Destination memory in social interaction: better memory for older than for younger destinations in normal aging?

Destination memory, a memory component allowing the attribution of information to its appropriate receiver (e.g., to whom did I lend my pen?), is compromised in normal aging. The present paper investigated whether older adults might show better memory for older destinations than for younger destinations. This hypothesis is based on empirical research showing better memory for older faces than for younger faces in older adults. Forty-one older adults and 44 younger adults were asked to tell proverbs to older and younger destinations (i.e., coloured faces). On a later recognition test, participants had to decide whether they had previously told some proverb to an older/younger destination or not. Prior to this task, participants reported their frequency of contact with other-age groups. The results showed lower destination memory in older adults than in younger adults. Interestingly, older adults displayed better memory for older than for younger destinations. The opposite pattern was seen in younger adults. The low memory for younger destinations, as observed in older adults, was significantly correlated with limited exposure to younger individuals. These findings suggest that for older adults, the social experience can play a crucial role in the destination memory, at least as far as exposure to other-age groups is concerned.     

The Role of Workers’ Motivational Profiles in Affective and Organizational Factors

We used latent profile analyses to understand how the different forms of motivation proposed by self-determination theory combine with each other and how they relate to some organizational factors (i.e., perceived organizational support and procedural justice) and well-and ill-being indicators (i.e., work engagement, quality of working life, work satisfaction, job anxiety, and burnout). The research draws upon quantitative data collected by means of a questionnaire that was administered to 328 employees (Study 1) and 521 employees (Study 2) from various French companies. Results revealed that workers characterized by the two most autonomous motivational profiles displayed higher levels of work engagement, quality of working life, and work satisfaction, and lower levels of burnout and job anxiety than those with low levels of autonomous motivation, and introjected and external regulations (Low AU/INR/EXR profile), and those with moderate levels of autonomous motivation, moderate to high levels of introjected regulation, and moderate levels of external regulation (Mod AU/INR/EXR profile in Study 1 and Mod AU–High INR–Mod EXR profile in Study 2). Of interest is that the High AU–Low INR/EXR and High AU/INR–Low EXR profiles did not differ on well- and ill-being. In addition, perceived organizational support and procedural justice were associated with a greater probability of belonging to the High AU–Low INR/EXR and High AU/INR–Low EXR profiles, taking the Low AU/INR/EXR profile as a referent. The present research contributes towards a better understanding of the links between workers’ motivational profiles and affective and organizational factors.     

Does multitasking mediate the relationships between episodic memory,attention, executive functions and apathetic manifestations in traumatic brain injury?

Apathy is frequently described in patients with traumatic brain injury (TBI); its negative consequences particularly affect functional independence. Among apathetic manifestations, lack of initiative and lack of interest have mainly been associated with cognitive impairments. However, few studies have been conducted to precisely identify the underlying cognitive processes. Our aims were (1) to determine the best predictor of apathy from among several cognitive processes, including episodic memory and attention/executive mechanisms and multitasking, and (2) to examine to what extent multitasking could mediate the relationships between specific cognitive processes and lack of initiative/interest. Seventy participants (34 patients with TBI matched with 36 control participants) were given a questionnaire to assess anxio‐depressive symptoms, four tasks to assess specific cognitive processes, and one task to assess real‐life multitasking. Participants’ relatives completed an apathy questionnaire. Multitasking, as assessed by the number of goals not achieved, was the only significant predictor of apathetic manifestations. In addition, the mediation analyses revealed that multitasking performance mediated the relationships between verbal episodic memory and lack of initiative/interest, whereas executive and attentional functions were only indirectly related to lack of initiative/interest due to their significant impacts on multitasking. These results shed new light on the aetiology of apathetic manifestations in patients with TBI, indicating how specific cognitive deficits are expressed in real‐life multitasking, and consequently, how they may lead to the development and/or maintenance of apathetic manifestations.     

Association between attachment insecurity and couple adjustment: Moderation by couple memory networks

This study investigated whether couple‐related memories and their organization in memory networks could act as cognitive resources to protect against the negative impact of insecure attachment on couple adjustment. In two studies (n1 = 153, n2 = 567), participants in a romantic relationship described a significant couple‐related memory and provided networked memories associated with their couple‐related memory, to assess its organization in the memory system, and rated each memory for its level of need satisfaction. Findings across the two studies revealed significant moderations of need satisfaction in couple‐related memory networks, such that a higher level of satisfaction need within couple‐related memory networks was associated with a reduced negative association of attachment anxiety and avoidance with couple adjustment. When examined separately, it was shown that need‐satisfying networked memories, but not main couple‐related memories, moderated the negative association of insecure attachment with couple adjustment.     

