The Importance of the Task in Analyzing Expert Judgment

The accuracy of judgmental forecasts of temperature and precipitation was analyzed. In contrast to the findings of many studies of expert judgment and forecasting, forecasts were highly accurate and forecaster agreement was high. Human forecasters performed better than an operational forecasting model and about the same as a linear regression model. Differences between temperature and precipitation forecasts could be predicted from differences between the tasks. In general, differences between tasks were much greater than differences between forecasters. Task predictability was an excellent indicator of forecast accuracy. The characteristics of the environment for forecasting temperature and precipitation that contribute to accuracy include high-quality information and the availability of "guidance" based on a computer model. It is concluded that an understanding of the properties of the task is essential for understanding the accuracy of expert judgment.     

Components of Mindfulness in Patients with Chronic Pain

Methods of mindfulness are gaining increasing popularity within the behavioral and cognitive therapies and appear helpful for a range of clinical problems. The purpose of this study was to examine cognitive and behavioral processes underlying mindfulness. One hundred fifty patients seeking treatment for chronic pain completed a battery of questionnaires, including the 15-item Mindful Attention Awareness Scale (MAAS; Brown and Ryan, J Pers Soc Psychol 84:822–848, 2003). Preliminary analyses supported reliability and validity of the MAAS for patients with chronic pain. A confirmatory factor analysis provided incomplete support for a singe factor structure from the items of the MAAS. In turn, an exploratory factor analysis yielded a four-factor solution: Acting with Awareness, Present Focus, Responsiveness, and Social Awareness. Correlation and regression analyses indicated that the Acting with Awareness and Present Focus subscales were significantly related to measures of patient emotional, physical, and social functioning. Further research that explores and validates models of mindfulness-based processes is recommended.     

Five-Month-Old Infants Have Different Expectations for Solids and Liquids

ABSTRACT— Many studies have established that 2-month-old infants have knowledge of solid objects' basic physical properties. Evidence about infants' understanding of nonsolid substances, however, is relatively sparse and equivocal. We present two experiments demonstrating that 5-month-old infants have distinct expectations for how solids and liquids behave. Experiment 1 showed that infants use the motion cues from the surface of a contained liquid or solid to predict whether it will pour or tumble from a cup if the cup is upended. Experiment 2 extended these findings to show that motion cues lead to distinct expectations about whether a new object will pass through or remain on top of a substance. Together, these experiments demonstrate that 5-month-old infants are able to use movement cues and solidity to discriminate a liquid from an object of similar appearance, providing the earliest evidence that infants can reason about nonsolid substances.     

Optimism for the World’s Future versus the Personal Future: Application to Environmental Attitudes

Optimism and pessimism for the future have been widely studied, but little is known about distinctions among types of optimism. In the present work optimism for the personal future and optimism for a more global world’s future were shown to be related yet distinct variables among responses from 156 undergraduate students. Furthermore, World Optimism predicted lower levels of pro-environmental attitudes (the New Ecological Paradigm) whereas Personal Optimism did not after its shared variance with World Optimism was removed. Personal Optimism (but not World Optimism) was associated with Consideration of Future Consequences, a measure of locus of control, and other measures of optimism and pessimism. Discussion addresses this distinction and its implications for understanding environmental attitudes and other individual differences.     

Friends’ Knowledge of Youth Internalizing and Externalizing Adjustment: Accuracy,Bias, and the Influences of Gender,Grade, Positive Friendship Quality,and Self-Disclosure

Some evidence suggests that close friends may be knowledgeable of youth’s psychological adjustment. However, friends are understudied as reporters of adjustment. The current study examines associations between self- and friend-reports of internalizing and externalizing adjustment in a community sample of fifth-, eighth-, and eleventh-grade youth. The study extends prior work by considering the degree to which friends’ reports of youth adjustment are accurate (i.e., predicted by youths’ actual adjustment) versus biased (i.e., predicted by the friend reporters’ own adjustment). Findings indicated stronger bias effects than accuracy effects, but the accuracy effects were significant for both internalizing and externalizing adjustment. Additionally, friends who perceived their relationships as high in positive quality, friends in relationships high in disclosure, and girls perceived youths’ internalizing symptoms most accurately. Knowledge of externalizing adjustment was not influenced by gender, grade, relationship quality, or self-disclosure. Findings suggest that friends could play an important role in prevention efforts.