The better-than-my-average effect: The relative impact of peak and average performances in assessments of the self and others

We examine whether people call to mind different manifestations of various traits when considering what they are like than when considering what others are like. Specifically, do people think that peak manifestations of their traits and abilities best capture who they are themselves, but that other people are better captured by their average performances or trait expressions? In Studies 1a and 1b, participants were more likely to believe that their own most attractive photographs best represent their typical appearance than others' do. In Study 2, participants' estimates of where they stand on various trait dimensions coincided with their highest possible standing, whereas their estimates of an acquaintance's standing coincided with the midpoint between the latter's highest and lowest possible standing. In Study 3, regression analyses revealed that students' predictions of their own final exam score were based most heavily on their highest score received to that point, but their predictions of someone else's final exam score was based most heavily on that student's average score. We discuss how this tendency fits in the broader literature on self-other differences in evaluation and how it contributes to above-average effect.     

Varieties of Political-religious Experiences

In this article, I consider the intersection of and interplay between the religious and political experience and conversion. More particularly, I identify and describe five types of political-religious experiences, which are represented in the lives of five public figures.     

Discrepant visual speech facilitates covert selective listening in "cocktail party" conditions

The presence of congruent visual speech information facilitates the identification of auditory speech, while the addition of incongruent visual speech information often impairs accuracy. This latter arrangement occurs naturally when one is being directly addressed in conversation but listens to a different speaker. Under these conditions, performance may diminish since: (a) one is bereft of the facilitative effects of the corresponding lip motion and (b) one becomes subject to visual distortion by incongruent visual speech; by contrast, speech intelligibility may be improved due to (c) bimodal localization of the central unattended stimulus. Participants were exposed to centrally presented visual and auditory speech while attending to a peripheral speech stream. In some trials, the lip movements of the central visual stimulus matched the unattended speech stream; in others, the lip movements matched the attended peripheral speech. Accuracy for the peripheral stimulus was nearly one standard deviation greater with incongruent visual information, compared to the congruent condition which provided bimodal pattern recognition cues. Likely, the bimodal localization of the central stimulus further differentiated the stimuli and thus facilitated intelligibility. Results are discussed with regard to similar findings in an investigation of the ventriloquist effect, and the relative strength of localization and speech cues in covert listening.     

Accuracy and assumed similarity in first impressions of personality: Differing associations at different levels of analysis

How are accuracy and assumed similarity associated in first impressions of personality? In a large-scale video perception study, accuracy and assumed similarity were strongly negatively associated across traits, consistent with past research (e.g., Beer & Watson, 2008). However, across perceivers and perceiver-target dyads, the ability to perceive others accurately was independent of the tendency to assume similarity with others. Thus, viewing others in general or specific others as overly similar to the self does not imply viewing them inaccurately. In sum, accuracy and assumed similarity are inversely related when examined across traits but are independent across perceivers and dyads.     

Being all that you can be: the weighting of potential in assessments of self and others

An accurate assessment of an individual often requires taking their potential into account. Across six studies the authors found that people are more inclined to do so when evaluating themselves than when evaluating others, such that people credit themselves for their perceived potential more than they credit others for theirs. Participants rated potential as a more telling component of the self than of others, and the importance participants placed on their own potential led to attentional biases toward information about their own future potential that did not apply to information about the potential of others. Furthermore, when assessing themselves and other people, participants required more tangible proof that someone else has a given level of potential than they required of themselves, and they relied more on how they would ideally perform in self-assessment but more on how others actually performed in judging them.     

Assessing negative cognitive style: Development and validation of a Short-Form version of the Cognitive Style Questionnaire

The Cognitive Style Questionnaire (CSQ) is a frequently employed measure of negative cognitive style, associated with vulnerability to anxiety and depression. However, the CSQ's length can limit its utility in research. We describe the development of a Short-Form version of the CSQ. After evaluation and modification of two pilot versions, the 8-item CSQ Short Form (CSQ-SF) was administered to a convenience sample of adults (N = 278). The CSQ-SF was found to have satisfactory internal reliability and test-retest reliability. It also exhibited construct validity by demonstrating predicted correlations with measures of depression and anxiety. Results suggest that the CSQ-SF is suitable for administration via the Internet.     

