Reuse and Recycle: The Development of Adaptive Expertise,Routine Expertise,and Novelty in a Large Research Team

Combining innovation and efficiency is ideal in many organizational settings. Adaptive expertise represents a cognitive explanation of how individuals and teams can learn to achieve simultaneous innovation and efficiency. In 2004, scientists led twin rovers on Mars in the search for historical water. The science team experienced a remarkable increase in efficiency, adapting with flexibility to unexpected events and dynamic, dwindling resources. After discussing the conceptual differences between adaptive expertise and related team learning and innovation concepts, we examine longitudinal behavioral data on novelty, routine and adaptive expertise. Sequential time series ARIMA analyses reveal that novelty fluctuated randomly, but both routine and adaptive expertise significantly increased over time. In addition, novelty, routine expertise, and adaptive expertise did not significantly predict each other directly or at a lag, suggesting that these are indeed three distinct constructs. Implications for theory and research on efficiency and innovation are discussed. Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Error biases in inner and overt speech: evidence from tongue twisters

To compare the properties of inner and overt speech, Oppenheim and Dell (2008) counted participants' self-reported speech errors when reciting tongue twisters either overtly or silently and found a bias toward substituting phonemes that resulted in words in both conditions, but a bias toward substituting similar phonemes only when speech was overt. Here, we report 3 experiments revisiting their conclusion that inner speech remains underspecified at the subphonemic level, which they simulated within an activation-feedback framework. In 2 experiments, participants recited tongue twisters that could result in the errorful substitutions of similar or dissimilar phonemes to form real words or nonwords. Both experiments included an auditory masking condition, to gauge the possible impact of loss of auditory feedback on the accuracy of self-reporting of speech errors. In Experiment 1, the stimuli were composed entirely from real words, whereas, in Experiment 2, half the tokens used were nonwords. Although masking did not have any effects, participants were more likely to report substitutions of similar phonemes in both experiments, in inner as well as overt speech. This pattern of results was confirmed in a 3rd experiment using the real-word materials from Oppenheim and Dell (in press). In addition to these findings, a lexical bias effect found in Experiments 1 and 3 disappeared in Experiment 2. Our findings support a view in which plans for inner speech are indeed specified at the feature level, even when there is no intention to articulate words overtly, and in which editing of the plan for errors is implicated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).     

Reading the writing in the margins: dysfunction,disjunction, disgust,and the bodies of others

ABSTRACT

Intersex’s representation as “border case,” explored via six fictional treatments of unusually sexed bodies, echoes the ways “atypical” and “marginal” sex and sexuality receive attention to defer focus on that never queried because it seems so ordinary. Across the novels, the purported otherness of the intersex character highlights the dysfunctionality of those around them. In this way, dysfunction, disjunction, and disgust exist across the relationships and dynamics surrounding the scapegoated identity and are a means to avoid the hard work of critical self-reflection on the parts of those who do not usually deem themselves “other.” If the supporting characters in all these novels are guilty of failing fully to explore their own marginality, the same has frequently happened with religious bodies’ attitudes to intersex, and this is discussed with reference to accounts of intersex in Judaism and Islam, and tensions surrounding the casting out of sexual “violators” in one Christian tradition.     

The relationship between rumination, avoidance and depression in a non-clinical sample

Recent commentaries have proposed conceptualizations of rumination in terms of both cognitive and behavioral avoidance. This study examined the relationship between rumination, avoidance and depression using a newly developed self-report measure of avoidance in depression, the Cognitive-Behavioral Avoidance Scale (CBAS) [Ottenbreit, N.D., & Dobson, K.S. (2004). Avoidance and depression: The construction of the cognitive-behavioral avoidance scale. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 42, 293-313]. A non-clinical sample (N=104) of undergraduate students completed self-report measures of depression, anxiety, rumination and avoidance. Rumination, avoidance and depression were all significantly correlated. Rumination and behavioral avoidance remained intercorrelated when anxiety was controlled, confirming an association that is independent of anxiety. By contrast, the relationship between cognitive avoidance and rumination disappeared when anxiety was partialled out. Notably, avoidance predicted unique variance in depression scores, over and above anxiety and rumination. Consistent with the proposal of Ottenbreit and Dobson [Avoidance and depression: The construction of the cognitive-behavioral avoidance scale. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 42, 293-313], our findings support the value of clinicians and psychopathologists giving consideration to avoidance in their conceptualization of depression.     

