Correlates of academic procrastination

Concurrent correlates of academic procrastination were investigated in Israeli college preparatory students (N = 113). Procrastination in one course of study was found to be moderately correlated with procrastination in another, but not to procrastination in the routine tasks of daily living. Evidence for the validity of self-report procrastination scales was the moderate correlation with instructors' ratings. Procrastination was weakly related to emotional upset about it and moderately related to the endorsement of reasons for it—students high in procrastination and emotional upset gave higher reason endorsements (i.e., cited suggested reasons as more reflective of the causes of their procrastination) than the others. Reasons that were judged a priori as less threatening to one's self-esteem received higher endorsements than threatening ones. Contrary to prediction, reasons considered nonthreatening to one's self-esteem were as strongly related to emotional upset and to procrastination as threatening reasons. That students vary in emotional upset about procrastination and in the reasons they give for it highlights the need for comprehensive assessment of students in planning and implementing treatment programs.     

The Influence of Retention Interval on the US Preexposure Effect: Changes in Contextual Blocking over Time

A number of studies manipulating the length of the interval between conditioning and testing indicate spontaneous recovery from overshadowing, suggesting that certain instances of overshadowing represent a deficit in memory retrieval rather than a failure of animals to form an association between the overshadowed stimulus and the US. The present series of experiments examined the influence of lengthening the retention interval on blocking, another stimulus selection phenomenon that is typically interpreted as an acquisition deficit. The results indicated that when subjects were tested shortly (3 days) after training conditioning to a taste blocked subsequent conditioning to an odor conditioned in compound with that taste (Experiment 1), whereas prior conditioning to an odor did not block subsequent conditioning to a taste conditioned in compound with that odor (Experiment 2). This pattern of results was essentially unchanged when testing occurred at a longer (21-day) retention interval. However, there was evidence of a US preexposure effect in Experiment 2 when subjects in the US ONLY control condition were tested at the 3-day retention interval, but not when testing occurred 21 days after conditioning. Experiments 3 and 4 examined whether this loss of the US preexposure effect over time might actually represent a change in the degree of contextual blocking as the retention interval is lengthened. Exposure to the conditioning context either during the interval between Phase 1 and Phase 2 of conditioning (Experiment 3) or prior to Phase 1 of conditioning (Experiment 4) alleviated this US preexposure effect suggesting that the loss of the US preexposure effect as the retention interval is lengthened observed in Experiment 2 is due to changes in the degree of blocking by contextual stimuli over time. The results are discussed in terms of differential susceptibility of forgetting of two functional roles played by a contextual stimuli in the current situation-context as a CS and context as a retrieval cue for other CS-US associations.     

The perceptual analysis of structure from motion for rotating objects undergoing affine stretching transformations

In two experiments, we evaluated the ability of human observers to make use of second-order temporal relations across three or more views of an apparent motion sequence for the perceptual analysis of three-dimensional form. Ratings of perceived rigidity were obtained in Experiment 1 for objects rotating in depth that were simultaneously subjected to sinusoidal affine stretching transformations along the line of sight or in a direction parallel to the image plane. Such transformations are theoretically interesting because they cannot be detected by analyses that are restricted to first-order temporal relations (i.e., two views), but they can be detected by more conventional analyses of structure from motion in which second-order temporal relations over three or more views are used. The current results show that human observers can perceive stretching transformations of a rotating 3-D object in a direction parallel to the image plane but that they fail to perceive stretching transformations along the line of sight. This result suggests that human observers can make use of some limited second-order temporal information. This finding was confirmed in Experiment 2, in which we investigated the effects of several specific optical consequences of sinusoidal stretching transformations applied in different directions. The results indicate that observers may be sensitive to the sign of acceleration, but that. they cannot make use of the precise magnitude of second-order relations necessary to recover euclidean metric structure.     

Is memory for spatial location automatically encoded?

