Cognition and metacognition at extreme altitudes on Mount Everest

The FACTRETRIEVAL2 test battery, which assesses both retrieval of general information from memory and metacognition about that retrieval, was administered to people before and after a recent expedition to Mount Everest and at extreme altitudes above 6,400 m (higher than any mountain in North America or Europe). The major findings were as follows: First, the same extreme altitudes already known to impair learning did not affect either accuracy or latency of retrieval, and this robustness of retrieval occurred for both recall and forced-choice recognition. Second, extreme altitude did affect metacognition: The climbers showed a decline in their feeling of knowing both while at extreme altitude and after returning to Kathmandu (i.e., both an effect and an aftereffect of extreme altitude). Third, extreme altitude had different effects than alcohol intoxication (previously assessed by Nelson. McSpadden, Fromme, & Marlatt, 1986). Alcohol intoxication affected retrieval without affecting metacognition, whereas extreme altitude affected metacognition without affecting retrieval; this different pattern for extreme altitude versus alcohol intoxication implies that (a) hypoxia does not always yield the same outcome as alcohol intoxication and (b) neither retrieval nor metacognition is strictly more sensitive than the other for detecting changes in independent variables.     

Schedule interactions involving punishment with pigeons and humans

The principal aim of the present experiments was to assess whether punishment increased or decreased the rate of unpunished behavior (contrast and induction, respectively) for which reinforcement rate was held constant, with physical and nonphysical punishers (electric shock and response cost), pigeon and human subjects, signaled and unsignaled components (multiple and mixed schedules), and the presence or absence of a blackout period between components. Across the three experiments there were 20 punishment conditions. Induction was found in nine of those, less consistent response-rate reduction was found in three, contrast was found in four, and in four there was no change in responding from conditions without punishment. Contrast occurred consistently only with multiple schedules during the first exposure to electric-shock punishment. Induction and no change, however, were found with every combination of the independent variables studied. Four conclusions regarding the interactions between punished and unpunished responding emerged from the present results: (a) Both contrast and induction occurred with the reinforcement rate held constant and a blackout between components, (b) induction was more common than contrast, (c) contrast occurred only in the presence of a stimulus different from that correlated with the punisher, and (d) contrast diminished with prolonged exposure to punishment. None of the current theoretical accounts of punishment contrast can explain the present results.     

Need probability affects retention: A direct demonstration

Recent memory theory has emphasized the concept ofneed probability—that is, the probability that a given piece of learned information will be tested at some point in the future. It has been proposed that, in real-world situations, need probability declines over time and that the memory-loss rate is calibrated to match the progressive reduction in need probability (J. R. Anderson & Schooler, 1991). The present experiments were designed to examine the influence of the slope of the need-probability curve on the slope of the retention curve. On each of several trials, subjects memorized a list of digits, then retained the digits in memory for 1, 2, 4, 8, or 16 sec. Some trials ended with a recall test; other trials ended with the message, “no test.” In Experiment 1, the likelihood of encountering a memory test (i.e., the need probability) was made to either increase or decrease as the retention interval increased; in Experiment 2, need probability either was flat (invariant across retention intervals) or decreased as the retention interval increased. The results indicated that the shape of the need-probability curve influenced the slope of the retention curve (Experiment 1) and that the effect became larger as the experimental session progressed (Experiment 2). The findings support the notion that memory adapts to need probabilities and that the rate of forgetting is influenced by the slope of the need-probability curve. In addition, all of the forgetting curves approximated a power function, suggesting that need probability influences the slope but not the form of forgetting.     

