Effects of Directed Thinking on Intentions to Engage in Beneficial Activities: Idea Generation or Mental Simulation?

How might people best persuade themselves to engage in beneficial activities, such as dieting, exercise, and studying? One strategy is to think about actions. Another strategy is to think about reasons. In previous research, students who were directed to think about actions increased their study intentions more than did students who were directed to think about reasons. The present experiment tested whether thinking about actions was effective because of idea generation (coming up with the thoughts) or because of mental simulation (imagining the scenarios). In immediate and delayed measures, directed thinking about actions (but not reasons) proved generally more effective when students focused on mental simulation than when they focused on idea generation. Theoretical and applied implications are discussed.     

Sex Guilt and Receptivity to Condom Advertising

The personal and social costs of unintended pregnancy and HIV infection point to the need for ongoing research designed to enhance the effectiveness of preventive advertising, particularly to those segments at greatest risk. One segment that appears to be at significant risk is comprised of individuals who experience high levels of guilt about sex. This study seeks to determine whether high sex-guilt (SG) individuals are unique in their processing, recall, and evaluative responses to advertising for condoms. Two hundred fifty-two college-aged men and women were randomly assigned to two versions of a condom advertisement that differed in terms of self- referencing vs. other-referencing in the message copy. A 2 × 2 × 3 (Gender × Self- Versus Other-Referencing Message Copy × High, Moderate, and Low Sex Guilt), between subjects ANOVA design was used to test hypothesized relationships. For female, but not male, participants, high SG was inversely related to depth of processing, recall, positive thoughts about the ad, and perceived credibility of the ad. For both genders, high SG was inversely related to perceived ad informativeness, attitude toward the ad, and attitude toward the brand. Message design interacted with SG and gender on an important outcome measure—purchase intention. Study implications are discussed, and avenues for future research are suggested.     

Adaptive Dynamics of the Leg Movement Patterns of Human Infants: III. Age-Related Differences in Limb Control

In this article, the development of the increasingly differentiated control of the joints necessary to transform the spontaneous leg movements of early infancy into adaptive and functional actions is described. The hypothesis-that increasing joint control requires the capability for disassociation of joint action, the active modulation of joint stiffness, and a transition from proximal to distal control of the joints-is proposed. Kinematic and kinetic analyses of the vertical kicks of infants 2 weeks, 3 months, and 7 months of age (as well as a comparative group of adults) indicated increasing joint independence as well as phase-dependent and joint-dependent control modifications. The kicks of the younger infants were dominated by a proximal control strategy and minimal adjustments of the limb energetics during the flexion and extension phases of the kick. By 7 months of age, much larger modulations of the kick phases were observed as well as increasing evidence of distal control. These results revealed kinematic and kinetic patterns of emerging limb control between 2 weeks and 7 months of age.     

Ambient Sexual Harassment: An Integrated Model of Antecedents and Consequences

Research on sexual harassment as a prevalent job stressor has focused primarily on outcomes for the direct targets of harassment; the antecedents and consequences ofindirectexposure to sexual harassment have not been explored. Ambient Sexual Harassment is proposed as an assessment of indirect exposure to sexual harassment. Ambient Sexual Harassment is defined as the general or ambient level of sexual harassment in a work group as measured by the frequency of sexually harassing behaviors experienced by others in a woman's work group. The integration of Ambient Sexual Harassment into the model of sexual harassment developed by Fitzgerald, Drasgow, Hulin, Gelfand, and Magley (1997) proposes that indirect exposure to sexual harassment will have similar antecedents and job-related, psychological, and health outcomes as direct exposure. An empirical test of the model, using samples of female employees from a public utility company (N= 455) and a food processing plant (N= 194), generally supports predictions.     

Memory Strategy Development: Lessons from Longitudinal Research

Most research in memory strategy development involves cross-sectional studies, with the implicit assumption that the patterns found in these studies are an accurate reflection of intraindividual changes over time. In this article, we review briefly the development of rehearsal and organizational strategies based on cross-sectional research and then review the findings from the few longitudinal studies assessing intraindividual change in these strategies, focusing on results from the Munich Longitudinal Study (LOGIC). Although average, age-related patterns obtained from longitudinal samples provide similar development functions as those obtained from cross-sectional samples, there is much greater individual variability in strategy acquisition observed in the longitudinal data. This suggests that the canonical development patterns inferred from cross-sectional studies often obfuscate actual intraindividual patterns. Longitudinal evidence also indicates that utilization deficiencies are observed less frequently than assumed in cross-sectional research.