Stress impairs acquisition of delay eyeblink conditioning in men and women

In rodents stress impairs delay as well as trace eyelid conditioning in females, but enhances it in males. The present study tested the effects of acute psychosocial stress exposure on classical delay eyeblink conditioning in healthy men and women. In a between subject design, participants were exposed to psychosocial stress using the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST) or a control condition which was followed by a delay eyeblink classical conditioning procedure. Stress exposure led to a significant increase in salivary cortisol and impaired acquisition of conditioned eyeblink responses (CRs). This was evident by a later first CR and an overall lower CR rate of the stress group. The stress-induced acquisition impairment was observed in both women and men. Subjects failing to show a stress-induced cortisol increase (cortisol non-responder) were not impaired in acquisition. Our findings indicate that acute stress, possibly via activation of the hypothalamus–pituitary–adrenal (HPA) axis, reduces the ability to acquire a simple conditioned motor response in humans.     

Do anxious parents interpretive biases towards threat extend into their child's environment?

Anxiety disorders are known to run in families [Turner, S. M., Beidel, D. C., & Costello, A. (1987). Psychopathology in the offspring of anxiety disorder patients. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 55(2), 229–235] and environmental factors may largely account for the concordance between parental and child anxieties. Cognitive psychology models emphasise the importance of interpretive biases towards threat in the maintenance of anxiety and it is well established that anxious adults and children display similar interpretive biases and that these biases in anxious parents and their children are correlated. This raises the question of whether anxious cognitions/cognitive style may be transmitted from parent to child. We propose that this is more likely if anxious parents demonstrate interpretive biases not only about potential threats in their own environment but also about potential threats in their child's environment. Forty parents completed a recognition memory measure of interpretation bias adapted from Eysenck, Mogg, May, Richards, and Mathews (1991) [Bias in interpretation of ambiguous sentences related to threat in anxiety. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 100(2), 144–150] to measure biases in response to potentially threat provoking situations involving themselves and their child. The interpretive biases demonstrated by parents were similar across situations involving themselves and their children. As expected, parental interpretive biases were further modified by anxiety with higher levels of parental anxiety associated with more negative interpretive biases about situations in their own and their child's environment, although this association was significantly stronger for potentially threat provoking situations in their own environment. These results are consistent with parent's interpretive biases extending beyond their own environment into their child's environment, although future research should continue to consider the mechanisms by which anxious parents may transmit fear cognitions to their children.     

The impact of egg incubation temperature on the personality of oviparous reptiles

Personality traits, defined as differences in the behavior of individual animals of the same species that are consistent over time and context, such as ‘boldness,’ have been shown to be both heritable and be influenced by external factors, such as predation pressure. Currently, we know very little about the role that early environmental factors have upon personality. Thus, we investigated the impact of incubation temperature upon the boldness on an oviparous reptile, the bearded dragon (Pogona vitticeps). Eggs, from one clutch, were incubated at two different average temperatures within the normal range. After hatching the lizards were raised under the same environmental conditions. Novel object and novel environment tests were used to assess personality. Each test was repeated in both the short term and the long term. The results revealed that incubation temperature did impact upon ‘boldness’ but only in the short term and suggests that, rather than influencing personality, incubation temperature may have an effect on the development of behavioral of oviparous reptiles at different stages across ontogeny.     

Achievement and affiliation motivation in career-oriented and homemaking-oriented college women

The purpose of this research was to investigate the possibility of an interaction between need for achievement and need for affiliation in career-oriented and homemaking-oriented college women. In the first study, scores on the appropriate scales (Achievement and Affiliation) of the Adjective Check List were obtained for 250 female college students, who were also classified as career or homemaking oriented on the basis of their responses to a questionnaire concerning postcollege plans. No significant differences were found between the career- and homemaking-oriented groups on Achievement and Affiliation; but, as predicted, a significant interaction occurred between the two variables. A second study, involving 257 college women and employing the same procedures and analysis, replicated the results of the original study: no main effects, but a significant interaction between Achievement and Affiliation. Implications of the findings for female career development and the counseling of women are discussed.     