Some correlates of health locus of control among multicultural individuals

The relationship of locus of control to depression, anxiety, hostility, and physical health was assessed in a sample of multicultural college students (N = 162). Powerful Others Health Locus of Control was correlated with depression, anxiety, hostility, and recent physical symptoms while Chance Health Locus of Control (CHLC) was correlated with all of the above as well as chronic physical symptoms and major health problems. When controlling for a variety of health risk factors (viz., age, sex, body mass, exercise, smoking, salt, alcohol, and caffeine), only CHLC remained significant in the physical health models. Results support the cognitive model of mental health which emphasize the importance of adaptive beliefs. Specifically, they suggest that issues about control are related to negative affect and indicate that the often-cited relationship of an external locus of control to depression and anxiety also holds for hostility. The findings do not, however, support the view that anxiety and depression are associated with different types of external locus of control but rather suggest a unified set of locus of control beliefs underlying the three types of negative affect. In addition, evidence is provided for the external validity of the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC) Scales with respect to mental health. Further, the results indicate that belief about one’s health may play a significant role in one’s physical health and that the health behavior model of the relationship between locus of control and physical health is insufficient to explain the relationship. As the Chance and Powerful Others MHLC scales were not related to health habits in this sample but were related to mental health (viz., depression, anxiety, and hostility), locus of control beliefs may be related to physical health via their relationship with mental health.     

The double bind of caregiving: Representation of gendered emotion in American advice literature

Parent advice books written for the traditional, intact biological family represent maternal and paternal emotion quite differently from one another [S. A. Shields and B. A. Koster (1989) Emotional Stereotyping of Parents in Child-Rearing Manuals, Social Psychology Quarterly, Vol. 52, pp. 44–55]. This study examined gender-specific references to emotion in advice books directed to adoptive parents, step-parents, single parents, and married couples in order to determine the relationship between beliefs about women's and men's emotional natures and beliefs about caregiving. The gendered representation of caregivers' emotion is remarkably consistent across time, parenting genre, and author characteristics. Books directed to parents portray women as at risk for excessive emotions (both positive and negative) that have negative developmental impact on the child. In contrast, men are largely encouraged to be emotionally expressive, and when they are cautioned about their emotional display, the caution is restricted to negative emotions that are elicited by external emotional hazards: the children, the spouse (or ex-spouse), or the situation. In contrast, marriage manuals portray spouses as mutually responsible for their own and their spouse's emotional well-being. Husbands and wives are encouraged to express unlimited positive emotion and to engage in moderated ventilation of negative emotion. In our discussion of these results we consider the role of emotion representation in promoting a culture of mother blaming.We are indebted to Diane Early, Diane Hayashino, Nancy Kohn, and Sonja Jensen for their assistance in collecting and interpreting the data. This research was supported by University of California, Davis, Faculty Research Grants to S. Shields.     

Revisiting university student gender role perceptions

Gender role perceptions of five objects—Ideal Woman, Ideal Man, Most Women, Most Men and Self—were elicited from 3300 university students, 81% of whom were Caucasian, with 7% Hispanic, 6% African-American, and 4% Asian. Profiles of student responses for the five objects provided a comprehensive updating of 1970s research on student gender roles. Women (N= 1842) and men (N= 1148) students generally preferred an androgynous Ideal Woman. Women also preferred an androgynous Ideal Man, but men preferred a masculine sex-typed Ideal Man. Women and men's perceptions of Most Women and Men continued to be sex-typed. Men's self perceptions were androgynous, while women saw themselves as feminine sex-typed. Findings suggest that little change in students' gender role perceptions has occurred in the past 15 years.     

School Counseling: An Evolving Specialty

This article provides a review of school counseling as a specialty area of the counseling profession, including attention to historical development, training standards and accreditation, certification, and future trends and issues.     

Marital attributions in spouses of depressed patients

Causal attributions (i.e., locus, stability, globality) and responsibility attributions (i.e., bad intent, selfish motivation, blame) were assessed in the spouses of 27 depressed psychiatric inpatients and 30 nondepressed dyads to test predictions derived from Hooley's (1987) symptom-controllability model of marital distress. Results indicated that (1) depressed patients and their spouses were less dyadically adjusted than nondepressed spouses, (2) causal and responsibility attributions about depressive behaviors predicted lower dyadic adjustment, and (3) attributions of causality mediated the relationship between group status (depressed or nondepressed) and dyadic adjustment among spouses who had higher expectations for their partner to change. Results suggest that among spouses with a high expectancy for change, depression may be a risk factor for marital distress.     

Human Resource Management Group,University of Nottingham,UK

In a new series of regular reports, research groups active in personnel psychology from a number of countries will present a briefing on work-in-progress. In the first in this series, the HRM Group at the Department of Psychology, University of Nottingham, describe their ongoing work into organization change and training validation, employee socialization, computer-based testing, and personality test construction and assessment centre validation.