Adolescent Personality Antecedents of Adult Cigarette Smoking: A Longitudinal Study

Comprehensive personality assessments, made independently for early and late adolescence, were employed to predict smoking onset and maximum number of cigarettes smoked per day as reported by adult smokers. Also, comparisons were made between adult smokers and nonsmokers. The results indicate that men who had been more sexually active as adolescents smoked more but that women who had been more emotionally constricted and under more conflict as adolescents were heavier smokers. Smoking started earlier for men who had showed little self-awareness and a rather macho orientation during their adolescence; early-smoking women tended to have been conventionally feminine. Personality differences between future smokers and nonsmokers were few but showed similar sex differences. The results suggest that manifesting once traditional sex-role characteristics for both adolescent boys and girls presages early onset and heavier adult cigarette smoking. Preventive antismoking educational campaigns aimed at youth might be guided by these findings because they suggest some motivational bases that may find later expression in smoking practices.     

Effects of Classically Differentiated Supplementary Feedback Cues on Tracking Skill

Although previous studies had shown that classical predifferentiation of green (CS-j and red (CS+) cues enabled them to facilitate tracking performance when used as supplementary indicators of correct and incorrect responses respectively, the studies were inconclusive concerning specific conditional properties versus nonspecific arousal consequences of the cues. A sample of 108 Ss was exposed to the same predifferentiation procedure, but then were subgrouped in terms of the kind of feedback signal received in tracking (no signal, red only, green only, both signals). A nonspecificity theory predicts subgroup equality of tracking performances while specificity theory predicts the dependence of performance level on the kind of signal received. Results corroborated previous findings and the view that tracking effects were reasonably attributable to the transfer of specific stimulus functions generated in the differentiation trials.     

Bias in Eyewitness Accounts: The Effects of Question Format,Delay Interval,and Stimulus Presentation

One of three representations of a staged automobile collision was shown to 180 students from introductory psychology classes. We then questioned the students about details of the accident, using either marked or unmarked modifiers. Half the students were questioned immediately after viewing the stimulus material and half after a 20-min delay. The results indicated that estimates of the magnitude of a number of aspects of the collision were significantly greater when unmarked modifiers were used in phrasing the relevant questions. Students who were questioned after the 20-min delay gave significantly greater estimates of monetary damage than the students who answered immediately after viewing the representation. The nature of the stimulus material had inconsistent but significant effects.     

Department of Education,The University of Newcastle,New South Wales,Australia 2308.

We examined the loci of social anxiety in a sample of 385 Australian adult subjects (186 men and 199 women, mean age 30.63 years). Responses to the Social Avoidance and Distress Scale, the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale (Watson & Friend, 1969), and the Public and Private Self-Consciousness Scale (Fenigstein, Scheier, & Buss, 1975) were intercorrelated. The results suggested that for some socially anxious people who are privately shy, the locus of their anxiety is cognitive, whereas for others who are more concerned with performance, the locus is behavioral.     

The eclipse of heritability and the foundations of intelligence

It is well known that theory in human cognitive ability or ‘intelligence’ is not well developed, especially with regard to sources of trait variation. Roots of theory have been sought in biology, and it is now widely accepted, on the basis of twin studies, and statistical analysis of variance, that at least half of the normal trait variation can be attributed to genetic variation, a correlation known as the trait ‘heritability’. Since the 1990s, methods in molecular biology have been adopted to go ‘beyond’ this mere statistical attribution to the identification of individual genes responsible for trait variation. More than a decade of intense effort, however, has failed to produce unambiguous, replicable findings; explanations for the ‘missing heritability’ are now being demanded; and calls for new perspectives on the roles of genes and environments in development and trait variation are being demanded. Here, I propose a dynamic systems perspective indicating how the processes in which heritability becomes missing are the very ones that provide the roots of new intelligence theory.     