Naveh-Benjamin (1987, 1988) has shown that memory for spatial location does not meet the criteria for automatic encoding as claimed by Hasher and Zacks (1979). Age, intention, concurrent processing demands, practice, strategies, and individual differences affected memory for location. These variables should have affected effortful but not automatic processing. The experiments reported in the present paper, in which a different task was used, showed that intention, practice, and concurrent processing demands did not affect memory for location. I concluded that (1) the location task used by Naveh-Benjamin included effortful subtasks and also incidental cover or concurrent processing tasks that interfered directly with performance, and (2) the variables that he manipulated may not have affected the encoding of location. The need to differentiate processes from task performance in analyzing the automaticity issue is discussed. The dominant mode for remembering location is automatic, but such information may also be remembered voluntarily.     

A text-stimuli presentation manager for the IBM PC with ipsatization correction for response sets and reaction times

IPSAPRO, an ipsative scoring program written for the IBM PC, aids in the detection and transformation of response sets that often contaminate rating scale and reaction time experiments. Response sets such as the tendency to use only extreme points of a rating scale or to work for speed over accuracy in reaction time experiments are removed in IPSAPRO by standardizing each subject’s ratings or times against their own means and standard deviations. Ipsatization can be applied to existing data sets or take place automatically at the data collection stage in a text-stimuli presentation manager that is provided with the program.     

The Theory of Planned Behavior and Breast Self-Examination: Distinguishing Between Perceived Control and Self-Efficacy

This paper reports an application of the theory of planned behavior (TPB) to the prediction of breast self-examination (BSE) intentions and behavior. The study also considered the distinction between perceived control and self-efficacy within the TPB and the additional predictive utility of past behavior. A sample of 95 women completed questionnaires based on the TPB and were followed up at 1 month. Support for the distinction between perceived control and self-efficacy was provided by principal components analysis. The TPB was found to be highly predictive of intention to perform BSE and subsequent BSE behavior. Regression analyses revealed self-efficacy and attitude to be predictive of intention to perform BSE. Intention, in turn, was the sole predictor of BSE at 1-month follow-up. Past behavior was found to explain additional variance in intention, but not BSE behavior at 1-month follow-up. The results are discussed in relation to the conceptual status of the perceived behavioral control construct, and the practical implications of the results are highlighted.     

Using portfolios to enhance career resilience

Two groups of government workers were involved in career portfolio development workshops that were designed to expand the workers' thinking about their career accomplishments, enhance their sense of career resilience, and create portfolios. Focus groups conducted after the workshops indicated that participants began to engage in “portfolio thinking” and to think of an expanded range of career options, which were reflective of increased levels of career resilience.     

The Differential Assessment of State–Trait Anxiety and Depression in a Clinically Anxious Sample

Empirical investigation into anxiety and depression has led some researchers to question the conceptual distinctness of these constructs. N. S. Endler, B. J. Cox, J. D. A. Parker, and R. M. Bagby (1992) provided empirical evidence that state and trait anxiety (using the Endler Multidimensional Anxiety Scales; N. S. Endler, J. M. Edwards, and R. Vitelli, 1991) may be differentiated from depression (using the Beck Depression Inventory; A. T. Beck, 1978) in a student sample. The present study extended this research by employing a different sample, a clinical sample of panic disorder patients (N = 189). Further support for the conceptual distinctness of anxiety and depression is presented herein. The concept of a general distress factor that encompasses both constructs is also discussed.     

Randomized controlled trial of a brief problem-orientation intervention for suicidal ideation

Empirical evaluations suggest that problem orientation, the initial reaction to problems, differentiates suicidal youth from nonchnical controls and nonideating psychiatric controls. One promising area for intervention with suicidal youth relates to enhancing this specific coping skill. Nonclinical participants (N = 110) with active suicidal ideation were randomly assigned to receive a brief problem-orientation intervention or a control procedure. The current study evaluated the benefits of a brief prevention intervention based on the Problem-Solving Therapy model. Exposure to a brief video intervention regarding problem solving and coping skills was sufficient to elicit significant decreases in suicidal ideation and depression, but the intervention did not elicit improvements in problem orientation or other problem-solving abilities. These findings provide preliminary support for a brief, video-based problem-solving and coping skills module. However, considerable work in developing secondary prevention interventions remains.