Diversion of attention in everyday concept learning: Identification in the service of use

Many people tend to believe that natural categories have perfectly predictive defining features. They do not easily accept the family resemblance view that the features characteristic of a category are not individually sufficient to predict the category. However, common category-learning tasks do not produce this simpler-than-it-is belief. If there is no simple classification principle in a task, the participants know that fact and can report it. We argue that most category-learning tasks in which family resemblance categories are used fail to produce the everyday simpler-than-it-is belief because they encourage analysis of identification criteria during training. To simulate the learning occurring in many natural circumstances, we developed a procedure in which participants' analytic activity is diverted from the way in which the stimuli are identified to the use to which the stimuli will be put. Finally, we discuss the prevalence of this diverted analysis in everyday categorization.     

Iffy beliefs: Conditional thinking and belief change

The ability to entertain possibilities and draw inferences about them is essential to human intelligence. We examine the hypothesis that conditional if-then statements trigger a mental simulation process in which people suppose the antecedent (if statement) to be true and evaluate the consequent (then statement) in that context. On the assumption that supposing an event to be true increases belief that the event has occurred or will occur, this hypothesis is consistent with the claim that evaluating a conditional will heighten belief in its antecedent more than in its consequent. Two experiments, employing conditionals of the form If animal A has property X, then animal B will have property X, in which X was a property that people could not readily relate to the animals, supported this claim. The effect was stronger following the evaluation of conditionals with dissimilar animal categories.     

Cultural Mistrust,Ethnic Identity,Racial Identity,and Self‐Esteem Among Ethnically Diverse Black University Students

Cultural mistrust, ethnic identity, racial identity, and self‐esteem were examined among African (n = 26), African American (n = 110), and West Indian/Caribbean (n = 24) university students. African American students' scores were statistically different from those of African and West Indian/Caribbean students on cultural mistrust, racial identity, and ethnic identity measures. There were no statistically significant differences on self‐esteem among the 3 groups. Results did indicate that cultural mistrust, ethnic identity, and racial identity accounted for 37% of the variance in self‐esteem for African American students. Implications for practice and future research directions are discussed.     

Factor analysis of MMPI-2 basic scales among college students

The MMPI-2 was administered to 288 college students (178 women and 110 men) between the ages of 18 and 34 years. Scores on the basic 13 (three validity and ten clinical) scales were correlated and subjected to principal component analyses separately for men and women. In each case, four factors were retained and subjected to varimax rotation. Coefficients of congruence were calculated for all possible pairs of factors across two samples of college students and the normative adults, separately for men and women, and across genders within each sample. Results indicated that the factorial structure of the MMPI-2 basic scales seemed to possess considerable uniformity across samples and genders, but not without some notable exceptions.     

Self-reported visual function and academic success: Cattell revisited

To test the hypothesis that visual deficits might hamper college students' academic success, we examined the relationship between a reliable self-report measure of visual function and semester grades. The correlation between the Everyday Vision Questionnaire scores and the grades of 331 college students was .01, which replicates and extends the historical findings of Cattell and others.     

Low accuracy in judgments of others' psychological well-being as seen from a phenomenological perspective

The generally low degree of agreement between self-ratings on personality traits and ratings by others may be interpreted from the viewpoint that self-reports reflect people's experience of themselves but not necessarily their behaviors. A detailed analysis of self and other ratings on subjective well-being as a central dimension of human experience is consistent with this phenomenological view. Ratings of well-being were not significantly correlated with rated behaviors either in self-ratings or in ratings by others. Screening subjects in terms of avowed consistency and observability on a trait did not improve self-other agreement for well-being, nor did it replicate the individual trait effects reported by Kenrick and Stringfield (1980). Judgments by others were found to have poor interjudge reliability and to reflect biases associated with projection of own well-being and a halo effect organized around the subject's perceived friendliness or likability. It was demonstrated that pooling the judgments of several observers should not and does not lead to accurate prediction of the phenomenal personality, and that accuracy may generally depend on the level of self-disclosure.     

Sociability and Social Withdrawal in Childhood: Stability and Outcomes

The stability and long-term correlates of both social withdrawal and sociability were investigated in a longitudinal study of normal children in kindergarten through the fifth grade. Both observational and peer assessment indices of withdrawal and sociability were considered; furthermore, a distinction was made between observed active versus passive solitude. Of particular interest was whether social withdrawal in early childhood was predictive of subsequent internalizing problems, as assessed by self-reports of social competence, overall self-worth, loneliness, and depression as well as teacher ratings of shy/anxious behavior, in later childhood. Results indicated a modest degree of stability for observed social withdrawal but not for observed sociability, nor for active or passive forms of solitude. Somewhat higher stability correlations were obtained for peer assessments of both sociability and withdrawal. In terms of predictive outcomes, significant relations were found between early social withdrawal in kindergarten and Grade 2 and subsequent internalizing problems in Grades 4 and 5, although the pattern of results was mixed. These data suggest that social withdrawal in early childhood may be predictive of risk for internalizing difficulties in later childhood.     

Effects of methylphenidate on inhibitory control in hyperactive children

This study investigated the effects of methylphenidate (MPH) on inhibitory control in hyperactive children. A double-blind, placebo-control, within-subject (crossover) design was used in which 12 children, between 6 and 11 years of age, were each tested four times in each drug condition: 0.3 mg/kg and 1.0 mg/kg of methylphenidate, and placebo. Dependent measures included (a) the probability of inhibiting responses to a primary choice reaction time task given a stop signal, on the Stopping Task, and (b) response latency and errors on the Matching Familiar Figures Test (MFFT). MPH improved the efficiency of the central inhibitory mechanism by speeding the inhibitory process, thereby affording the children greater control over their actions and enabling them to increase the probability with which they inhibited responses given a stop signal. MPH increased response latency but did not reduce errors on the MFFT, and observation of the children's task performance highlighted the interpretive problems associated with this task. Performance on both tasks was better at a dosage of 1.0 mg/kg than at 0.3 mg/kg.