Characteristics of academically-influential children: achievement motivation and social status

The contributions of academic achievement motivation and social status to peer-reported academic influence were explored in a sample of 322 children in grades three through five. Latent moderated structural equation modeling indicated that children who value academics are more likely to be rated by peers as academically influential. Social status also explained variability in academic influence, with well-liked and/or perceived popular children receiving more influence nominations than children low in social status. Additionally, social status moderated the relationship between motivation and influence such that children who were high in both academic value and social status were more likely to be nominated as academically influential than children low in those constructs. Contrary to expectations, academic self-efficacy was unrelated to peer-reported academic influence.     

Amalgamations of memories: intrusion of information from one event into reports of another

Numerous researchers have reported that exposure to misleading postevent information (MPI) regarding details in a witnessed event can lead people to report false details from the MPI when asked to report the witnessed event. In such studies, the MPI is presented to participants in the context of information about the witnessed event. This experiment tests the hypothesis that postevent exposure to information that participants know is not about the witnessed event can, nonetheless, affect performance on tests of memory for that event. As predicted, when asked to report details of an event depicted in a slide show, participants tended to intrude details mentioned in a recent postevent narrative that described a different event. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Growing interreligious and intercultural competence in the classroom

Building on various models for intercultural and interreligious competence (IC/IR competence), this essay argues that classroom learning about religious and cultural diversity will engage students' “sociological imaginations” and lead to increased IC/IR competence. The current strategy for increasing intercultural competence (attitude, skills and knowledge, to be developed in that order) does not reflect best practices for educating about social difference. Instead, knowledge acquisition about other cultures and religions is the “front line” task for increasing alterity competence, and the liberal arts classroom can represent a “safe space” for learning about cultural and religious differences in a depersonalized, sociological manner. Supporting this argument are self‐assessments of IC/IR competence collected from primarily European and white American students enrolled in “Religions of the World” or “Intercultural Communications,” allowing an analysis of IC/IR competence in light of the two distinct disciplines and contributing valuable data toward a broader theory of IC/IR pedagogy.     

Resilience Factors and Suicide Risk for a Sample of Transgender Clients

This study explored how individual- and community-based resilience factors operated together in order to reduce risk of suicide for a sample of transgender therapy clients. We collected cross-sectional survey data from 106 transgender therapy clients at a local community center, including demographic information, experiences of relational support, participants' emotional stability, and risk for suicide. Results from our mediation analysis indicated that high levels of perceived relational support are related to reduced risk for suicide and that this happens by way of a person's emotional stability. Clinical implications for family therapists are discussed based on the significant indirect effect found in this study.     

Development of a questionnaire to measure concern for dental appearance.

100 adults, selected for cosmetic dental treatment in a general dental practice, completed a 42-item questionnaire designed, on the basis of previous research and the author's clinical experience, to measure concern for dental appearance. This had high internal consistency and was reduced to a questionnaire of 23 items with internal consistency shown by a standardised Cronbach alpha of .84. An exploratory factor analysis with varimax rotation identified six factors, the main one appearing to be a measure of concern for dental appearance. The high internal consistency suggests that the total score for the revised questionnaire is a measure of a construct, concern for dental appearance. Although the simplest measure of that may be contained in the items for the first factor, a much larger sample would be necessary to confirm the complex factor structure and so the questionnaire's total score is probably the more reliable measure at present. A study is summarised showing that the total score provides a measure that, in statistical regression analysis, may predict the intentions of adults to take care of the appearance of their teeth.     

Postdictors of eyewitness errors: can false identifications be diagnosed?

Eyewitness researchers have "postdicted" identification accuracy using witness confidence (S. L. Sporer, S. Penrod, D. Read, & B. Cutler, 1995), response latency (S. L. Sporer, 1993, 1994), and endorsement of statements consistent with using relative versus absolute judgment strategies (D. Dunning & L. B. Stern, 1994; R. C. L. Lindsay & K. Bellinger, 1999). All of these measures were collected from 321 introductory psychology students who had viewed a staged crime and completed a lineup identification task. Some participants received feedback after identification (G. L. Wells & A. L. Bradfield, 1998). Lineup fairness was also used as a postdictor of eyewitness accuracy. Discriminant function analysis indicated that 75.2% of choosers and 63.0% of nonchoosers were correctly classified. Decision time and lineup fairness were the best postdictors of accuracy. The implications for postdicting real eyewitness decisions are discussed.     

Ordering and reordering in the auditory and visual modalities

This study investigates the hypothesis that the modality effect (i.e., the often-found recall advantage of the last few items presented in the auditory- rather than visual-input modality) is attributable to a directional auditory trace. Such a directional trace should help performance of forward item-to-item recall, but should hurt performance if mental reordering is required. However, it was found in our Experiment 1 that mental item-to-item reordering of the materials did not affect the modality effect. In Experiment 2, strict control was exercised over the order of recall of chunks of items, as well as over the order of recall within chunks. It was found that the item-to-item reordering of the materials had little effect on the modality effect. However, the larger scale order of recall of the chunks had a large effect on the modality effect. If recall was in a forward order (i.e., first chunk, second chunk, third chunk), there was a dramatic superiority of the auditory materials on the last chunk. If the recall order was backward (third chunk, second chunk, first chunk), the modality effect was inconsequential. These results suggest that the modality effect is related to access to large memorial units rather than to item-to-item associations.     

Expectations of sensations,discomfort and fear in dental treatment

A hundred dental patients and 40 dentists were asked to describe the sensations, discomfort and fear which they associated with a number of dental treatments. A number of patients were also asked to describe their experiences immediately after routine conservation procedures. It was concluded that although patients could accurately anticipate the pattern of sensations involved in treatment (even if they had not experienced some of the procedures), they expected more intense sensations and greater discomfort and apprehension than they were likely to experience. Dentists expressed more realistic ideas about the sensations produced by dental treatment. The discrepancy in patients' expectations appears to persist in spite of many discontinuing experiences, the fear of treatment being fostered by discomfort and the intensity of sensations expected, by lack of experience and, to a modest degree, by uncertainty about the sensations anticipated. Cognitive theories of fear do not appear to explain all these influences adequately. These observations support the need for information about sensations in treatment to help not so much with the experience of dentistry but rather with its anticipation.