Personality and Cognitive Ability as Predictors of Typical and Maximum Managerial Performance

Despite long-established distinctions between typical and maximum performance variables on both the predictor and criterion side, little previous research has directly addressed the extent to which these distinctions translate into differential predictor-criterion relationships. Using a sample of candidates for managerial positions, we examined relations of predictors conceptually linked to typical (i.e., broad, narrow, and compound personality traits) and maximum (i.e., broad and narrow cognitive abilities) performance with corresponding criterion measures (N = 84–873). Supervisory ratings of managerial performance served as the typical performance criterion, whereas maximum performance was assessed via an assessment center. Confirmatory factor analyses supported the distinction between typical and maximum performance. Results also confirmed our hypothesis that cognitive abilities are more strongly correlated with maximum performance than with typical performance and largely supported the expectation of the opposite pattern with personality traits as predictors.     

Reciprocity and Rivalry: A Critical Introduction to Mimetic Scapegoat Theory

This paper presents a critical overview of René Girard’s mimetic theory, identifies several concerns about the adequacy of mimetic theory’s account of human agency and interdependence, and suggests ways this account might be clarified and enhanced. We suggest that mimetic theory tends to reify or hypostatize the core reality of mimetic desire, which sometimes is spoken of as a kind of trans-individual entity that directs human action, no doubt because of Girard’s concern to avoid any taint of individualism or subjectivism. We argue, however, that hermeneutic and dialogical philosophies like those of Hans-Georg Gadamer and Mikhail Bakhtin explicate profound human relationality and interdependence in a way that obviates individualism without overriding or obscuring personal responsibility. The concern of many Girardian theorists that hermeneutic philosophy covers over or even rationalizes conflictual and violent human dynamics, we contend, is unfounded. However, we insist that most contemporary social theory, including hermeneutic thought, fails to do full justice to the challenges posed by envy, enmity, and scapegoating violence in human affairs and to the struggle for a good or decent life that mimetic theory richly portrays. Thus, we explore some of the possibilities for a fruitful cross-fertilization of mimetic theory and hermeneutic/dialogical viewpoints. Similarly, we argue that recent work on virtue ethics in theoretical psychology contains rich resources for elaborating what would be involved in a so-called “positive” or “creative” mimesis that moves beyond the destructive kinds of mimetic entanglement upon which Girardian thought has tended to concentrate. Finally, we suggest that any effort of this sort to clarify what Girard terms our “interdividual” human reality and to investigate positive mimesis would be greatly assisted by Eugene Webb’s delineation of a fundamental kind of “beneficient motivation” or positive “existential appetite,” a third species of human desire in addition to the two that Girard clearly identifies, namely finite needs and the kind of insatiable, artificial craving that the term mimetic desire usually designates.     

Lashing Out after Stewing over Public Insults: The Effects of Public Provocation,Provocation Intensity,and Rumination on Triggered Displaced Aggression

Four studies present the first evidence showing that public (vs. private) provocation augments triggered displaced aggression by increasing the perceived intensity of the provocation. This effect is shown to be independent of face‐saving motivation. Following a public or private provocation, Study 1 participants were induced to ruminate or were distracted for 20 min. They then had an opportunity to aggress against another person who either acted in a neutral or mildly annoying fashion (viz. triggering event). As expected, the magnitude of the greater displaced aggression of those who ruminated before the triggering event compared with those distracted was greater under public than private provocation. Study 2 replicated the findings of Study 1 and confirmed that public provocations are experienced as more intense. Studies 3 and 4 both manipulated provocation intensity directly to show that it mediated the moderating effect of public/private provocation found in Study 1. The greater intensity of a public provocation increases reactivity to a subsequent trigger, which in turn, augments triggered displaced aggression. Aggr. Behav. 39:13‐29, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.     

The Anglican Covenant proposed by the Lambeth Commission 1

Abstract

The Lambeth Commission (2004) proposed a number of short-term and long-term solutions to issues raised by recent and highly controversial developments in the Episcopal Church (USA) and the diocese of New Westminster (Canada). From these events have emerged important questions about the nature of communion between, and the autonomy of, each of the 44 member churches of the Anglican Communion, and the way in which decisions of common concern are made. In order to consolidate this communion, as a long-term project, the Commission proposes the adoption of an Anglican Covenant by all 44 churches of the Communion. This article describes the terms of the proposed Covenant and identifies their provenance, in order to establish that the proposal is for the most part a restatement of classical Anglicanism. Only in serious cases of disagreement which substantially risk the unity of the Communion is the proposal innovative. The article also describes briefly reactions to and possible implementation of the proposed Covenant.