Saving for a Rainy Day? Comparative Optimism About Disability in Old Age

This study examined young (n = 40) and middle‐aged (n = 30) adults' susceptibility to comparative optimism and comparative pessimism regarding disability in old age and their willingness to save for long‐term care. Participants rated their risk of diverse levels of disability in old age, compared to another similar person, and indicated the amount of money they would be willing to save for future long‐term care. While middle‐aged participants showed the same level of comparative optimism for diverse disability levels, younger participants showed increasing levels of comparative optimism with increasing disability. Participants' comparative optimism levels and age both predicted their intentions to save. The findings are discussed in terms of theories of judgment and behavioral decision making.     

Ritualized Interaction for the Advancement of Children's National Identification in Hong Kong

Both ongoing practice and the theory of interaction ritual chains imply the significance of the contribution that ritual makes to group solidarity, such as national identification. This contribution is in need of empirical examination as in this study, which surveyed 1,788 schoolchildren in Hong Kong, a special administrative region of China. The results show that, controlling for earlier national identification behavior (within the previous year) and other predictors, ritualized interaction in an activity for national cause (within the previous 6 months) manifested both linear and quadratic positive effects on current national identification sentiment. The effect was stronger for children who previously displayed lower national identification behavior. These results favor the use of ritual to promote national identification.     

Performance‐approach and performance‐avoidance classroom goals and the adoption of personal achievement goals

Background. Students’ perceptions of classroom goals influence their adoption of personal goals. To assess different forms of classroom goals, recent studies have favoured an overall measure of performance classroom goals, compared to a two‐dimensional assessment of performance‐approach and performance‐avoidance classroom goals (PAVCG). Aims. This paper considered the relationship between students’ perceptions of classroom goals and their endorsement of personal achievement goals. We proposed that three (instead of only two) classroom goals need to be distinguished. We aimed to provide evidence for this hypothesis by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and also by divergent associations between the respective classroom goal and students’ personal goal endorsement. Sample. A total of 871 (474 female) 10th grade students from several German high schools participated in this study. Method. Students responded to items assessing their perception of mastery, performance‐approach, and performance‐avoidance goals in the classroom. Additionally, the students reported how much they personally pursue mastery, performance‐approach, and performance‐avoidance goals. All items referred to German as a specific school subject. Results. A CFA yielded empirical support for the proposed distinction of three (instead of only two) different kinds of classroom goals. Moreover, in hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) analyses all three classroom goals showed unique associations with students’ personal goal adoption. Conclusions. The findings emphasized the need to distinguish performance‐approach and PAVCG. Furthermore, our results suggest that multiple classroom goals have interactive effects on students’ personal achievement strivings.     

Path analytic examination of a cognitive model of PTSD

Ehlers and Clark (2000) developed a cognitive model of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptom maintenance which implicated the role of posttraumatic cognitions and aspects of the trauma memory in maintaining symptoms via an increased sense of current threat. The aim of the current study was to empirically test a variant of this model using path analysis. Participants in the current study were 514 undergraduates at a midwestern university who reported experiencing at least one traumatic event. Path analyses examined various models of the possible relationships between one’s posttraumatic cognitions and the centrality of the traumatic event to the sense of self (considered an aspect of memory integration) in predicting current level of PTSD symptoms. Results indicate that both event centrality and posttraumatic cognitions are unique and independent predictors of current symptom level. Overall, the results of this study support aspects of Ehlers and Clark’s cognitive model of PTSD; cognitive appraisals of the self and centrality of the event were highly related to levels of distress. However, the current study suggests that overly integrated trauma memories may lead to greater distress and not poorly integrated ones as suggested by Ehlers and Clark.     

When ignorance is no excuse: Different roles for intent across moral domains

A key factor in legal and moral judgments is intent. Intent differentiates, for instance, murder from manslaughter. Is this true for all moral judgments? People deliver moral judgments of many kinds of actions, including harmful actions (e.g., assault) and purity violations (e.g., incest, consuming taboo substances). We show that intent is a key factor for moral judgments of harm, but less of a factor for purity violations. Based on the agent’s innocent intent, participants judged accidental harms less morally wrong than accidental incest; based on the agent’s guilty intent, participants judged failed attempts to harm more morally wrong than failed attempts to commit incest. These patterns were specific to moral judgments versus judgments of the agent’s control, knowledge, or intent, the action’s overall emotional salience, or participants’ ratings of disgust. The current results therefore reveal distinct cognitive signatures of distinct moral domains, and may inform the distinct functional roles of moral norms.     

Priming infants to use pattern information in an object individuation task: the role of comparison

There is evidence that 4.5-month-olds do not always use surface pattern to individuate objects but that they can be primed to attend to pattern differences through select experiences. For example, if infants are first shown events in which the pattern of an object predicts its function (dotted containers pound and striped containers pour), they will attend to pattern differences in a subsequent individuation task. However, 4.5-month-olds must see multiple exemplars of the pound and pour events and view the dotted and striped containers together during the events. These results suggest that it is the formation of event categories, in which pattern is linked to object function, that supports pattern priming and that direct comparison of the exemplars facilitates the extraction of event categories. The present research investigated conditions that support the comparison process in 4.5-month-olds. The results revealed that the comparison process was initiated only when the dotted and striped containers were seen directly adjacent to each other; if the containers sat far apart, so that infants had to shift their gaze to compare them, event categories were not extracted. In addition, it was comparison of the two patterned containers, and not comparison of the two function events, that was critical to the formation of event categories. These results join a growing body of research indicating the importance of comparison to category formation in infants and reveal the impact of categorization and comparison processes on object individuation in infancy.     

Spoon-to-cup fading as treatment for cup drinking in a child with intestinal failure

We treated a child with intestinal failure who consumed solids on a spoon but not liquids from a cup. We used spoon-to-cup fading, which consisted of taping a spoon to a cup and then gradually moving the bowl of the spoon closer to the edge of the cup. Spoon-to-cup fading was effective for increasing consumption of liquids from a cup.     

A flipped spoon and chin prompt to increase mouth clean

We treated the liquid refusal of a 15-month-old girl using 2 antecedent manipulations: flipped spoon and chin prompt. Use of the chin prompt in the absence of the flipped spoon failed to produce increases in mouth clean (a product measure of swallowing). By contrast, modest increases in mouth clean resulted from the implementation of the flipped spoon alone. The greatest increases in mouth clean resulted from the combination of the 2 manipulations.     

The relations of daily task accomplishment satisfaction with changes in affect: a multilevel study in nurses

Focusing on a sample of nurses, this investigation examined the relationships of daily task accomplishment satisfaction (for direct and indirect care tasks) with changes in positive and negative affect from preshift to postshift. Not accomplishing tasks to one's satisfaction was conceptualized as a daily workplace stressor that should increase daily negative affect and decrease daily positive affect from preshift to postshift. Further, because of the greater centrality of direct care nursing tasks to nursing work role identities (relative to indirect care tasks), we expected that task accomplishment satisfaction (or lack thereof) for these tasks would have stronger effects on changes in affect than would task accomplishment satisfaction for indirect care tasks. We also examined 2 person-level resources, collegial nurse-physician relations and psychological resilience, as moderators of the relationships among these daily variables, with the expectation that these resources would buffer the harmful effects of low task accomplishment satisfaction on nurse affect. Results supported almost all of the proposed effects, though the cross-level interactions were observed only for the effects of indirect care task accomplishment satisfaction on affect and not for direct care task accomplishment satisfaction on affect.