Optimism and Self-Mastery Predict More Rapid Disengagement from Unsolvable Tasks in the Presence of Alternatives

Do favorable beliefs about the self, the future, and one's degree of control over events compromise one's ability to recognize what one cannot accomplish? Previous studies indicating that people with favorable self-beliefs spend more time on unsolvable tasks typically examined persistence with respect to a single unsolvable task or set of tasks. To test whether such seemingly maladaptive persistence would occur in the presence of alternative tasks, we varied whether an initial set of seven unsolvable anagrams was followed by 14 solvable anagrams and examined problem-solving efforts among college students (N = 96) given a 20-min time limit. In the absence of alternatives, most participants worked on the unsolvable trials until the end of the time limit; however, in the presence of alternatives, participants high in optimism or self-mastery beliefs who were not allowed to return to previous trials disengaged from the unsolvable anagrams nearly 4 min sooner than participants low in such beliefs. Additionally, optimists tended to outperform participants low in optimism on the subsequent solvable trials when these trials were said to test an aspect of verbal intelligence different from the initial set. These results suggest that people high in optimism and self-mastery are able to disengage from unsolvable tasks in order to allocate effort to solvable tasks. Implications for the study of nonproductive persistence, the adaptiveness of positive beliefs, and the modification of coping efforts are discussed.

     

The EMBU project--a multinational study of the importance of parental child rearing behavior for the development of psychopathologic phenomena

The influence of childhood experience on psychological development is discussed from various scientific viewpoints. Against this background, the origin of the cross-cultural, multinational EMBU Project on the relationship between upbringing in the family and psychopathology is described. It becomes obvious that a systematic, cross-cultural, and theory-orientated approach can bring significant material for the development of psychiatric theory.     

The roles of expectancy and aftereffects in alternation

In each of three experiments rats were pretreated in straight alleys to discriminate the brightness of an alley as signal for the magnitude of reward. Then the rats were tested in E-shaped mazes in which reward varied across trials and in which the brightness of the stem signaled the magnitude of reward. In all three experiments the rats alternated more on trials following a small reward on the previous trial, and in the third experiment the rats alternated more on those trials where a small reward was signaled. Rats choice responses on Trial n were also affected by the stimulus/reward and choice on Trial n − 2 and by the relationship between stimuli/rewards on Trials n − 2 and n. These results were interpreted as a tendency by the rat to change a less satisfactory situation by varying its response, and to retain a more satisfactory situation by perseverating in its choice response.     

The efficacy of relaxation training with children

This paper reviews studies that have examined the efficacy of relaxation training techniques in the treatment of childhood disorders. Methodological problems encountered in doing research in this area resemble those found in working with an adult population: imprecise definitions of subject populations and use of a variety of dependent variables from one study to another. Findings suggest that relaxation training is at least as effective as other treatment approaches for a variety of learning, behavioral, and physiological disorders when it is continued over an extended period of time and is augmented by other supportive measures. Needs for future research include better follow-up studies and further investigations with a behaviorally disruptive population.The author would like to express his appreciation to Tricia O'Malley, Shirley Vickery, and Jim Evans for their useful suggestions in an earlier version of this paper, and particularly to Kathy Paget and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable editorial assistance and comments in preparing the final draft.     

EMERGENT CONDITIONAL RELATIONS IN A GO/NO‐GO PROCEDURE: FIGURE—GROUND AND STIMULUS‐POSITION COMPOUND RELATIONS

Past research has demonstrated emergent conditional relations using a go/no‐go procedure with pairs of figures displayed side‐by‐side on a computer screen. The present study sought to extend applications of this procedure. In Experiment 1, we evaluated whether emergent conditional relations could be demonstrated when two‐component stimuli were displayed in figure—ground relationships—abstract figures displayed on backgrounds of different colors. Five normally capable adults participated. During training, each two‐component stimulus was presented successively. Responses emitted in the presence of some stimulus pairs (A1B1, A2B2, A3B3, B1C1, B2C2 and B3C3) were reinforced, whereas responses emitted in the presence of other pairs (A1B2, A1B3, A2B1, A2B3, A3B1, A3B2, B1C2, B1C3, B2C1, B2C3, B3C1 and B3C2) were not. During tests, new configurations (AC and CA) were presented, thus emulating structurally the matching‐to‐sample tests employed in typical equivalence studies. All participants showed emergent relations consistent with stimulus equivalence during testing. In Experiment 2, we systematically replicated the procedures with stimulus compounds consisting of four figures (A1, A2, C1 and C2) and two locations (left — B1 and right — B2). All 6 normally capable adults exhibited emergent stimulus—stimulus relations. Together, these experiments show that the go/no‐go procedure is a potentially useful alternative for studying emergent conditional relations when matching‐to‐sample is procedurally cumbersome or impossible to use.     

Acquiring experiential traces in word-referent learning

In two experiments, we investigated the activation of perceptual representations of referent objects during word processing. In both experiments, participants learned to associate pictures of novel three-dimensional objects with pseudowords. They subsequently performed a recognition task (Experiment 1) or a naming task (Experiment 2) on the object names while being primed with different types of visual stimuli. Only the stimuli that the participants had encountered as referent objects during the training phase facilitated recognition or naming responses. New stimuli did not facilitate the processing of object names, even if they matched a schematic or prototypical representation of the referent object that the participants might have abstracted during word-referent learning. These results suggest that words learned by way of examples of referent objects are associated with experiential traces of encounters with these objects.     

Processing of color words activates color representations

Two experiments were conducted to investigate whether color representations are routinely activated when color words are processed. Congruency effects of colors and color words were observed in both directions. Lexical decisions on color words were faster when preceding colors matched the color named by the word. Color-discrimination responses were slowed down when preceding color words mismatched the test color even if no task had to be performed on these words. These findings are consistent with the experiential view of language comprehension according to which color perception and the comprehension of color words are based on overlapping representational resources.     

Cut-free common knowledge

Starting off from the infinitary system for common knowledge over multi-modal epistemic logic presented in [L. Alberucci, G. Jäger, About cut elimination for logics of common knowledge, Annals of Pure and Applied Logic 133 (2005) 73–99], we apply the finite model property to “finitize” this deductive system. The result is a cut-free, sound and complete sequent calculus for common knowledge.