Stroop interference, practice, and aging

We report two experiments that investigate practice effects on Stroop color-word interference in older and younger adults. Both experiments employed a computerized, single-item version of the Stroop task with a voice response, and both involved practice over hundreds of trials. Both experiments showed generally similar practice patterns, including a practice-related reduction in the size of the color-word interference effect. However, the older group continued to show a larger interference effect throughout practice. These findings indicate that older adults show the same trend in practice-related improvement on the Stroop task as younger adults.     

Doing better but feeling worse. Looking for the "best" job undermines satisfaction

Expanding upon Simon's (1955) seminal theory, this investigation compared the choice-making strategies of maximizers and satisficers, finding that maximizing tendencies, although positively correlated with objectively better decision outcomes, are also associated with more negative subjective evaluations of these decision outcomes. Specifically, in the fall of their final year in school, students were administered a scale that measured maximizing tendencies and were then followed over the course of the year as they searched for jobs. Students with high maximizing tendencies secured jobs with 20% higher starting salaries than did students with low maximizing tendencies. However, maximizers were less satisfied than satisficers with the jobs they obtained, and experienced more negative affect throughout the job-search process. These effects were mediated by maximizers' greater reliance on external sources of information and their fixation on realized and unrealized options during the search and selection process.     

Development of relational reasoning during adolescence

Non-linear changes in behaviour and in brain activity during adolescent development have been reported in a variety of cognitive tasks. These developmental changes are often interpreted as being a consequence of changes in brain structure, including non-linear changes in grey matter volumes, which occur during adolescence. However, very few studies have attempted to combine behavioural, functional and structural data. This multi-method approach is the one we took in the current study, which was designed to investigate developmental changes in behaviour and brain activity during relational reasoning, the simultaneous integration of multiple relations. We used a relational reasoning task known to recruit rostrolateral prefrontal cortex (RLPFC), a region that undergoes substantial structural changes during adolescence. The task was administered to female participants in a behavioural (N = 178, 7-27 years) and an fMRI study (N = 37, 11-30 years). Non-linear changes in accuracy were observed, with poorer performance during mid-adolescence. fMRI and VBM results revealed a complex picture of linear and possibly non-linear changes with age. Performance and structural changes partly accounted for changes with age in RLPFC and medial superior frontal gyrus activity but not for a decrease in activation in the anterior insula/frontal operculum between mid-adolescence and adulthood. These functional changes might instead reflect the maturation of neurocognitive strategies.     

Making Space for Community Critical Methodology: Stories from the Australian Context

Our collective account considers the ways community critical methodologies can inform academic endeavors. Methodology is understood to be the theorizing of methods that produce and legitimate knowledge claims. For us, community critical approaches incorporate poststructural and other forms of critical theory in the questioning of taken for granted assumptions. This forms a valuable foundation for community praxis as it focuses not just on social issues outside, but on an examination within; on the institution of psychology itself. We find “examining within” a vital process for our research, teaching, and community engagement. Above all it is important to ask whose interests are served by the construction and presentation of knowledge in particular ways. We present three pieces of practice which engaged with critical methodologies. The first examines collaborative research methodologies developed with young people in rural Australia who are primary carers for a family member. The second examines tensions involved in trying to employ critical methodologies in multi‐stakeholder work between community organizations, communities, and researchers. The third examines opportunities and barriers when employing critical methodologies in learning and teaching with undergraduate students. We reflect upon the intersecting threads of commonality and difference between them and consider the implications for practice.     

Does Motivation Affect Emerging Adults’ Intelligence and Complex Postformal Problem Solving?

It has been suggested by some past research that there is a relationship between postformal thought and intelligence. Also, prior research suggests that motivated individuals tend to perform better on measured tasks, such as taking tests. The two distinct studies reported here first test the hypothesis that, supposing that IQ and postformal thought tap into some similar cognitive operations, individuals would use some similar patterns of responses in showing both intelligence and reported postformal operations. The participants in this research were two separate samples of 41 emerging adult undergraduate students from Towson University who chose to sign up through the research pool website. In the first study materials consisted of a consent form, demographic questionnaire, a use of postformal thought survey, and the WASI abbreviated test. In the second study a pretest and posttest reported motivation survey were added. In the first study no significant relations were found between the reported use of postformal thought and the WASI IQ scores. In the second study there was a significant correlation between motivation and intelligence and between motivation and an individual’s reported level of postformal thought. However, there was no significant relationship found between postformal thought and intelligence, even with motivation controlled. Further studies of the cognitive mechanisms underlying IQ and postformal complex problem solving may help determine the cognitive skills needed to differentially succeed at each of these skills.     

Can I Reach That Sticker? Preschoolers' Practical Judgments About Their Own and Others’ Body Size

Research to date has focused mostly on children's representation of their physical self as a prelude to the development of a theory of mind (ToM) and on their understanding of the self as distinct from others over time. Whether children approaching the well-known age of ToM mastery are also accurately appraising their own body's functional relationship to the everyday environment remains largely an unanswered question. Little work has investigated typical preschool-age children's explicit accuracy when making judgments about their own body's proportions. In the current study, 98 preschoolers made 16 practical judgments about whether their own body or an experimenter's body could fit through an apparatus (half of the apparatuses were 30% smaller than the body in question, and half were 30% larger). Overall, accuracy increased with age but was unrelated to body size. Children in all age groups performed above chance, and accuracy did not differ depending on target (e.g., self or other). Children in a comparison condition judging fit of inanimate objects (n = 23) performed similarly, though showed less evidence of “yes” bias, and there were no age-based differences in accuracy. Results are discussed with regard to preschoolers’ developing body awareness, as are implications for research protocols in which children are asked to accurately identify their own body size and shape from an array.     

A Meta‐analysis of Letters of Recommendation in College and Graduate Admissions: Reasons for hope

Letters of recommendation are used extensively in academic admissions and personnel selection. Despite their prominence, comparatively little is known about their predictive power for multiple outcomes. This meta‐analysis combine the existing literature for college grade point average (GPA), academic outcomes of GPA, performance ratings, degree attainment, and research productivity for nonmedical school graduate programs, and GPA and internship performance ratings for medical school students. Intercorrelations with other commonly used predictors are also estimated and used to estimate incremental predictive power. Overall, letters of recommendation, in their current form, are generally positively but weakly correlated with multiple aspects of performance in post‐secondary education. However, letters do appear to provide incremental information about degree attainment, a difficult and heavily motivationally determined outcome.     

Does a Woman’s Marital Surname Choice Influence Perceptions of Her Husband? An Analysis Focusing on Gender-Typed Traits and Relationship Power Dynamics

Within Western cultures, most women in heterosexual relationships adopt their husbands’ surnames after marriage. In attempting to explain the enduring nature of this practice, researchers have noted that women tend to encounter stereotypes when they break with tradition by retaining their own surnames after marriage. A complementary possibility is that stereotypes are also directed toward men whose wives violate the surname tradition. The current research provides initial insight into this possibility through three studies that were conducted in the United States and United Kingdom with undergraduate and community samples (total N = 355; 254 women and 101 men). Study 1 revealed that participants predominantly referenced expressive traits when describing a man whose wife retained her surname. Study 2 built on these findings with an experimental design. Relative to a man whose wife adhered to the surname tradition, a man whose wife retained her surname was rated as less instrumental, more expressive, and as holding less power in the relationship. In Study 3, participants high in hostile sexism were particularly likely to rate a man as lower in power when his wife retained her surname. Collectively, findings provide insight into attitudes that may help to explain the longevity of the marital surname tradition. Findings also join with prior research in revealing links between commonplace marriage traditions and gendered power dynamics.