Type D personality, physical symptoms and subjective stress: the mediating effects of coping and social support

Coping style and social support may represent mechanisms to explain the relationship between Type D personality and ill-health. This study investigated whether Type D is associated with physical symptoms and perceived stress in a non-cardiac population, and if these relationships are mediated by coping and social support. In a cross-sectional study, 304 participants (110 males, mean age 22.1 years) completed measures of Type D, physical symptoms, coping, perceived stress and social support. Results showed that Type D, the interaction of negative affectivity and social inhibition (NA × SI), was positively correlated with physical symptoms, perceived stress, and avoidant coping, and negatively correlated with social support, problem-focused coping and emotion-focused coping. A series of bootstrapped multiple mediator tests showed that social support and avoidant coping fully mediated the relationship between Type D and physical symptoms. Furthermore, social support and emotion-focused coping partially mediated the relationship between Type D and perceived stress. These findings demonstrate for the first time that Type D personality is associated with physical symptoms in a non-cardiac population. Social support and coping style represent mechanisms that can, in part, explain the relationship between Type D and physical symptoms, and Type D and perceived stress.     

Directed forgetting and directed remembering in visual working memory

A defining characteristic of visual working memory is its limited capacity. This means that it is crucial to maintain only the most relevant information in visual working memory. However, empirical research is mixed as to whether it is possible to selectively maintain a subset of the information previously encoded into visual working memory. Here we examined the ability of participants to use cues to either forget or remember a subset of the information already stored in visual working memory. In Experiment 1, participants were cued to either forget or remember 1 of 2 groups of colored squares during a change-detection task. We found that both types of cues aided performance in the visual working memory task but that observers benefited more from a cue to remember than a cue to forget a subset of the objects. In Experiment 2, we show that the previous findings, which indicated that directed-forgetting cues are ineffective, were likely due to the presence of invalid cues that appeared to cause observers to disregard such cues as unreliable. In Experiment 3, we recorded event-related potentials and show that an electrophysiological index of focused maintenance is elicited by cues that indicate which subset of information in visual working memory needs to be remembered, ruling out alternative explanations of the behavioral effects of retention-interval cues. The present findings demonstrate that observers can focus maintenance mechanisms on specific objects in visual working memory based on cues indicating future task relevance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).     

How and to What Extent Do Two Cover, Copy, and Compare Spelling Interventions Contribute to Spelling, Word Recognition, and Vocabulary Development?

We used an adapted alternating treatments design to evaluate and compare the effects of 2 spelling interventions on spelling acquisition and maintenance, word reading, and vocabulary in three first-grade students. The first intervention, Cover, Copy, and Compare (CCC), involved having participants look at a word, cover it, write it, then compare the written response with the original stimulus. For the second intervention, Cover, Copy, and Compare + Sentence Definition (CCC + SD), CCC was supplemented with the experimenter reading a sentence containing the word and a brief definition of the word. Results showed that both interventions increased participants’ spelling at an equivalent rate, which was greater than a control condition. All participants showed greater gains in word reading in the 2 interventions than the control condition, and only 1 participant was better able to define words learned in the CCC + SD condition relative to the CCC condition.     

Does self-efficacy mediate transfer effects in the learning of easy and difficult motor skills?

The effect of task difficulty on inter-task transfer is a classic issue in motor learning. We examined the relation between self-efficacy and transfer of learning after practicing different versions of a stick balancing task. Practicing the same task or an easier version led to significant pre- to post-test transfer of learning, whereas practicing a more difficult version did not. Self-efficacy increased modestly from pre- to post-test with easy practice, but decreased significantly with difficult practice. In addition, self-efficacy immediately prior to the post-test was significantly lower after difficult practice than easy or intermediate practice. Self-efficacy immediately prior to the post-test, performance at the end of practice, and pre-test performance explained 75% of the variance in post-test performance. The mediating role of self-efficacy on transfer of learning offers an alternative explanation for recent findings on the superiority of easy-to-difficult transfer and may help clarify inconsistencies in earlier research.