Developmental Approaches to Artistic Giftedness

Two studies done from constructivist perspectives were considered for their complementarity in understanding the development of gifted young artists. Study 1 used Case's (1992) neo-Piagetian theory as a framework and investigated the developmental progression in ability to represent spatial relations in children aged 4,6,8, and I0 years. Children identified as gifted demonstrated some advancement in their use of perspective but were distinguished primarily by their elaborate and novel representations of space. An age-related progression in acquisition of ability to render perspective supports a general factor in development, whereas abilities unique to the artistic domain support the relevance of including domain-specific characteristics in developmental models of giftedness. Study 2 was done primarily from a structuralist perspective but also incorporated a postformal perspective on the problem-finding and problem-solving behaviors of young artists aged I3 to 18 years. There was support for age-related domain-general aspects of thought with discipline-specific skills in making multiple comparisons in proportional relations and coordinating multiple perspectives. This finding may be an extension of young children's intrastage elaboration of the spatial structures available to them.     

Attachment, depression, and fear of death in older adults: The roles of neediness and perceived availability of social support

This study investigated individual differences in depression and fear of death in older adulthood in the context of attachment theory. The roles of neediness and perceived availability of social support were examined. Participants were 113 Israeli older adults (aged 69–85) who were all in good health and functioning well. Social support was found to moderate the association between a low positive other-dimension (PO) of attachment and fear of death. Neediness mediated the relationships between a low positive self-dimension (PS) of attachment and depression. Findings are discussed within the framework of Bowlby’s distinction between attachment and dependency.     

Measuring children's regulation of emotion-expressive behavior

Emotion regulation has become a pivotal concept in developmental and clinical research. However, the measurement of regulatory processes has proved extremely difficult, particularly in the context of within-subject designs. Here, we describe a formal conceptualization and a new experimental procedure, the Balloons Game, to measure a regulatory component of emotion-expressive behavior. We present the internal consistency and stability of the indices derived from the Balloons Game in a sample of 121 kindergarten children. External validation against measures that have been associated with emotion regulation processes is also provided. The findings suggest that the Balloons Game provides a reliable tool for the study of regulation of emotion expression in young children.     

Rate it again: Using the wisdom of many to improve performance evaluations

Much research shows that judgmental estimation could be improved by combining estimates from independent judges as well as within judges. These results have been obtained mostly with judgments about matters of fact, that is, for which there are objective truth criteria. In the present research, we extend these findings to performance evaluations. In a controlled field study, expert judges provided evaluations of a large number of essays written by college applicants taking college entrance tests. The judges were asked to evaluate each essay twice—on two occasions, a week apart. This design allowed us to assess the benefits of two methods of combining evaluations: within rater and across raters. Accuracy gains were obtained with both methods. Although the within‐rater combinations yielded fewer gains than the across‐rater ones, they were still appreciable in comparison with the across rater ones. Our findings extend the class of judgments to which the “wisdom of many” could be applied. These findings are potentially applicable to performance evaluations in social, educational, and employment settings.     

Imaging brain plasticity during motor skill learning

The search for the neural substrates mediating the incremental acquisition of skilled motor behaviors has been the focus of a large body of animal and human studies in the past decade. Much less is known, however, with regard to the dynamic neural changes that occur in the motor system during the different phases of learning. In this paper, we review recent findings, mainly from our own work using fMRI, which suggest that: (i) the learning of sequential finger movements produces a slowly evolving reorganization within primary motor cortex (M1) over the course of weeks and (ii) this change in M1 follows more dynamic, rapid changes in the cerebellum, striatum, and other motor-related cortical areas over the course of days. We also briefly review neurophysiological and psychophysical evidence for the consolidation of motor skills, and we propose a working hypothesis of its underlying neural substrate in motor sequence learning.     

The Role of Unconditional Parental Regard in Autonomy‐Supportive Parenting

Two studies explored the role of parents’ unconditional positive regard (UCPR) as perceived by adolescents and young adults in promoting the effectiveness of specific parenting practices that may support offspring's academic autonomous motivation. Study 1 tested the hypothesis that UCPR predicts rationale‐giving and choice‐provision practices and, at the same time, moderates their relations with adolescents’ autonomous motivation. Study 2 replicated the association between UCPR and the parental practices, and further explored the role of parents’ authenticity as an antecedent of UCPR and parental autonomy support. Study 1 included 125 adolescents and Study 2 considered 128 college‐students and their mothers. The offspring reported on their perceptions of their mothers and on their autonomous motivation, and the mothers reported on their sense of authenticity. Both studies found consistent associations between UCPR and parenting practices that may support autonomous motivation. Moreover, Study 1 demonstrated that the rationale giving and choice provision were more strongly related to adolescents’ autonomous motivation when adolescents perceived mothers as high on UCPR. Finally, Study 2 demonstrated that mothers’ authenticity predicted UCPR, which in turn was related to autonomy‐supportive parenting. Findings support the assumption that parents’ autonomy‐supportive practices are more effective when accompanied by UCPR.     

Differences in attentional involvement underlying the perception of distinctive and typical faces

Differences in human faces can be evaluated along a continuum that ranges from 'distinctive' to 'typical.' We examined processing differences between distinctive and typical faces by two attentional tasks that induce attentional blink (AB). Given that AB is believed to reflect temporal or capacity limits of attention, stimuli that survive AB are believed to be associated with greater processing efficiency. In a change-detection task, participants were required to detect changes in the two pairs of faces that were presented in rapid succession. Changes involving the distinctive face of a pair were more likely to be detected than those involving a typical face. In a face-identification task, distinctive faces embedded in a rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) stream were identified with a greater accuracy than typical faces. Together, our results suggest that distinctive faces are associated with greater processing efficiency and may be explained in terms of perceptual salience, a stimulus dimension known to attract attention.     

What results when firms implement practices: the differential relationship between specific practices, firm financial performance, customer service, and quality

Previous research on organizational practices is replete with contradictory evidence regarding their effects. Here, the authors argue that these contradictory findings may have occurred because researchers have often examined complex practice combinations and have failed to investigate a broad variety of firm-level outcomes. Thus, past research may obscure important differential effects of specific practices on specific firm-level outcomes. Extending this research, the authors develop hypotheses about the effects of practices that (a) enable information sharing, (b) set boundaries, and (c) enable teams on 3 different firm-level outcomes: financial performance, customer service, and quality. Relationships are tested in a sample of observations from over 200 Fortune 1000 firms. Results indicate that information-sharing practices were positively related to financial performance 1 year following implementation of the practices, boundary-setting practices were positively related to firm-level customer service, and team-enabling practices were related to firm-level quality. No single set of practices predicted all 3 firm-level outcomes, indicating practice-specific effects. These findings help resolve the theoretical tension in the literature regarding the effects of organizational practices and offer guidance as to how to best target practices to increase specific work-related outcomes. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.     

Culturalized Religion: A Synthetic Review and Agenda for Research

Scholars have taken a growing interest in what we call “culturalized religion”—that is, forms of religious identification, discourse, and expression that are primarily cultural in character, insofar as they are divorced from belief in religious dogma or participation in religious ritual. This article aims to clarify our current thinking about these phenomena so as to facilitate future theoretical and empirical work. Drawing on recent work in the sociology of culture, we distinguish between culturalized religion as a form of constituted culture, a form of pragmatic culture, and a form of identity; and theorize three principal types of relations connecting each of these modalities: reinforcing relationships, resource relationships, and destabilizing relationships. In so doing, we develop an inclusive and dynamic approach to studying culturalized religion that clears the ground for further research into its diverse modalities and manifestations, as well as their points of intersection and interaction.