Performance feedback and self-focused attention in the classroom: When past and present interact

An experiment tested the impact of performance feedback on self-focused attention in high and low achievers. On the basis of previous research, which suggested that inconsistent feedback (i.e., feedback which contradicts one's performance history) receives considerable attention, it was predicted that such feedback would increase self-focus regardless of its valence (i.e., positive or negative). As predicted, high achievers were more self-focused when receiving failure feedback than when receiving success feedback or no feedback. The low achievers were more self-focused when receiving success feedback than when receiving failure feedback or no feedback. These findings are discussed in relation to Kluger and DeNisi's (1996) Feedback intervention theory and the literature on self-focused attention.     

The Influence of Social Comparison Situations on Individual Task Performance: Experimental Illustrations

In the past ten or so years, numerous experiments have been conducted to illustrate the intervention of social regulations in cognitive functioning (e.g., social coordination, sociocognitive conflict, and social marking). However, in that way, social comparison processes have not received any extended theoretical and empirical attention. Several experimental results are reported here in an attempt to show that the social conditions, in particular personal and categorical comparison situations, in which subjects are led to perform memory and problem-solving tasks constitute a determining factor in their cognitive performances. The discussion presents some new theoretical prospects for the study of social regulations of cognitive functioning.     

Relative contributions of kind- and domain-level concepts to expectations concerning unfamiliar exemplars: Developmental change and domain differences

Two inferential routes allow children to produce expectations about new instances of ontological categories like “animal” and “artefact.” One is to generalise information from a “look-up table” of familiar kind-concepts. The other one is to use independent expectations at the level of ontological domains. Our experiment pits these two sources of information against each other, using a sentence-judgement task associating properties with images of familiar and unfamiliar artefacts and animals. “Strange” properties are compatible with the ontological concept, but not encountered in any familiar kind. A look-up strategy would lead children to reject them and an independent expectation strategy to accept them. In both domains, we find a difference in reaction to strange properties associated with familiar vs. unfamiliar items, which shows that even young children do use independent domain-level information. We also found a U-shaped curve in propensity to use such abstract information. In addition, animal categories are the object of much more definite domain-level expectations, which supports the notion that the animal domain is more causally integrated than the artefact domain.     

Behavior Problems, Academic Skill Delays and School Failure Among School-Aged Children in Foster Care: Their Relationship to Placement Characteristics

We describe the level of behavior problems, academic skill delays, and school failure among school-aged children in foster care. We also examine how behavior problems are associated with academic problems, and explore how these outcomes are related to children's placement characteristics. Foster parent and child home interviews, as well as teacher telephone interviews were conducted from a randomly selected sample of 302 children aged 6 through 12 years living in out-of-home placement. Interviews included standardized screening measures. Results showed that 27% of the children scored in the clinical range for a behavior problem, and 34% were rated as having at least one behavior problem in the classroom. Twenty-three percent of the children had severe delays in reading or math, 13% had repeated a grade, and 14% had a history of school suspension and/or expulsion. Behavior problems by foster parent report were related to child suspension and/or expulsion from school, but were not associated with severe academic delays or grade retention. Placement characteristics were only sometimes related to these outcomes. Future studies examining the mental health and educational needs of this population should take into account the child's sociodemographic and placement characteristics.     

Intensity seeking and novelty seeking: Their relationship to adolescent risk behavior and occupational interests

The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis that individual differences in sensation seeking account for adolescents’ risk behavior and vocational interests. We relied on Arnett’s (1994) conceptualization of sensation seeking as involving a need for intensity and a need for novelty, neither of which includes the willingness to take risks. Self-report scales measuring intensity seeking, novelty seeking, impulsiveness, risk behavior and vocational interest were administered to 636 adolescents. New scales measuring intensity seeking (IS) and novelty seeking (NS) were used. Regression analyses showed that IS and to a lesser extent NS accounted for a small part of variance of risk behavior, independent of impulsiveness. IS and NS accounted for vocational interests. The discussion emphasizes the importance of disentangling sensation seeking as a trait from willingness to take risks when one intends to analyse the effect of the former on risk behavior.     

