Repetition and practice effects in a lexical decision task

Ss classified visually presented verbal units into the categories “in your vocabulary” or “not in your vocabulary.” The primary concern of the experiment was to determine if making a prior decision on a given item affects the latency of a subsequent lexical decision for the same item. Words of both high and low frequency showed a systematic reduction in the latency of a lexical decision as a consequence of prior decisions (priming) but did not show any reduction due to nonspecific practice effects. Nonwords showed no priming effect but did show shorter latencies due to nonspecific practice. The results also indicated that many (at least 36) words can be in the primed state simultaneously and that the effect persists for at least 10 min. The general interpretation was that priming produces an alteration in the representation of a word in memory and can facilitate the terminal portion of the memory search process which is assumed to be random.     

The temporal course of the frustration effect

General activity subsequent to reward (R) and nonreward (N) was monitored at 5-sec intervals with a stabilimeter in the runway goal box. Activity of never-rewarded control Ss was also measured. In Expt 1 it was found that the frustration effect (difference between N- and R-trial activities) disappeared after about 40 sec of goal box confinement. This disappearance of the frustration effect was due to activity increase on R trials rather than activity decrease on N trials as a function of time. Comparison of N-trial activity with control group activity indicated that frustration does not dissipate within 60 sec. Expt 2 investigated activity following reward and nonreward as a function of reward magnitude. Evidence from these experiments suggests that the late R-trial activity increase results from frustration, possibly conditioned to apparatus cues on N trials.     

Fluctuating emotions: relating emotional variability and job satisfaction

This study focuses on the relation between emotional variability and job satisfaction and examines emotional exhaustion as a potential explanation for why variability may result in lower satisfaction. In addition, this study examines organizational identification as a potential moderator of the relation between emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction. A total of 244 nonacademic staff in two universities in Ecuador responded to the surveys. The results demonstrated that emotional exhaustion mediated the relation between emotional variability and job satisfaction and that organizational identification weakened the negative relation between emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction. This research is among the first to investigate emotional variability in organizations and examine the role of organizational identification in buffering the negative effect of emotional variability.     

Economic Pressure,Individual and Family Processes,and Children’s Reticence in Romanian Families

Using Conger’s family stress model as a theoretical framework, a series of mediated associations among economic hardship, perceived economic pressure, parental depression, marital conflict, psychologically controlling parenting, and children’s reticent behaviors in Romanian families were studied. The sample consisted of 121 Romanian mothers and fathers of 4–5-year-old children. Children’s kindergarten teachers living in urban and rural locations evaluated child reticence. Findings generally support the family stress model. Structural equation modeling showed that after controlling for living in a rural location, economic pressure was indirectly linked with marital conflict through depression. Depression was indirectly related to psychological control through marital conflict, and marital conflict was indirectly linked to child reticence through psychological control. Directions for future research and recommendations for interventions and public policy are described.     

Conceptualising the relationship between shopper religiosity,perceived risk and the role of moral potency

The primary aim of this paper is to conceptualise the influence of shopper religiosity on perceived risk and the moderating role of moral potency when purchasing religiously questionable products from retailers. An extensive review of extant literature was undertaken, drawing together the General Theory of Marketing Ethics and the concept of moral potency, in a retail context. A conceptual model is developed that provide the basis for future inquiry. The model elucidates the complex relationships between the dimensions of religiosity and social and psychological risk and then explains the moderating role of moral potency. The model offers a strong psychological explanation of how a shoppers' religion may increase their perceptions of risk in a purchase situation. The model also argues that risk perceptions may be heightened (or lessened) as a result of the shoppers' personal responsibility, confidence and courage. Retail managers may choose to implement this model in order to better predict shopper adoption behaviour of new religiously questionable products. The model allows for future empirical examinations across multiple shopping contexts and may be employed to estimate levels' demand for new products based on the extent of religiosity, moral potency and risk. The role of religion within retailing and shopping behaviour is emergent. Extant retailing literature has previously overlooked the role of religion as an antecedent to risk and the role of moral potency in moderating that relationship. This is the first paper to highlight these gaps and propose a testable model. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Psychology Internships in the Treatment of Severe Mental Illness: Implications for Training in Academic Medical Centers

Despite an increasing focus over the past 2 decades by federal and state governments on the care of persons with severe mental illness, psychologists remain underrepresented among behavioral health professionals working with this population. Within the discipline there is growing concern about the need to adequately train, recruit, and retain psychologists in this specialty. This is a particular concern in academic medical settings where the overall severity of illness among those receiving psychiatric services continues to increase. The purpose of this qualitative research study was to intensively examine the experience of predoctoral interns engaged in treating individuals with severe mental illness in an academic medical center in order to identify the professional developmental experiences and training needs of those learning to care for this population. This analysis, conducted with semistructured interviews at four points during the internship year, yielded a series of recommendations for improving internship training and recruiting psychologists to this specialty.     

Impaired Memory Consolidation in Rats Produced with β-Adrenergic Blockade

Despite abundant evidence that systemic administration of adrenergic drugs and hormones can produce retrograde memory enhancement, the literature contains no clear demonstration that postlearning systemic administration of adrenergic antagonists produces retrograde amnesia. Here we demonstrate retrograde amnesia for a stressful learning task (a spatial water maze) with systemic administration of the β-adrenergic antagonist propranolol (5 mg/kg). The amnesic effect of the drug depended on the degree of learning in the subjects: Propranolol caused a robust retrograde amnesia in “good learners,” but did not significantly affect memory in “poor learners.” The findings provide critical additional support for the hypothesis that postlearning adrenergic activation modulates memory consolidation processes after emotionally stressful events and help explain previous failures to detect memory impairment after systemic administration of adrenergic blocking drugs.     

The effects of different mastery criteria on the skill maintenance of children with developmental disabilities

The acquisition of skills by individuals with developmental disabilities typically includes the attainment of a certain mastery criterion. We conducted a survey of practitioners who indicated the most commonly used mastery criterion as 80% accuracy across three consecutive sessions. Based on these results, we conducted a series of three experiments to evaluate the relation between mastery criterion and subsequent skill maintenance with 4 individuals with various developmental disabilities. Results suggest that 80% accuracy across three consecutive sessions may be insufficient for producing maintenance in some cases.