Assessing implicit motives in U.S. college students: effects of picture type and position, gender and ethnicity, and cross-cultural comparisons

We assessed implicit needs for power, achievement, and affiliation in 323 U.S. college students using a Picture Story Exercise (PSE; McClelland, Koestner, & Weinberger, 1989) consisting of 6 picture cues and Winter's (1994) content coding system. Picture cues differed markedly in the amount of motive imagery they elicited and picture motive profiles closely resembled those reported by Schultheiss and Brunstein (2001) for a German student sample. Picture position influenced the expression of power and affiliation motivation, with affiliation motivation being most strongly expressed at the beginning and power motivation being most strongly expressed in the middle of the PSE. Women had higher affiliation motive scores than men. Asian Americans had higher affiliation motive scores than Whites, and African Americans had higher levels of achievement motivation than Asian Americans or Whites. PSE motive measures showed little or no overlap with questionnaire measures of impulsivity and anxiety (Behavioral Inhibition System-Behavioral Activation System scales; Carver & White, 1994) or specific motivational orientations (Personality Research Form; Jackson, 1984). Comparisons with Schultheiss and Brunstein's (2001) German sample indicate that U.S. students have higher achievement motivation and lower power motivation and activity inhibition scores than German students.     

A synthetic validity approach to testing differential prediction hypotheses

A new method is presented for conducting differential prediction analyses that makes it possible to test differential prediction hypotheses with adequate statistical power even when the sample size within a job or a job family is very small. This method, called synthetic differential prediction analysis, represents an application of the logic of synthetic validation to differential prediction analyses. The authors explain this new method and describe its application in a selection-system validation study conducted in a large organization.     

List-method directed forgetting can be selective: Evidence from the 3-list and the 2-list tasks

When people are cued to forget previously studied irrelevant information and study new information instead, such cuing typically leads to forgetting of the precue information. But what do people forget if, before the forget cue is provided, both irrelevant and relevant information have been encoded? Using relatively short item lists, we examined in a series of three experiments whether participants are able to selectively forget the irrelevant precue information, when relevant and irrelevant precue items were presented subsequently in two separate lists (3-list task) and when the two types of items were presented alternatingly within a single list (2-list task). Selective forgetting of the irrelevant precue items arose in the 3-list task, independent of modality of item presentation and level of discriminability of the precue lists, and it arose in the 2-list task. The findings suggest that, at least with relatively short precue lists, participants may well be able to selectively forget irrelevant precue information when cued to do so. Implications of the results for theoretical accounts of list-method directed forgetting are discussed.     

When timeliness matters: the effect of status on reactions to perceived time delay within distributed collaboration

This research examines the interactive effects of status and perceived time delay on acceptance of partner knowledge contributions within a distributive collaboration work environment. Results across 2 studies suggest that within distributed collaboration, time delays attributed to low-status partners had a significantly more harmful effect on influence acceptance than time delay attributed to high-status partners. This was so, despite the fact that partners' actual behavior was held constant across experimental conditions. In addition, results indicate that judgments of partner competence significantly mediated the interactive effects of perceived time delay and partner status on acceptance of partner influence.     

Chunking mechanisms in human learning

Pioneering work in the 1940s and 1950s suggested that the concept of 'chunking' might be important in many processes of perception, learning and cognition in humans and animals. We summarize here the major sources of evidence for chunking mechanisms, and consider how such mechanisms have been implemented in computational models of the learning process. We distinguish two forms of chunking: the first deliberate, under strategic control, and goal-oriented; the second automatic, continuous, and linked to perceptual processes. Recent work with discrimination-network computational models of long- and short-term memory (EPAM/CHREST) has produced a diverse range of applications of perceptual chunking. We focus on recent successes in verbal learning, expert memory, language acquisition and learning multiple representations, to illustrate the implementation and use of chunking mechanisms within contemporary models of human learning.