Temporal dynamics of guilt: changes in the role of interpersonal and intrapsychic factors

Baumeister, Stillwell and Heatherton (1994) argue that guilt serves primarily interpersonal functions and take issue with more traditional intrapsychic accounts of guilty feelings, in which causality, responsibility, and blame are emphasized. We examined the validity of these claims by asking 198 college students to imagine that they destroyed the valued property of either their best friend or mother, under each of three conditions of causal responsibility (accidental, foreseeable, unjustifiably intended). They then rated the reactions they anticipated from the victim (anger, disappointment; change in impression of the perpetrator), their perceived blameworthiness, aspects of causality, and how guilty they would feel immediately after perpetrating the harm as well as an entire day later. Imagined guilt was curvilinearly related to responsibility at time 1, but linearly at time 2. Results suggest that people only weigh interpersonal concerns more heavily after time has elapsed, but that both factors integrally affect feelings of guilt. © 1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Personality psychology and problem behaviors: HIV risk and the five-factor model

Studies of personality and problem behaviors may begin with analyses of the problem and develop hypotheses about personality traits that might be relevant; or they may begin with models of personality and explore links to behavior. Because it is well validated and relatively comprehensive, the Five-Factor Model (FFM) of personality lends itself to systematic exploratory studies that may sometimes lead to unanticipated findings. In this article, we review a program of research in a high-risk, disadvantaged population that illustrates the utility of the FFM in understanding health risk behavior. Previous analyses showed that behavior associated with the risk of HIV infection can be predicted from the personality dispositions of Neuroticism and (low) Conscientiousness.     

A comparison of latent trait and latent class analyses of Likert-type data

This paper brings together and compares two developments in the analysis of Likert attitude scales. The first is the generalization of latent class models to ordered response categories. The second is the introduction of latent trait models with multiplicative parameter structures for the analysis of rating scales. Key similarities and differences between these two methods are described and illustrated by applying a latent trait model and a latent class model to the analysis of a set of life satisfaction data. The way in which the latent trait model defines a unit of measurement, takes into account the order of the response categories, and scales the latent classes, is discussed. While the latent class model provides better fit to these data, this is achieved at the cost of a logically inconsistent assignment of individuals to latent classes.The author wishes to thank Clifford C. Clogg, Otis Dudley Duncan and Benjamin D. Wright for their helpful comments on an earlier version of this paper.     

Book reviews

One Thousand Roads to Mecca. Michael Wolfe (Ed.), 1997. New York, Grove Press. 620 pp., hb. $32.50, ISBN 0 8021 1611 6

Early Mamluk Syrian Historiography: Al‐Yunini's Dhayl Mir'at al‐zaman. Li Guo, 1998. Leiden, E.J. Brill. 2 vols, 241 pp. and xv + 338 pp. Arabic, hb. n.p., ISBN 90 04 11028 3 and 90 04 11029 1

Defenders of Reason in Islam: Mu'tazilism from medieval school to modern symbol. Richard C. Martin & Mark R. Woodward with Dwi S. Atmaja, 1997. Oxford, Oneworld Publications. xv+ 251 pp., pb. £14.99/$22.95, ISBN 1 85168 147 7

Rethinking Tradition in Modern Islamic Thought. Daniel Brown, 1996. Cambridge Middle East Studies 5. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. x+ 185 pp., hb. n.p., ISBN 0 521 57077 8

Ebu's su'ud, the Islamic Legal Tradition. Colin Imber, 1997. Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press. 288 pp., hb. £40.00, ISBN 07486 0767 6

Islam and the West: the making of an Image. Norman Daniel, 1997 (1993). Oxford, Oneworld. 467 pp., pb. $25.95/£16.99, ISBN I 85168 129 8

Exegesis as Polemical Discourse: Ibn Hazm on Jewish and Christian Scriptures. Theodore Pulcini, 1998. Atlanta, GA, Scholars Press. 216 pp., hb. $44.95, ISBN 0 7885 0396 0; pb. $19.95, ISBN 0 7885 0395 2

Christians and Jews under Islam. Youssef Courbage & Philippe Fargues, trans. Judy Mabro, 1997. London and New York, I.B. Tauris. xii + 242 pp., hb. £39.50, ISBN 1 86064 013 3

The Construction of Nationhood: ethnicity, religion and nationhood. Adrian Hastings, 1997. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press. 235 pp., pb. £12.95, ISBN 0 521 62544 0

Muslim Identity and Balkan State. Hugh Poulton & Suha Taji‐Farouki (Eds), 1997. London, Hurst & Co.. 250 pp., hb. n.p., ISBN 1 85065 276 7; pb. n.p., ISBN 1 85065 348 8

Turkish and Other Muslim Minorities of Bulgaria. Ali Eminov, 1997. London, Hurst & Co.. 218 pp., hb. £25, ISBN 1 85065 319 4

Al‐yahūd fi misr min al‐fath al‐'uthmani hatta awa'il al‐qarn al‐tas’ ‘ashar. [History of the Jewish Community in Egypt from the Ottoman Invasion to the. Beginning of the Nineteenth Century] (Arabic). Mohsen Shouman, 1996. Cairo, privately printed (available from the author, Department of History, College of. Arts, University of Zaqaziq, Egypt). 492 pp., n.p., no ISBN

The Society of the Muslim Brothers in Egypt: the rise of an Islamic mass movement 1928–1942. Brynjar Lia, 1998. Reading, Ithaca. 272 pp., hb, £30.00, ISBN 0 86372 220 2