Destination and source memory in Huntington's disease

Destination memory refers to the recall of the destination of previously relayed information, and source memory refers to the recollection of the origin of received information. We compared both memory systems in Huntington's disease (HD) participants. For this, HD participants and healthy adults had to put 12 items in a black or a white box (destination task), and to extract another 12 items from a blue or a red box (source task). Afterwards, they had to decide in which box each item had previously been deposited (destination memory), and from which box each item had previously been extracted (source memory). HD participants showed poorer source as well as destination recall performance than healthy adults in the proposed tasks. Correlation analysis showed that destination recall was significantly correlated with episodic recall in HD participants. Destination memory impairment in HD participants seems to be considerably influenced by their episodic memory performance.     

Performance on Raven's Matrices by African and White University Students in South Africa

Untimed Raven's Standard Progressive Matrices (SPM) were administered to 309 17- to 23-year-old students at the University of the Witwatersrand and the Rand Afrikaans University in Johannesburg, South Africa (173 Africans, 136 Whites; 205 women, 104 men). African students solved an average of 44 of the 60 problems whereas White students solved an average of 54 of the problems (p<.001). By the standards of the 1993 US normative sample, the African university students scored at the 14th percentile and the White university students scored at the 61st percentile (IQ equivalents of 84 and 104, respectively). The African–White differences were found to be greater on those items of the SPM with the highest item–total correlations, indicating a difference in g, or the general factor of intelligence. A small sex difference favoring males was found in both the African and the White samples, but unrelated to g.     

Psychological essentialism and the differential attribution of uniquely human emotions to ingroups and outgroups

According to the psychological essentialism perspective, people tend to explain differences between groups by attributing them different essences. Given a pervasive ethnocentrism, this tendency implies that the human essence will be restricted to the ingroup whereas outgroups will receive a lesser degree of humanity. Therefore, it is argued that people attribute more uniquely human characteristics to the ingroup than to the outgroup. The present article focuses on secondary emotions that constitute such characteristics. Study 1 showed that members of high‐ and low‐status groups attribute more positive secondary emotions to the ingroup than to the outgroup. Study 2 verified that the differential attribution extended also to negative secondary emotions. No exemplars of emotions were provided in Study 3. Instead, participants had to estimate the means of two distributions of numbers that supposedly represented characteristics of the ingroup and of the outgroup. The results of this third experiment illustrated the reluctance to attribute secondary emotions to the outgroup. The findings are discussed from the perspective of psychological essentialism. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Differential K theory and race differences in E and N

Differential K Theory was recently proposed relating personality to reproductive strategy (Rushton, 1985). The more K the person is (the symbol derives from population biology), the more he or she will delay reproductive effort, produce fewer children and more intensely care for them. Concomitant characteristics include intelligence, altruism, law-abidingness and behavioural restraint. Race differences are hypothesized such that, in terms of K, Mongoloids > Caucasoids > Negroids. Barratt and Eysenck (1984) recently published standardized Extraversion (E), Neuroticism (N), Psychoticism (P) and Social Desirability (L) scores for males and females from 25 different countries, but did not analyse the data in such a way that racial differences were found. In the current study Barratt and Eysenck's data are aggregated across sex and over countries to examine whether theoretical predictions regarding race differences in behavioural restraint do in fact occur. Behavioural restraint was indexed by low E and high N scores. The means for 8 Mongoloid samples (N = 4044) were contrasted with those of 38 Caucasoid (N = 19, 807) and 4 Negroid ones (N = 1906), and the resultant comparisons confirmed expectations. Mongoloids are lower on E and higher on N than Caucasoids, who in turn are lower in E and higher on N than Negroids.     

Race differences in sexual behavior: Testing an evolutionary hypothesis

Population differences exist in personality and sexual behavior such that, in terms of restraint, Orientals > whites > blacks. This ordering is predicted from an evolutionary theory of r/K reproductive strategies in which a tradeoff occurs between gamete production and parental care. Literature is reviewed on differences between the three groups in rate of ovulation, intercourse frequencies, sexual attitudes, developmental precocity, size of genitalia, secondary sexual characteristics, and biologic control of behavior that accord with this formulation. Novel analyses of data from the Institute for Sex Research are also carried out, indicating that American blacks, compared to American whites, are more precocious and less restrained. Their parents were younger when they were born, had more children, and had an earlier mortality. Blacks left home earlier, experienced a variety of premarital, marital, and extramarital sexual events earlier, had a greater number of premarital and extramarital partners, had a greater frequency of marital intercourse, used fewer contraceptives, and had a greater incidence of pregnancy, at a faster rate. The men had larger penises, at a different angle of erection, and maintained intromission longer, while the women had shorter menstrual cycles, more periodicity of sexual response, and a greater number of orgasms per act of coitus. Whites varied their sexual activity more, both with spouses and with prostitutes, although blacks consorted with prostitutes more frequently. Finally, blacks had a shorter duration of marriage and more permissive sexual attitudes.