Contingencies of self-worth, academic failure, and goal pursuit

Two studies examine the effects of failure on explicit and implicit self-esteem, affect, and self-presentation goals as a function of people's trait self-esteem and academic contingency of self-worth. Study 1 shows that participants with low self-esteem (LSE) who receive failure feedback experience lower state self-esteem, less positive affect, and less desire to be perceived as competent the more they base self-worth on academics. In contrast, participants with high self-esteem (HSE) who strongly base self-worth on academics show a slight boost in state self-esteem and desire to be perceived as competent following failure. Study 2 shows that following failure, academically contingent LSE participants downplay the importance of appearing competent to others and associate themselves with failure on an implicit level. Taken together, these findings suggest that academically contingent HSE people show resilience following failure, whereas academically contingent LSE people experience negative outcomes and disengage from the pursuit of competence self-presentation goals.     

Appraisal-coping goodness of fit: a daily internet study

Using an Internet daily diary methodology, this study tested the goodness of fit hypothesis, which highlights the importance of the match between controllability appraisals and coping efforts in adjustment to stressful events. For 28 days, 190 undergraduates described their most stressful event and its controllability, how they coped, and their daily positive and negative mood. Individuals demonstrated fit across situations, with control appraisals associated positively with problem-focused coping and negatively with emotional approach coping and avoidance coping. A pooled within-person interaction indicated that problem-focused coping had a stronger positive association with positive mood when dealing with high versus low control stressors. Significant variation also was found in several other within-person interactions between control appraisals and coping, and some evidence was found for the notion that individual differences in the degree of matching coping to control appraisals were associated with person-level adjustment.     

A cross-culturally standardized set of pictures for younger and older adults: American and Chinese norms for name agreement,concept agreement,and familiarity

The present study presents normative measures for 260 line drawings of everyday objects, found in Snodgrass and Vanderwart (1980), viewed by individuals in China and the United States. Within each cultural group, name agreement, concept agreement, and familiarity measures were obtained separately for younger adults and older adults. For a subset of 57 pictures (22%), there was equivalence in both name agreement and concept agreement, and for an additional subset of 29 pictures (11%), there was nonequivalent name agreement but equivalent concept agreement, across all culture-by-age groups. The data indicate substantial differences across culture-by-age groups in name agreement percentages and number of distinct name responses provided. We discovered significant differences between older and younger American adults in both name agreement percentages (67 pictures, or 26%) and concept agreement percentages (44 pictures, or 17%). Written naming responses collected for the entire set of Snodgrass and Vanderwart pictures showed shifts in both naming and concept agreement percentages over the intervening decades: Although correlations in name agreement were strong (r = .71,p < .001) between our younger American samples and those of Snodgrass and Vanderwart, name agreement percentages have changed for a substantial proportion (33%) of the 260 pictures; moreover, 63% of the stimuli for which Snodgrass and Vanderwart reported concept agreement now appear to differ. We provide comprehensive comparison statistics and tests for both the present study and prior ones, finding differences across numerous item-level measures. The corpus of data suggests that substantial differences in all measures can be found across age as well as culture, so that unequivocal conclusions with respect to cross-cultural or age-related differences in cognition can be made only when appropriate stimuli are selected for studies. Data for all 260 pictures, for each of the four groups, and all supporting materials and tests are freely archived athttp://agingmind.cns.uiuc.edu/Pict Norms. The full set of these norms may be downloaded fromwwwpsychonomic.org/archive/.     

Opinion formation in evaluating the adjudicative competence and restorability of criminal defendants: a review of 8,000 evaluations

Evaluations of competence to stand trial (CST) are the most common type of criminal forensic evaluation conducted, and courts tend to defer to clinician opinions regarding a defendant's competence. Thus, it is important to study the ways in which clinicians arrive at opinions regarding adjudicative competence and the data they consider in forming their opinions. We reviewed 8,416 evaluations conducted by forensic evaluators in Virginia over a 12 year period, and examined (a) the clinical, demographic, and criminal characteristics of a defendant as related to opinions regarding competence, predicted restorability, and impairment on "prongs" of the Dusky standard, (b) process and outcome differences in evaluations conducted by psychiatrists versus psychologists and inpatient versus outpatient evaluators, and (c) the consistency of incompetence base rates over a 10 year period. Overall, clinicians opined that 19% of defendants were incompetent and considered 23% of these unlikely to be restored to competence. Not surprisingly, psychotic and organic/intellectual disorders were most strongly associated with findings of incompetence. However, there were some notable differences between evaluations by psychologists versus psychiatrists and between evaluations conducted in inpatient versus outpatient settings.     

