Embarrassment: Actual vs. typical cases,classical vs. prototypical representations

Abstract

Theories of embarrassment were investigated by having subjects either recall an occasion when they were embarrassed or describe their idea of a typical instance of embarrassment. Subjects then rated their account on a questionnaire designed to measure five theoretical approaches to embarrassment: dramaturgic theory, social anxiety theory, and three decreased self-esteem theories. Patterns of means and of covariation for actual embarrassment best supported the dramaturgic theory. In contrast, subjects' accounts of typical embarrassment contained elements of all five theories. The written accounts were analysed to produce a prototype of embarrassment, which consisted mostly of elements of the dramaturgic and social anxiety theories. We propose that the concept of embarrassment is necessarily linked to dramaturgic difficulties, whereas it is contingently linked to social anxiety and decreased self-esteem.     

Head and eye movements affect object processing in 4‐month‐old infants more than an artificial orientation cue

This study investigates the effects of attention‐guiding stimuli on 4‐month‐old infants' object processing. In the human head condition, infants saw a person turning her head and eye gaze towards or away from objects. When presented with the objects again, infants showed increased attention in terms of longer looking time measured by eye tracking and an increased Nc amplitude measured by event‐related potentials (ERP) for the previously uncued objects versus the cued objects. This suggests that the uncued objects were previously processed less effectively and appeared more novel to the infants. In a second condition, a car instead of a human head turned towards or away from objects. Eye‐tracking results did not reveal any significant difference in infants' looking time. ERPs indicated only a marginally significant effect in late slow‐wave activity associated with memory encoding for the uncued objects. We conclude that human head orientation and gaze direction affect infants' object‐directed attention, whereas movement and orientation of a car have only limited influence on infants' object processing.     

Mood and the generation effect

Three experiments address the assumptions, derived from a dual-force model, that positive mood supports assimilative (knowledge-driven) processes whereas negative mood supports accommodative (stimulus-driven) functions, and that mood-selective recall (mood congruency) is mainly a matter of assimilation. The generation-effect paradigm was borrowed from memory research to test these assumptions. In Experiment 1, the theoretical variable, degree of assimilation, was operationalised by the ease with which stimulus meaning could be generated from word fragments. In Experiment 2, self-generated stimuli (assimilation) were compared to experimenter-provided stimuli (accommodation). As predicted, positive mood supported assimilation which in turn enhanced mood-congruent recall. In Experiment 3, retrieval mood rather than encoding mood was manipulated. In this situation, positive mood facilitated the recall of all self-generated information, whether congruent or not. The empirical results are generally consistent with the predictions derived from the dual-force framework.     

Identifying Misfitting Achievement Estimates in Performance Assessments: An Illustration Using Rasch and Mokken Scale Analyses

Researchers apply individual person fit analyses as a procedure for checking model-data fit for individual test-takers. When a test-taker misfits, it means that the inferences from their test score regarding what they know and can do may not be accurate. One problem in applying individual person fit procedures in practice is the question of how much misfit it takes to make the test score an untrustworthy estimate of achievement. In this paper, we argue that if a person’s responses generally follow a monotonic pattern, the resulting test score is “good enough” to be interpreted and used. We present an approach that applies statistical procedures from the Rasch and Mokken measurement perspectives to examine individual person fit based on this good enough criterion in real data from a performance assessment. We discuss how these perspectives may facilitate thinking about applying individual person fit procedures in practice.     

Discriminating adults' genuine,imagined, and deceptive accounts of positive and negative childhood events

We examined the qualitative characteristics of genuine, imagined, and deceptive accounts of positive and negative childhood events. We investigated whether trained raters could discriminate between these accounts using the Memory Characteristics Questionnaire (MCQ; Johnson, Foley, Suengas, & Raye, 1988) and the Aberdeen Report Judgment Scales (ARJS; S. L. Sporer, paper presented at the biennial meeting of the American Psychology‐Law Society in Redondo Beach, California, March 1988 ). Participants generated three accounts. The first account was of an event that participants genuinely experienced in childhood. The second account was of an event that participants did not experience, but merely imagined happened in childhood. The third account was of an event that participants did not experience, but wrote a deceptive account to convince someone else that the event really happened in childhood. Half our participants wrote about positive events and half wrote about negative events. Ratings made by two trained judges indicated that genuine, imagined, and deceptive accounts were qualitatively different on both the MCQ and ARJS. Moreover, based on the MCQ and ARJS scores raters could discriminate whether the events had been genuinely experienced. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of these findings. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.