Extent-of-motion thresholds under subject-relative and object-relative conditions

The experiment was designed to discover the threshold extent of motion at medium speeds amounting to 41, 82, and 164 min./sec., and to compare the perception of motion arising from subject-relative displacement with the perception of motion arising from object-relative displacement. Extent thresholds were found while velocity was kept constant. Different groups of ten Ss were used for each displacement velocity, and for each S the extent threshold was twice obtained by the method of constant stimuli, once under subjectrelative and once under object-relative displacement conditions. Sensitivity to brief displacements of a continuously visible target was high; average thresholds ranged from 1.0 to 4.4 min. under the various conditions employed. The thresholds were higher for subject-relative conditions and the slower displacement velocities and lower for objectrelative conditions and faster displacements.     

Investigating the social-adjustive and value-expressive functions of well-grounded attitudes: Implications for change and for subsequent behavior

Recent demonstrations of the plausibility of functional theories of persuasion have occurred within advertising contexts or have targeted potentially nebulous or uninvolving attitudes, and may thus have demonstrated the utility of functional explanations of attitude formation rather than attitude change. In the present study, attitudes that participants have acted on and consider important (i.e., the criteria they use to select dating partners) were the targets of persuasion. High and low self-monitoring individuals, who hold different dating attitudes that serve different functions, were exposed to functionally relevant or functionally irrelevant messages that reached either proattitudinal or counterattitudinal conclusions. As anticipated by functional theory, (a) low self-monitoring individuals changed their dating attitudes only after hearing a counterattitudinal message that addressed thevalue-expressive functions their dating attitudes served, whereas (b) high self-monitoring individuals changed their opinions only after hearing a counterattitudinal message that addressed thesocial-adjustive functions served by their dating attitudes. Although the data revealed that important attitudes can be changed via a functionally relevant appeal, only the low self-monitoring individuals subsequently used their changed attitudes to guide their behavior in a subsequent couple-matching task. Implications of these results for functional theories of persuasion and for variations in attitude/behavior consistency were discussed. This research is based on a Master’s thesis conducted by the first author under the direction of the second author.     

Interactive effects of social context and sex role identity on female self-disclosure during the acquaintance process

Female subjects who differed in masculinity and in femininity self-disclosed to a same-sex confederate in contexts that made either social/expressive motives or instrumental motives particularly salient. The confederate spoke first on each of four disclosure topics, presenting either intimate or nonintimate information in her disclosures. The results were consistent with our primary assertion that measures of sex role identity would accurately forecast contextual variations in female self-disclosure. Specifically, femininity tended to promote self-disclosure in social/expressive contexts while clearly inhibiting such exchanges in the instrumental context. Supplementary data revealed that the tendency of highly feminine participants to close up in the instrumental context stemmed not from problems in their contemporaneous interpersonal relationships with their partners, but rather from a concern that disclosing too much might adversely affect their partners' evaluation of their competencies. Although masculinity did not exert direct effects of female self-disclosure within any particular context, it did have an influence, for subjects high in femininity were highly self-revealing across contexts if they were also high in masculinity (i.e., androgynous).This research was supported by National Institute of Mental health Grant MH 43726-01 to David R. Shaffer.     

Features of Interview Questions Associated with Attenuation of Symptom Reports

Previous studies have suggested that discrepant reporting in a test–retest reliability paradigm is not purely random measurement error, but partly a function of a systematic tendency to say no during retest to questions answered positively at initial testing (attenuation). To examine features of interview questions that may be associated with attenuation, three raters independently assessed the structural and content features of questions from the Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children (version 2.3) and linked these to data from a test–retest reliability study of 223 community respondents (parent and child reports). Results indicated that for both parent and youth reports, item features most strongly associated with attenuation were (a) being a stem question (asked of all respondents, regardless of any skip structure); (b) question placement in the first half of the interview; (c) question length; (d) question complexity; or (e) requiring assessment of the timing, duration, or frequency of a symptom. Findings may be explained by participants' conscious efforts to avoid further questions or by their learning more about the nature and purpose of the interview as they gain more experience; alternatively, findings may represent a methodological artifact of structured interview design.     

Timing in the motor programming of typing

In developing a theory of motor programming of skilled performance it has been suggested that an abstract, structural representation in the program specifies both a sequence of responses and expressive features of the sequence, such as timing, stress and intonation, which are mapped separately into the response output. In the case of typing, which does not require expressive features, it has previously been assumed that response timing is governed more simply by a timekeeper providing a stochastically regular beat. Two sets of specially constructed texts were given to a fast typist and the results support the idea that skilled typing is paced by a regular beat. They also show that there were systematic rhythmic departures from the beat, which arose from contingencies of keyboard movement but were not the simple consequences of these; rather they may be regarded as structured anticipations of the contingencies, and as such are analogous to the expressive features of speech and playing music.     

Rorschach Comprehensive System data for a sample of 283 adult nonpatients from the United States

This article presents an update on adult nonpatients living in central California previously described by Shaffer, Erdberg, and Haroian (1999). In this study an additional 160 nonpatients were administered the Rorschach for a total sample size of 283. Graduate students enrolled in a 2-year Rorschach research seminar administered the Rorschach (Exner, 1995), WAIS-R (Weschler, 1981), and MMPI-2 (Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989), and were provided with extensive supervision and ongoing quality control. All protocols were recoded by the first two authors and a psychologist with extensive Rorschach experience. Exclusion criteria are described. Interrater reliability statistics at the response level are presented along with scores for Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS), WAIS-R, and MMPI-2 variables.     

Rorschach Comprehensive System data for a sample of 52 older adult nonpatients from the United States

This study is composed of 52 older adults, ages 60 to 80, all from the United States. In addition to being administered the Rorschach (Rorschach, 1942), all participants also were administered the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R; Weschler, 1981), the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2; Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen, & Kaemmer, 1989), the Neuro Cognitive Status Examination (NCSE; Kiernan, Mueller, Langston, & Van Dyke, 1987), and the Trail Making Test Part B (Reitan, 1958; Reitan & Wolfson, 1993). Examiners included the principal author as well as three other trained examiners. Inclusion criteria are described. Interrater reliability statistics at the response level are presented along with scores for the Rorschach Comprehensive System (CS; Exner, 1995).     

Understanding the Role of Cultural Intelligence in Individual Creativity

Employing creative cognition theory, this study investigates the relationship between cultural intelligence (CQ) and creativity. Using data from 394 full-time employees, metacognitive, cognitive, and motivational forms of CQ were found to have positive relationships with individual creativity. In addition, the positive effect of cognitive CQ on creativity was more pronounced when curiosity was high. However, the influence of metacognitive CQ on creativity was enhanced when curiosity was low. Several contributions to the multicultural creativity literature are offered.