African Islam and Islam in Africa: encounters between Sufis and Islamists. David Westerlund & Eva Evers Rosander (Eds), 1997. London, Hurst & Co.. 347 pp., hb. £40, ISBN 85065 282 1; pb. £15.95, ISBN 1 85065 281 3

Transforming Female Identities: women's organizational forms in West Africa/Transformation des identités feminines: formes d'organisations feminines en Afrique de l'Ouest. Eva Evers Rosander (Ed.), 1997. Uppsala, Nordiska Afrikainstitutet 243 pp., pb. £18.95, ISBN 91 7106 403 6

The Pure and the Powerful. Nadia Abu‐Zahra, 1977. Reading, Ithaca, NY. xx+ 320 pp., hb. £35.00, ISBN 0 86372 179 6     

The gender difference on the Mental Rotations test is not due to performance factors

Men score higher than women on the Mental Rotations test (MRT), and the magnitude of this gender difference is the largest of that on any spatial test. Goldstein, Haldane, and Mitchell (1990) reported finding that the gender difference on the MRT disappears when “performance factors” are controlled— specifically, when subjects are allowed sufficient time to attempt all items on the test or when a scoring procedure that controls for the number of items attempted is used. The present experiment also explored whether eliminating these performance factors results in a disappearance of the gender difference on the test. Male and female college students were allowed a short time period or unlimited time on the MRT. The tests were scored according to three different procedures. The results showed no evidence that the gender difference on the MRT was affected by the scoring method or the time limit. Regardless of the scoring procedure, men scored higher than women, and the magnitude of the gender difference persisted undiminished when subjects completed all items on the test. Thus there was no evidence that performance factors produced the gender difference on the MRT. These results are consistent with the results of other investigators who have attempted to replicate Goldstein et al. ’s findings.     

Things learned in early adulthood are remembered best

Evidence is reviewed that for older adults the period from 10 to 30 years of age produces recall of the most autobiographical memories, the most vivid memories, and the most important memories. It is the period from which peoples’ favorite films, music, and books come and the period from which they judge the most important world events to have originated. Factual, semantic, general-knowledge, multiple-choice questions about the Academy Awards, the World Series, and current events from this period were answered more accurately by two different groups of 30 older adults tested 10 years apart. A cognitive theory based on the importance of transitions and several noncognitive theories are considered as explanations of this pervasive phenomenon.     

The Effect of Intracouple Coping Concordance on Psychological and Marital Distress in Infertility Patients

The effect of intracouple coping concordance on psychological and marital distress was examined in a sample of 46 couples undergoing different stages of infertility treatment. Results indicate that the effect of coping similarity within couples is dependent on both the type of coping examined and the stage of the stressor. Specifically, for women the use of high levels of task-oriented coping by their partners and themselves is associated with the highest level of marital satisfaction. The findings also indicate that the use of high emotion-oriented coping by both partners is associated with the most psychological distress for men. Finally, the results show that marital satisfaction among women undergoing late stage treatment is highest in couples where the males are using low levels of emotion-oriented coping. Interestingly, the least satisfaction for women is evident when the woman is using less emotion-oriented coping while her partner is using more, rather than when both partners are using more emotion-oriented coping strategies. Clinical implications of the findings are discussed.     

Team-Track: A tool for investigating tracking performance in teams

Team performance and coordination have gained considerable interest in disparate fields (e.g., aviation, process control, medicine, and wartime operations). Team-Track, a C program that allows controlled experimental manipulation of team conditions, was developed to meet the research needs resulting from this interest. Using Team-Track, one can manipulate task interdependence, team staffing, relative contributions of team members, communications, and informational displays in a low-cost environment. The dependent measure of performance generated by the program is the absolute tracking error along each dimension. The program is ideal for investigating team interactions as it allows for orthogonal manipulation of team variables, therefore accommodating a multitude of research paradigms.     

Political attitudes: Interactions of cognition and affect

Commonly held political opinions provide an ecologically relevant focus for studying the interactions of environmental context, affect or emotion, and cognition. To explore this approach to information processing, John T. Lanzetta helped initiate a series of experiments examining how emotional responses to politicians' nonverbal displays influence changes in attitude toward these leaders. Although this line of research has revealed how a number of variables interact when humans respond to known individuals in meaningful situations, the precise relationship between mood state or affect prior to a stimulus and subsequent emotions and cognitions remains unclear. Based on recent theories of modular brain function, an experimental paradigm was designed to test the hypothesis that the effects of a mood state on information processing depend on the subject's awareness of the affect as well as on its valence. Preliminary data from such a study, in which preconscious images of emotionally evocative stimuli were used to induce positive or negative affect prior to viewing the leader, suggests that the induction of negative affective states can lead to more positive attitudes. Reflected in such public opinion phenomena as the rally-round-the-flag effect, this mood-incongruent attitude change challenges many traditional theories of emotion and cognition.This research was supported by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Center for the Social Sciences and the William H. Spoor Grant for Leadership Issues. We would like to extend a note of special appreciation to William N. Morris, Ph.D.     

External validity of role play assessment of assertive behavior

Forty female subjects, equally divided into high- and low-assertive groups on the basis of self-report data, participated in an assertion-eliciting situation. Half of the subjects were advised that the situation was not real and asked to role play their responses. Half of the subjects were uninformed that the situation was staged (natural behavior condition). High-assertive and low-assertive subjects were significantly different in both their self-report and their behavioral performance. Role play and natural behavior conditions did not differ, nor was the overall multivariate test of interactions significant. The findings indicate that role play assessment was comparable to naturally occurring behavior and provide support for the continued use of role play assessment in social skills research.