Tonic Activity Level in the Right Prefrontal Cortex Predicts Individuals' Risk Taking

ABSTRACT— Human risk taking is characterized by a large amount of individual heterogeneity. In this study, we applied resting-state electroencephalography, which captures stable individual differences in neural activity, before subjects performed a risk-taking task. Using a source-localization technique, we found that the baseline cortical activity in the right prefrontal cortex predicts individual risk-taking behavior. Individuals with higher baseline cortical activity in this brain area display more risk aversion than do other individuals. This finding demonstrates that neural characteristics that are stable over time can predict a highly complex behavior such as risk-taking behavior and furthermore suggests that hypoactivity in the right prefrontal cortex might serve as a dispositional indicator of lower regulatory abilities, which is expressed in greater risk-taking behavior.     

Subliminal priming of motivational orientation in educational settings: Effect on academic performance moderated by mindfulness

Recent literature indicates that a motivational orientation can be unconsciously primed. This study examined whether motivational priming influences students’ academic performance within an educational setting and whether this effect is moderated by students’ degree of mindfulness. Two randomly assigned groups of students received an identical lesson. However, the teacher’s slideshow contained different subliminal words according to the condition (autonomous vs. controlled motivation). Results demonstrated an interaction between students’ dispositional mindfulness and priming conditions. The more mindful students were immune to the manipulation whereas the less mindful students were affected by the priming: those primed with autonomous motivation obtained better results than those primed with controlled motivation. These findings contribute to priming research specifying individual differences of priming responsiveness.     

The emergence of a social representation of human rights via interpersonal communication: empirical evidence for the convergence of two theories

To test the common assumption that social representations originate in ordinary communication, ten 24-person groups of American college students exchanged messages for 2 1/2 weeks about six specific issues drawn from a 21-item questionnaire previously used by Clémence, Doise, & Lorenzi-Cioldi (1994) in a cross-cultural investigation on human rights. As expected, interpersonal communication led to increased spatial clustering (neighbors in social space became more similar) and enhanced correlations among these issues, leading to a more coherent factor structure of human rights conceptions. Clustering and correlation simultaneously illustrate the emergence of self-organization in social systems and are taken as evidence for the social origin of social representations. These findings show how Latané's Dynamic Social Impact Theory complements Moscovici's Social Representation Theory, providing a mechanism for understanding how and criteria for knowing when social representations arise from communication. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Competing for a desired reward in the Stroop task: when attentional control is unconscious but effective versus conscious but ineffective.

Recent studies using Stroop's paradigm have shown that word recognition processes can be controlled when the local context of the task is manipulated. In the present study, factors related to the participants' broader context (i.e., presence vs. absence of a competitor and of a desired reward) were manipulated. The results (1) support the conclusion that control of semantic-level activation can be unconscious but effective versus conscious but ineffective, (2) suggest that unconscious control alone operates on line (i.e., when the participant is responding), and (3) clarify the impact of socio-contextual factors that have been confounded in past research. Taken together, these findings strengthen the view that word recognition processes are controllable and offer new reasons to pay constant attention to the social environment of cognition.     

Self-confrontation interview with suicide attempters

Psychiatric and psychological assessment after parasuicide is characterized by a number of difficulties. The interview is a strategically complex task for the patients trying to accommodate the wishes of the psychiatrist/psychologist and their own goals. The psychiatrist/ psychologist on the other hand needs to gain information about the event and the patient's mental state, has to assess the risk of further suicidal behaviour, and has to motivate the patient for treatment. In our experience a routine video prompted recall or self-confrontation interview, can be a helpful means of talking with the patient about his or her feelings and cognitions during the interview. Furthermore, it allows clarification of the processes leading to parasuicide. The procedure of administering a self confrontation interview is described, the theoretical background for interpreting the results is outlined and some examples of patient interviews are presented. It is demonstrated that this method allows access to additional information on the patients' thinking and emotions during the interview and that it also provides more details of the suicidal process.