach to premarital pastoral work, involving exploration of the families of origin of the intended spouses. Family systems theory argues that a marriage is like a merger of two corporations, each having its own stockholders; thus, adequate preparation for marriage involves coming to terms with the realities of one's family of origin and that of one's intended spouse. Exploratory techniques include genograms, house tours, family photo albums, and discussions of the rules and rituals in the respective families. Leaving father and mother is the central prerequisite to marriage.Dr. Mitchell is Professor of Pastoral Care and Theology, Eden Theological Seminary, 475 E. Lockwood Ave., Webster Groves, Missouri 63119. Dr. Anderson is Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology, Wartburg Theological Seminary, 333 Wartburg Place, Dubuque, Iowa 52001.     

The roles of self-esteem and self-consciousness in the Wortman-Brehm model of reactance and learned helplessness

The present experiments were designed to study the conditions under which failure would enhance or inhibit subsequent task performance. Based on the theory of Wortman and Brehm (1975), it was expected that small amounts of failure would produce reactance (manifested by improved performance at a subsequent task), whereas large amounts would lead to learned helplessness (i.e., impaired later performance). It was further expected that individual differences in self-esteem and private self-consciousness would serve as moderator variables for the above effects. In Experiment 1, subjects were exposed to either a small amount of failure or no failure before working on an anagrams task. As predicted, subjects high in self-consciousness, who have shown greater reactance arousal in attitude change studies, performed better on the anagrams task than subjects low in self-consciousness in the small-failure condition, but not in the no-failure condition. Further analyses revealed that this Self-Consciousness X Small Failure interaction was attributable to the performance data of the low, but not the high self-esteem subjects. Experiment 2 was designed to replicate and extend these results. Subjects were pretreated with either a small amount of failure, an extended amount of failure, or no failure before working on the anagrams task. A significant Self-Esteem X Helplessness Training interaction emerged. Relative to the no-failure condition, in which the two self-esteem groups did not differ, low self-esteem participants (low SEs) performed marginally better than did high self-esteem individuals (high SEs) in the small-failure condition but significantly worse than high SEs in the extended-failure condition. The effect of private self-consciousness was considerably weaker in this study, possibly because the sample included few low SEs (who are especially influenced by self-focused attention) who were also relatively low in self-consciousness. Questionnaire data from Experiment 2 were consistent with the notion that enhanced performance reflected reactance, whereas impaired performance signified helplessness.     

Is visual information integrated across saccades?

After subjects established fixation on a target cross, 12 dots were presented parafoveally. When the dots were presented, the subjects made an eye movement to the location of the dots, and during the saccade the 12 initially presented dots were replaced by 12 other dots. The 24 dots were part of a 5 × 5 matrix, and the task of the subject was to report which dot was missing. The data were consistent with other recent studies: subjects could successfully report the location of the missing dot far above chance (54%), whereas performance in a control condition (in which the two sets of dots were presented to different spatial and retinal locations) was almost at chance level (10%). However, a number of control conditions demonstrated that the effect was due primarily to persistence from the phosphor of the cathode ray tube used for stimulus presentation and that little of the visual information integrated was across two fixations. Implications of the results for a theory of integration across saccades are discussed.     

The Effect of Clear Evaluation Criteria on Sex Bias in Judgments of Performance

Previous research indicates that the work of women is often devalued rela- tive to that of men. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that such sex bias appears when judges follow ambiguous guidelines or criteria in making evalua- tions, but not when they tollow clear evaluation guidelines. In each experiment, male and female undergraduates evaluated a performance that was attributed to either a man or woman (an intellectual test performance in Experiment I; an artistic craft object in Experiment 11). Subjects followed either clear, explicit evaluation criteria or vague, ambiguous criteria. As predicted, female subjects Lyaluated the "female's" performance less favorably than the "male's" only when. criteria were vague. In contast, male subjects showed little evidence of sex bias, regardless of the criteria they followed. Discussion centers upon: (1) possible cognitive processes underlying the observed effects of clear criteria; and (2) potential practical applications designed to alleviate sex bias in naturalistic settings.     

Sexual activity and contraceptive use among low-income urban black adolescent females.

A modified form of Nathanson and Becker's (1983) Health Belief Model Questionnaire and other measures designed to assess cognitive processing were administered to low-income black adolescent female clients of an inner-city comprehensive health care clinic. The purpose of the study was to explore determinants of sexual activity and contraceptive use. Subjects were classified as not sexually active (n = 50), sexually active/noncontracepting (n = 20), or sexually active/contracepting (n = 72). Not sexually active subjects tended to be younger, more career motivated, to have a father at home, to be more influenced by family values, and to have more conservative attitudes regarding adolescent sexuality than did sexually active subjects. Sexually active/noncontracepting subjects tended to report fewer benefits and more barriers to the use of contraception. Level of cognitive processing did not differ among the three groups, but was at a lower-than-expected level for age. Finally, inconsistent contraceptive use was common to both sexually active groups.