Academic Locus of Control,Self-Esteem,and Perceived Distance From Home as Predictors of College Adjustment

Eighty-eight female college freshmen completed questionnaires designed to assess academic locus of control, self-esteem, and geographical distance from home (actual and perceived) as predictors of college adjustment. Results indicated that an internal academic locus of control, a high level of self-esteem, and a perception that the distance from home was “just right” were related to four dimensions of college adjustment (Personal, Academic, Social, and Attachment). Regression analysis revealed that each predictor variable significantly increased the overall predictive accuracy of college adjustment. No associations, however, were found between actual distance and the various dimensions of college adjustment. Finally, the implications of using multiple predictors of college adjustment are discussed.     

Memory for Orientation in the Natural Environment

Previous work has demonstrated that memory for information to which people have been exposed for a prolonged period in everyday life may be very poor. One interpretation of such findings is that we tend to remember only information that is likely to be of future functional relevance. However, it is also noticeable that previous investigations have in general studied memory concerning artefacts of arbitrary design rather than the natural environment. As the product of an evolutionary process, it is possible that memory is in general adapted towards dealing with the natural rather than the artificial. For example, in the case of one frequently encountered artefact it has been shown that people retain little information as to whether the head on a coin faces to left or right. The present study probed a naturally occurring counterpart to this, by examining recall of the orientation of the crescent moon. For a new moon it is the right-hand side of the moon that is illuminated whereas for an old moon it is the left-hand side, in the northern hemisphere. The results of Experiment 1 indicated no retention of this information by participants (though, as the results of Experiment 4 confirmed, participants did remember that the new and old moons have opposite orientations). The results of Experiments 2 and 3 confirmed the absence of retention when recall was cued by reference to the solar cycle rather than the lunar cycle, either singly or in combination. It is concluded that, contrary to expectation, memory for the natural environment is in this case no better than memory for the artificial environment, consistent with the primary role in determining the content of everyday memory being taken by functional relevance. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

GENERAL MENTAL ABILITY,NARROWER COGNITIVE ABILITIES,AND JOB PERFORMANCE: THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE NESTED-FACTORS MODEL OF COGNITIVE ABILITIES

The nested-factors model is a well-established structural model of cognitive abilities in cognitive ability research but has not yet been used to investigate the role of cognitive abilities in job performance. Core assumptions of the nested-factors model are that a broad general mental ability (GMA) exists besides narrower abilities and that this GMA differs from the narrower cognitive abilities in breadth but not in subordination. The authors of this article propose that a recently emerging statistical technique—relative importance analysis—corresponds to the assumptions of the nested-factors model. To empirically study the implications of using the nested-factors model, the authors applied relative importance analysis to a meta-analytic matrix linking measures of 7 narrower cognitive abilities from an established ability taxonomy (Thurstone's primary mental abilities), GMA, and job performance. Results revealed that GMA accounted for 10.9% to 28.6% of the total variance explained in job performance and that GMA was not consistently the most important predictor. The discussion focuses on potential theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of the nested-factors model for personnel psychology.     

Extracting implicit theories about the risk of coercive control in romantic relationships

People readily make attributions about the likely behavior of others, based on very limited information. We exploited this tendency to assess people's sensitivity to personological and social‐circumstantial evidence of risk of coercive control in romantic relationships, by unobtrusively varying information about a fictitious couple in a between‐groups design and asking viewers to make predictions about the feelings and behavior of the three characters–a man, his girlfriend, and his sister. Key features of the story were systematically altered to elicit attributions of the man's aggressive and jealous inclinations to see if people are sensitive to the psychological link between sexually proprietary inclinations and risk of violence. The story manipulations were effective in eliciting attributions of the man's aggressive inclinations, of the woman's polyandrous inclinations, and of the man's likely jealousy. As expected, people predicted that an aggressive and jealous man would be likely to use violence and other controlling actions against his girlfriend.     

PURE TIME PREFERENCE

Pure time preference is a preference for something to come at one point in time rather than another merely because of when it occurs in time. In opposition to Sidgwick, Ramsey, Rawls, and Parfit we argue that it is not always irrational to be guided by pure time preferences. We argue that even if the mere difference of location in time is not a rational ground for a preference, time may nevertheless be a normatively neutral ground for a preference, and this makes it plausible to claim that the preference is rationally permitted.