Optimism and Positivity Biases in Performance Appraisal Ratings: Empirical Evidence from Professional Soccer

Using unique assessment data for players from a German Bundesliga club’s youth academy, we tested four core hypotheses on how player ratings and rater or ratee-related characteristics reflect the (prospective) optimism bias and (retrospective) positivity bias. The results indicate not only that the ratings of predicted and remembered performance are indeed higher than the talents’ actual performance throughout a season, but that these differences depend positively on the rater’s organizational experience and negatively on the amount of ratee data available. They also suggest that (prospective) anticipation is even more positively biased than (retrospective) recollection of player performances, underscoring the asymmetry between looking forward and looking backward.     

Contrasting visuomotor functions of tectum and cortex in the golden hamster

Summary Visually-guided orientation (spatial localization) and visual discrimination were dissociated by means of brain lesions in the golden hamster. After ablation of visual cortex, hamsters failed to discriminate visual patterns, but showed nearly normal ability to localize an object in space by means of vision. Ablation of the superior colliculus produced opposite effects: these animals were completely unable to orient to the position of a visual stimulus, but nevertheless showed excellent pattern discrimination.

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Zusammenfassung Visuell gesteuerte Orientierung (räumliche Lokalisation) und visuelles Unterscheidungsvermögen beim Goldhamster werden durch Hirnläsionen funktionell getrennt. Nach Entfernung der Sehrinde können die Tiere keine visuellen Musterunterscheidungen, wohl aber noch in fast normaler Weise visuelle Objektlokalisationen vornehmen. Entfernung des Colliculus superior führt zu entgegengesetzten Effekten: die Tiere können sich nicht mehr nach der Position eines visuellen Reizes orientieren, zeigen aber trotzdem ausgezeichnete Musterunterscheidung.

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During the period of the reported research, the author was supported by a U.S. Public Health Service predoctoral fellowship. Additional support was received from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences under their Training Grant STl GM 1064-04 BHS.For a more detailed report of this work, and reports of further experiments, see Schneider (1966).     

Finding Sandra: Dr. Beebe’s Second as Analytic Third: A Discussion of “A Patient Who Does Not Look: A Collaborative Treatment with Video Feedback”

Larry Sandberg and Beatrice Beebe (this issue) offer a moving account of their work with Sandra, a gaze-averse woman with a painful and traumatic childhood history. Drs. Sandberg and Beebe describe their work together in the context of an innovative conjoint treatment model including psychotherapy, video feedback consultation, and dance movement therapy. Dr. Beebe’s Interventions at the sensorial, bodily, and affective register facilitated Sandra’s movements from being in the grips of a terrifying object world, to an experience of companioning with Dr. Beebe, giving her a greater sense of holding and emotional security. Further, “Dr. Beebe’s Second,” an image from Dr. Beebe’s own reverie offered Sandra an “emotional third”; a new found internal experience of herself-with-others that helped her lift her gaze to the future.