Development, microevolution, and social behavior

The central questions of social development--from the roots of mother-infant attachment to the plasticity of aggressive behavior--pivot on the relations between genetic and ontogenetic sources of variance. It is proposed that (a) developmental, experiential, and microevolutionary processes typically collaborate, rather than compete, in achieving social adaptation; (b) social behavior patterns are mostly closed to modification in the course of development and across generations, but avenues of vulnerability exist in ontogeny and microevolution for dynamic, rapid, and reversible changes in key features; (c) a general avenue for change is delay or acceleration in the developmental onset of one or more features of the behavior pattern, which in turn modifies the functions and properties of the adaptive configuration; and (d) the features of social behavior that are open to rapid change in ontogeny should be open as well to rapid changes in microevolution, although different underlying processes may be involved. Empirical findings from the investigation of aggressive interactions are used to illustrate this proposal on the dual genesis and coincident adaptation of social behaviors.     

Eye remember you: the effects of gaze direction on face recognition in children and adults

Children and adults were tested on a forced‐choice face recognition task in which the direction of eye gaze was manipulated over the course of the initial presentation and subsequent test phase of the experiment. To establish the effects of gaze direction on the encoding process, participants were presented with to‐be‐studied faces displaying either direct or deviated gaze (i.e. encoding manipulation). At test, all the faces depicted persons with their eyes closed. To investigate the effects of gaze direction on the efficiency of the retrieval process, a second condition (i.e. retrieval manipulation) was run in which target faces were presented initially with eyes closed and tested with either direct or deviated gaze. The results revealed the encoding advantages enjoyed by faces with direct gaze was present for both children and adults. Faces with direct gaze were also recognized better than faces with deviated gaze at retrieval, although this effect was most pronounced for adults. Finally, the advantage for direct gaze over deviated gaze at encoding was greater than the advantage for direct gaze over deviated gaze at retrieval. We consider the theoretical implications of these findings.     

The Relationship of Cognitive Development to Age, When Education and Intelligence Are Controlled For

In this study 165 volunteers aged 18–87 were recruited from educational, employment, church, and social organizations and administered 3 paper-and-pencil instruments: the Quick Test, a measure of verbal–perceptual intelligence; the Scale of Intellectual Development, a Perry measure of cognitive development; and an inventory of life experiences. Age was found to be negatively related to cognitive development, as was extent of participation in community or church activities, whereas intelligence and education were positively so related. Less dualistic thinking and more relativistic thinking were related to higher educational achievement. Nevertheless, dualistic thinking was found to increase among older age groups, even with intelligence and education controlled for.     

Evaluating the effects of physical reactions on aggression via concurrent‐operant analyses

Under naturally occurring conditions, the individual who is the target of aggression is likely to physically react to evade the aggressor and avoid physical harm. Like other forms of attention that occur following problem behavior, physical reactions may maintain problem behavior. However, evaluating the effects of physical reactions is complicated by issues related to therapists' ability to consistently and safely control their reactions, which may prove difficult to achieve in functional analyses. We evaluated the utility of a concurrent‐operant analysis to test behavioral sensitivity to physical reactions. The results suggest that the concurrent‐operant analysis may be useful when therapists cannot consistently refrain from responding contingent on problem behavior in the control condition of a more typical functional analysis.     

A Low-Intensity,High-Frequency Intervention to Reduce Procrastination

Studies assessing the efficacy of interventions aimed at reducing procrastination have generally lacked robust longitudinal measurement tools. Recent developments in communication technology and applications of the Experience Sampling Method (ESM) have made observations of such dynamic phenomena possible. We leveraged recent advancements in smartphone technology and ESM to measure delay associated with procrastination, while testing a low-intensity, high-frequency intervention to reducing that delay. First-year university students (N = 107) reported their progress on an assignment twice daily over 14 days prior to the required submission date. Half (n = 51) were randomly allocated to an intervention condition in which they were also asked open-ended questions designed to prompt reflection on four domains proposed to reduce procrastination, namely: expectancy, value, delay sensitivity, and metacognition. Multilevel mixed effect models revealed lower behavioral delay in the intervention condition compared to the control condition. This effect was strongest in those who at baseline scored below the median on trait procrastination. Behavioral delay over the 14-day period was not associated with later assignment submission or lower assignment marks. These findings support a novel method for reducing delay and suggest procrastination can be alleviated in a wide range of contexts using relatively inexpensive and non-intrusive strategies.     

Excessive self-focused attention and defensiveness among psychiatric patients: a vicious cycle?

The contribution of defensive coping to the phenomenon of excessive self-focused attention was studied in 20 depressed or anxious psychiatric outpatients comprising the negative affect group, 20 patients with psychotic disorders, and a control group of 21 patients of an orthopaedic clinic. Self-focused attention was assessed using the Self-reflectiveness and Internal State Awareness subfactors of the Private Self-consciousness Scale. In accordance with other research on self-focused attention, the negative affect group obtained higher scores on the Self-reflectiveness scale than the control group (t39=2.40, p<.03). To examine the relationship between self-focus and defensiveness, Weinberger, Schwartz, and Davidson's approach was employed, using median splits of short forms of the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale and the Marlowe-Crowne scale to differentiate among four groups of subjects. The highest self-reflectiveness was found for those participants who were high in both defensiveness and anxiety. This group scored higher than the nondefensive high anxious group (t30= -2.31, p<.03). The heightened self-focused attention might result from automatically instigated states of self-focused attention and paradoxical effects of defensive efforts to avoid self-focus.     

Attention bias towards personally relevant stimuli: the individual emotional Stroop task

The emotional Stroop task is a widely used method for investigating attentional bias towards stimuli due to mood or affect. In general, standardized stimuli are used, which might not be appropriate when investigating individual contextual frameworks. It was investigated whether words chosen to be related to individuals' personal life events would produce more pronounced Stroop interference (as an indicator of attentional bias) than stimuli without any personal relevance. Twenty-six nonclinical subjects, 20 female and 6 male, participated in the study. Mean age was 36.1 yr. (SD = 18.1). All were recruited by means of local advertising. Stimulus material consisted of four word types: personal words related to negative life events with and without current personal relevance, and negative and neutral words without any personal relevance. Words were presented in three blocks. Analysis of variance showed main effects for word type and blocks, with slower reactions in the personally relevant conditions than in the negative, or neutral conditions, and in response to the first blocks as opposed to the last. These findings indicate that regardless of the word valence, personally relevant stimuli evoke more pronounced Stroop interference than do stimuli without personal relevance.