The Evaluation of Advice in Supportive Interactions: Facework and Contextual Factors

Perceptions of advice in supportive interactions are known to be influenced by the threat advice poses to a recipient's face. However, research has given little attention to factors that may moderate the influence of face concerns on advice evaluations. This study examined how evaluator sex, target responsibility and effort, and advice content influenced evaluations of advice given bluntly, with aggravating facework, or with mitigating facework. Participants (N = 305) evaluated advice directed at a student depicted as upset about failing an exam. The student's responsibility and effort with regard to the failure was manipulated within scenarios. Facework was found to have a substantial main effect on evaluations of advice, with mitigating facework producing the most positive evaluations. This effect was moderated to varying degrees by each of the contextual factors examined.     

Skill in map reading and memory for maps

Studies of expertise have typically shown that experts have better memory for materials from their fields than do novices. However, previous research on memory for maps has not shown the expected effect of expertise. The present study differed from previous studies by using contour maps as well as planimetric maps. In Experiment 1 the expected superiority in memory performance was found for skilled map readers when contour maps were used, but not when planimetric maps were used.

In Experiment 2, the main results of Experiment 1 were replicated, and, in addition, process tracing data were obtained during both study and test phases of contour map learning. Objective measures of attentional and retrieval focussing revealed almost no differences between the skilled and unskilled subjects. However, analyses of verbal protocols showed that the skilled subjects made more use of specialist schemata, whereas the unskilled subjects spent more time in reading place names. During recall, the skilled subjects made more use of both specialist and “lay” schemata, whereas the unskilled retrieved more place-name information.

The results are interpreted in terms of a schema-based approach to expertise.     

Drug Ingestions in Children 10–14 Years Old: An Old Problem Revisited

To determine changes in rates of drug ingestions in 10–14 year old children in our country, a retrospective chart review of 10–14 year olds hospitalized for drug ingestion between 1993–1995 and 2000–2004 was performed. Odds ratios and Chi‐square were used for analyses. From 1993–1995 there were 92.8 ingestions/100,000 children/year; from 2000–2004 there were 63.3 ingestions/100,000 children/year. More males ingested in 2000–2004 than 1993–1995 (26.3% vs. 14.2% O.R. 2.15 [1.19, 3.92]). More patients took psychiatric medications in 2000–2004 than 1993–1995 (38.9% vs. 27.0%, O.R. 1.72 [1.06, 2.80]). More patients ingested SSRIs in 2000–2004 than 1993–1995; fewer ingested tricyclics. Hospitalization rates for drug ingestions have decreased. There has been a change in drug ingested, and more males are ingesting drugs.     

Characterizing the information content of a newly hatched chick's first visual object representation

How does object recognition emerge in the newborn brain? To address this question, I examined the information content of the first visual object representation built by newly hatched chicks (Gallus gallus). In their first week of life, chicks were raised in controlled‐rearing chambers that contained a single virtual object rotating around a single axis. In their second week of life, I tested whether subjects had encoded information about the identity and viewpoint of the virtual object. The results showed that chicks built object representations that contained both object identity information and view‐specific information. However, there was a trade‐off between these two types of information: subjects who were more sensitive to identity information were less sensitive to view‐specific information, and vice versa. This pattern of results is predicted by iterative, hierarchically organized visual processing machinery, the machinery that supports object recognition in adult primates. More generally, this study shows that invariant object recognition is a core cognitive ability that can be operational at the onset of visual object experience.     

Children's patterns of reasoning about reading and addition concepts

Children's reasoning was examined within two educational contexts (word reading and addition) so as to understand the factors that contribute to relational reasoning in the two domains. Sixty‐seven 5‐ to 7‐year‐olds were given a series of related words to read or single‐digit addition items to solve (interspersed with unrelated items). The frequency, accuracy, and response times of children's self‐reports on the conceptually related items provided a measure of relational reasoning, while performance on the unrelated addition and reading items provided a measure of procedural skill. The results indicated that the children's ability to use conceptual relations to solve both reading and addition problems enhanced speed and accuracy levels, increased with age, and was related to procedural skill. However, regression analyses revealed that domain‐specific competencies can best explain the use of conceptual relations in both reading and addition. Moreover, a cluster analysis revealed that children differ according to the academic domain in which they first apply conceptual relations and these differences are related to individual variation in their procedural skills within these particular domains. These results highlight the developmental significance of relational reasoning in the context of reading and addition and underscore the importance of concept‐procedure links in explaining children's literacy and arithmetical development.     

Personality Architecture and the FFM in Organisational Psychology

Cervone, Shadel, Smith, and Fiori (2006 ) outline an approach to the study of self-regulation that is consistent with but extends research on self-regulation and motivation within organisational psychology. At the same time, their model represents a new perspective for the study of personality processes within organisations and one that conflicts with the existing personality research programmes focused on the five factor model (FFM). We outline the points of differentiation between the two approaches and suggest strategies that we believe will allow personality researchers to build the personality architectures for the trait behaviours derived from the FFM. We also categorise the mediating mechanisms studied in organisational psychology in the KAPA model of Cervone et al. and highlight the need for related frameworks covering affective units and personal competencies in personality architecture.