Sequential dependencies in driving

The effect of recent experience on current behavior has been studied extensively in simple laboratory tasks. We explore the nature of sequential effects in the more naturalistic setting of automobile driving. Driving is a safety-critical task in which delayed response times may have severe consequences. Using a realistic driving simulator, we find significant sequential effects in pedal-press response times that depend on the history of recent stimuli and responses. Response times are slowed up to 100 ms in particular cases, a delay that has dangerous practical consequences. Further, we observe a significant number of history-related pedal misapplications, which have recently been noted as a cause for concern in the automotive safety community. By anticipating these consequences of sequential context, driver assistance systems could mitigate the effects of performance degradations and thus critically improve driver safety.     

Anxiety and career exploration: Gender differences in the role of self-construal

Given the social nature of many tasks involved in exploring and committing to a career, we hypothesized that social anxiety would correlate to exploration and commitment, even after controlling for general anxiety. We also hypothesized that self-construal and gender would interact with social anxiety in relation to exploration and commitment. In a sample of predominantly European American undergraduates (n = 161), higher social anxiety associated with lower vocational commitment for both women and men, after accounting for general anxiety. For women, interdependence was also associated significantly with vocational commitment. Social anxiety correlated to environmental exploration only for men low in independence. Neither social anxiety nor self-construal associated with environmental exploration for women or foreclosure for either group.     

IPI and MMPI predictions of counterproductive job behaviors by racial group

Correctional officers hired by a large urban agency between 1980 and 1985 were administered the Inwald Personality Inventory (IPI) and Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) before being appointed to the job. The 3,349 white, 3,391 black, and 1,547 hispanic male officers were subsequently evaluated on their job status and histories of absence, lateness, and disciplinary interviews. Discriminant function analyses were applied to the IPI and MMPI, alone and together, to assess any race differences in their prediction accuracy for each counterproductive job behavior measure. No significant bias in prediction accuracy was detected, though hispanic males tended to have the highest number of correct predictions. The implementation of prediction equations for these tests would have reduced negative job behaviors by as much as 13%. Analyses of the relative percentages of good performers rated incorrectly were also included.     

Scaling pigeons' choice of feeds: bigger is better.

Preferences of hungry pigeons among 10 grains and pellets were analyzed using a Thurstone scaling procedure. The recovered scales were positively correlated with size of the feed. The correlations improved when the Thurstonian assumption of equal-sized discriminal dispersions (Case V) was replaced with the assumption of proportional-sized dispersions (Case VI), as entailed by Weber's law. The correlations weakened when the experiments were conducted with the pigeons close to their free-feeding weights, where the probability of sampling alternative grains increased. In the final experiment, exposure to a large pellet shifted the preferences between two smaller pellets.     

Birthday and birthmate problems: misconceptions of probability among psychology undergraduates and casino visitors and personnel

Subjective estimates and associated confidence ratings for the solutions of some classic occupancy problems were studied in samples of 721 psychology undergraduates, 39 casino visitors, and 34 casino employees. On tasks varying the classic birthday problem, i.e., the probability P for any coincidence among N individuals sharing the same birthday, clear majorities of respondents markedly overestimated N, given P, and markedly underestimated P, given N. Respondents did notedly better on tasks varying the birthmate problem, i.e., P for the specific coincidence among N individuals of having a birthday today. Psychology students and women did better on both task types, but were less confident about their estimates than casino visitors or per sonnel and men. Several further person variables, such as indicators of topical knowledge and familiarity, were associated with better and more confident performance on birthday problems, but not on birthmate problems. Likewise, higher confidence ratings were related to subjective estimates that were closer to the solutions of birthday problems, but not of birthmate problems. Implications of and possible explanations for these findings, study limitations, directions for further inquiry, and the real-world relevance of ameliorating misconceptions of probability are discussed.     

The Family Life and Adjustment of Hmong American Sons and Daughters

We examined gender differences in intergenerational family conflict and its associations with psychological and academic adjustment using a United States sample of 121 Hmong American first-year college students. Hmong women and men reported similar levels of family conflict. Family conflict was related to psychological distress, above and beyond neuroticism. Gender moderated the relationship between family conflict and substance usage and academic performance. For Hmong college men, higher family conflict was associated with lower rates of smoking and higher rates of completing the first year of college. For Hmong college women, higher family conflict was associated with greater likelihood of alcohol consumption in their lifetime.     

Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills for Families of Individuals With Behavioral Disorders: Initial Feasibility and Outcomes

Family members of individuals with behavioral disorders are a valuable source of logistical and emotional support for patients. Family members may take on tremendous financial and/or psychological responsibility to care for their loved ones, which can result in poor psychological outcomes for the family and, in turn, impede the recovery of the patient. Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) skills training is an effective treatment that has been utilized with numerous populations, including family members of individuals with behavioral problems, and has shown efficacy in improving various interpersonal outcomes; however, no study has examined feasibility and outcomes of delivering all four unabridged DBT skills modules to this population. Twenty participants attended weekly DBT skills classes for 6 months, where they acquired skills in mindfulness, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and distress tolerance. There were significant pre-post improvements for emotion dysregulation, stress reactivity, and various interpersonal outcomes; there were no significant changes in depression or anxiety. These results suggest that DBT skills may be effective at improving broad clinical domains in a sample of family members of individuals with behavioral problems. This research is the first step in demonstrating that DBT skills might benefit family members of patients with heterogeneous mental health problems and, therefore, fits in to the field’s growing interest in cost-effective transdiagnostic interventions.     

The dynamics and validity of the group selection interview

The authors examined the validity of the group interview, in which several applicants are interviewed simultaneously, vs. the traditional 1-on-1 selection interview. The authors also investigated perceptions of fairness for each interview format and whether the order in which the applicant was asked to respond in the group interview affected the quality of his or her response. Participants were 91 undergraduates who participated in 1-on-1 or group interviews for a scholarship award. The present results supported the hypothesis that interviewers in the 1-on-1 format were significantly better at predicting the applicants' academic potential. Also, in the group interviews, the order in which the applicants were asked to respond affected the quality of their responses significantly.     

Measuring stress responses in postpartum mothers: perspectives from studies in human and animal populations

Reduced hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) responses to stress during the last week of pregnancy and lactation have been consistently observed in rat studies. Several contributing factors have been proposed for this phenomenon in lactation, including the suckling stimulus from the pups, hormones (oxytocin and prolactin) and opioids, a decrease in the ability of noradrenaline to potentiate hypothalamic responses and changes in pituitary responsiveness to ACTH secretagogues (AVP and CRF). In contrast to this vast literature using the rat model, only few studies have addressed this issue in the human population. The consensus is that women engaging in breastfeeding activities exhibit reduced anxiety, although the reductions in neuroendocrine and autonomic responses to stressors are variable, in part because of the different nature of the stressors used. Further work is required to investigate how additional factors, such as maternal parity or emotional salience of the stressor can affect stress responsiveness in postpartum women. Here, we review first the findings regarding stress responsiveness during lactation in both rat and human studies, and then discuss potential research avenues and methodological issues that could be the lead to future research protocols in human subjects. Knowing the reciprocal relationship in the mother-infant dyad, it is clear that investigation of the mechanisms regulating stress responses and mental health in postpartum mothers can only be beneficial to the development of the infant.     

Cognitive control and counterproductive oculomotor capture by reward-related stimuli

Two experiments investigated the extent to which value-modulated oculomotor capture is subject to top-down control. In these experiments, participants were never required to look at the reward-related stimuli; indeed, doing so was directly counterproductive because it caused omission of the reward that would otherwise have been obtained. In Experiment 1, participants were explicitly informed of this omission contingency. Nevertheless, they still showed counterproductive oculomotor capture by reward-related stimuli, suggesting that this effect is relatively immune to cognitive control. Experiment 2 more directly tested whether this capture is controllable by comparing the performance of participants who either had or had not been explicitly informed of the omission contingency. There was no evidence that value-modulated oculomotor capture differed between the two conditions, providing further evidence that this effect proceeds independently of cognitive control. Taken together, the results of the present research provide strong evidence for the automaticity and cognitive impenetrability of value-modulated attentional capture.