application of the social marketing model to unemployment counseling: a theoretical perspective

A. R. Andreasen's (1995) social marketing model (SMM) is applied to structure feedback counseling for individuals who are unemployed. The authors discuss techniques used in commercial marketing and how they are equally applicable to solving societal problems; SMM and its application to social interventions; and structured feedback that moves a person from contemplating change to sustained behavioral modification, which can facilitate attitudinal and behavioral change. The relationship of SMM to motivational theories that support the potential of SMM for unemployment counseling is also discussed. The article concludes with a review of the integration of SMM by the New Zealand Employment Service.     

Infant-mother attachment in children with failure to thrive

This study may represent an advance in the study of failure to thrive (FTT), as (1) it is the first to use the disorganized/disoriented classification of infant-mother attachment (Main & Solomon, 1990) in a study of children with FTT, and (2) it includes measures of social processes associated with individual differences in attachment. Twenty-six children with FTT (10 “organic,” 16 “nonorganic”) and 28 normally growing children, ages 12 to 25 months, were seen in Ainsworth's Strange Situation. The FTT and control groups were equivalent on age of mother (28.0 and 28.6 years, respectively), annual family income ($37,700 and $24,100), and mother's marital status (56% and 52% married). The sample included African-American, Caucasian, and Latino families. In addition, measures of mother-child interaction and mothers' reports of social support and life stress were included. Children with FTT were less likely to show secure and more likely to show anxious, disorganized attachments than normally growing controls: Only 35% of FTTs were secure, whereas 46% showed disorganized attachments. In contrast, 64% of controls were secure and 7% were disorganized. Comparisons between FTTs and controls also revealed differences in maternal sensitivity and stressful social environments. There were no differences in patterns of attachment, level of acute malnutrition, maternal sensitivity, social support, or life stress between organic and nonorganic FTT groups, further discrediting this as a meaningful distinction. The organic and nonorganic groups differed only on a measure of chronicity of malnutrition. These results support the notion that disrupted parent-child relationships and stressful social environments are common in FTT, regardless of the etiology of growth failure. The findings suggest that treatments of FTT must address psychological, as well as medical, problems in these families.     

Grasping the nettle: gay men's experiences in therapy

Qualitative research was carried out into gay men's experiences of being in therapy. One of the findings was that, while the overall experience of being in therapy was usually perceived to be helpful, the experience of discussion of areas relating to the clients’ experience of their sexuality was not. A common reaction was that this aspect of their experience had been silenced or not adequately explored. This finding gives rise to a consideration of what 'gay-affirmative' counselling means – and in particular to the ideas of whether affirmative counselling can be implicit or must involve a more active stance on the part of the therapist. These differing approaches and the implications which arise are discussed.     

In the World or in the Head: External and Internal Implicit Theories of Creativity

This research is an initial step to bringing existing research on cultural differences in attribution and holism to the study of implicit theories of creativity. Two studies examined the tendency to consider creativity to be prototypically expressed internally via reflection and internal states versus expressed externally via interaction and products. Study 1 had Caucasian American, Asian American, and Japanese undergraduates list activities and traits they associated with creative groups and individuals. In Study 2, Japanese, Chinese, Caucasian Americans, and Asian Americans chose specific professions as more creative using a paired forced-choice method. In both studies, East Asians had a greater propensity to choose external traits, activities, and professions as creative, whereas Caucasian Americans and to a lesser degree, Asian Americans showed a preference for internal items. The implications of cross-cultural differences in implicit theories of creativity are discussed.