The effects of word frequency and similarity on recognition judgments: the role of recollection

K. J. Malmberg, J. Holden, and R. M. Shiffrin (2004) reported more false alarms for low- than high-frequency words when the foils were similar to the targets. According to the source of activation confusion (SAC) model of memory, that pattern is based on recollection of an underspecified episodic trace rather than the error-prone familiarity process. The authors tested the SAC account by varying whether participants were warned about the nature of similar foils and whether the recognition test required the discrimination. More false alarms for low-frequency similar items occurred only when participants were not warned at study about the subtle features to be discriminated later. The differential false-alarm rate by word frequency corresponded to the pattern of remember responses obtained when the test instructions did not ask for a subtle discrimination, supporting the SAC account that reversed false-alarm rates to similar foils are based on the recollection process.     

Effects of an auditory model on the learning of relative and absolute timing

The effects of an auditory model on the learning of relative and absolute timing were examined. In 2 experiments, participants attempted to learn to produce a 1,000- or 1,600-ms sequence of 5 key presses with a specific relative-timing pattern. In each experiment, participants were, or were not, provided an auditory model that consisted of a series of tones that were temporally spaced according to the criterion relative-timing pattern. In Experiment 1, participants (n = 14) given the auditory template exhibited better relative- and absolute-timing performance than participants (n = 14) not given the auditory template. In Experiment 2, auditory and no-auditory template groups again were tested, but in that experiment each physical practice participant (n = 16) was paired during acquisition with an observer (n = 16). The observer was privy to all instructions as well as auditory and visual information that was provided the physical practice participant. The results replicated the results of Experiment 1: Relative-timing information was enhanced by the auditory template for both the physical and observation practice participants. Absolute timing was improved only when the auditory model was coupled with physical practice. Consistent with the proposal of D. M. Scully and K. M. Newell (1985), modeled timing information in physical and observational practice benefited the learning of the relative-timing features of the task, but physical practice was required to enhance absolute timing.     

Planning and executing simple movements: contributions of relative-time and overall-duration specification

In 3 experiments, the authors used a precuing protocol to examine the nature and cost of programming and the subsequent reprogramming of a movement's relative time and overall duration. Initial programming followed a fixed-order specification; knowledge of the necessary relative time was required before information regarding overall duration could be used in a manner that expedited response planning. In the case of reprogramming, however, when a modification had to be made in either the relative time or overall duration of the anticipated and already-prepared response, performers chose to completely reprogram the entire response. Complete reprogramming occurred even when the performer had correctly prepared the higher order relative-time component and only had to modify the overall duration of the movement. The data indicate that organizing movement timing before movement initiation is accomplished in a fundamentally different manner depending on whether the movement is being initially compiled or modified.     

Dielectric behavior of aerosol-deposited Mn-modified PZT–PZN thick films

We report the dielectric and ferroelectric behavior of thick films, ～10 µm, synthesized by aerosol deposition. The base composition of the films was selected to be 0.9Pb(Zr_0.52Ti_0.48)O₃–0.1Pb(Zn_1/3Nb_2/3)O₃ (PZT–PZN), which was modified with Mn to 0.9Pb(Zr_0.52Ti_0.48)O₃–0.1Pb(Zn_1/3Nb_2/3) O₃–0.52 wt% MnO₂ (PZT–PZN–Mn) in order to induce hardening. The polarization dynamics of the synthesized films was modeled using the theory developed for magnetic glassy systems. It was found that the substitution of Mn significantly (1) enhances the relaxation time, (2) reduces the magnitude of dielectric constant and dielectric loss, and (3) enhances the internal bias field. The results indicate the presence of domain wall pinning by the formation of defect dipoles.     

From Experience to Relation: Laszlo and Inayatullah,Two Futurists Compared

Humans have two futures: either liberty or uncertainty. In liberty, humans can forecast a vision of the future. However, in uncertainty, humans must forecast multiple futures. This article compares Ervin Laszlo's theory of the liberty future with Sohail Inayatullah's theory of the uncertainty future. Additionally, this article analyzes these two futurists through the lens of Martin Buber, and I argue that the future represents reality not to the “I” of the combination I–It but to the “I” of Buber's preferred combination of I–Thou.