Nostalgia and Satisfaction with Life: A Behavioral Genetic Analysis

Journal of Happiness Studies - Nostalgia, a bittersweet but predominantly positive emotion, arises from self-relevant and social memories. Evidence suggests that nostalgia is a potential source of...     

Conflict and criterion setting in recognition memory

Recognition memory requires both retrieval processes and control processes such as criterion setting. Decision criteria were manipulated by offering different payoffs for correct "old" versus "new" responses. Criterion setting influenced the following late-occurring (1,000+ ms), conflict-sensitive event-related brain potential (ERP) components: the stimulus-locked late posterior negativity (LPN) and the response-locked error-related negativity (ERN). The LPN-ERN were most negative to hits under conservative payoff conditions involving conflict between the correct old response and the payoff for new responses. This same conservative-hit condition was most frequently associated with response reversals when fast initial judgments were followed by slower judgments. Postresponse ERP activity may index conflict-sensitive processes underlying postretrieval cognitive control mechanisms involved with assessing responses to current items and updating response criteria on later trials.     

Employee and Supervisor Ratings of Motivation: Main Effects and Discrepancies Associated with Job Satisfaction and Adjustment in a Factory Setting1

Research and theory on employee job satisfaction and well-being has increasingly concentrated on both intrinsic and extrinsic motivational factors. According to self-determination theory (Deci & Ryan, 1985). autonomy, relatedness, and competence are three intrinsic psychological needs that, if fulfilled in the workplace, will lead to greater satisfaction, performance, and general well-being. This study examines employee and supervisor perceptions of the employee's autonomy, competence, and relatedness in the workplace, as well as the degree and direction of discrepancies between employee and supervisor reports. Both employee and supervisor ratings of intrinsic motivational factors were significantly related to work satisfaction, psychological health, and self-esteem, after controlling for the extrinsic factors of pay and job status. Results of discrepancy analyses were somewhat supportive of overrating being associated with greater well-being and job satisfaction. Discussion of the results ties this study to relevant research from a self-determination perspective and to the growing literature on discrepancies and self-perception.     

Between-list lag effects in recall depend on retention interval

Although the benefits of spaced retrieval for long-term retention are well established, the majority of this work has involved spacing over relatively short intervals (on the order of seconds or minutes). In the present experiments, we evaluated the effectiveness of spaced retrieval across relatively short intervals (within a single session), as compared to longer intervals (between sessions spaced a day apart), for long-term retention (i.e., one day or one week). Across a series of seven experiments, participants (N = 536) learned paired associates to a criterion of 70 % accuracy and then received one test–feedback trial for each item. The test–feedback trial occurred within 10 min of reaching criterion (short lag) or one day later (long lag). Then, a final test occurred one day (Exps. 1–3) or one week (Exps. 4 and 5) after the test–feedback trial. Across the different materials and methods in Experiments 1–3, we found little benefit for the long-lag relative to the short-lag schedule in final recall performance—that is, no lag effect—but large effects on the retention of information from the test–feedback to the final test phase. The results from the experiments with the one-week retention interval (Exps. 4 and 5) indicated a benefit of the long-lag schedule on final recall performance (a lag effect), as well as on retention. This research shows that even when the benefits of lag are eliminated at a (relatively long) one-day retention interval, the lag effect reemerges after a one-week retention interval. The results are interpreted within an extension of the bifurcation model to the spacing effect.     

Opportunity recognition and the tendency to be an entrepreneur: A bivariate genetics perspective

We applied quantitative genetics techniques to a sample of 851 pairs of monozygotic and 855 pairs of dizygotic female twins to examine the influence of genetic factors on the variation across people in opportunity recognition. We also examined the extent to which the same genetic factors contribute to both opportunity recognition and the tendency to be an entrepreneur. We found substantial heritability for opportunity recognition (0.45), with no influence of the shared environment. Moreover, we found that 53% of the phenotypic correlation between opportunity recognition and the tendency to be an entrepreneur had a common genetic aetiology.     

Learning Through Shared Christian Praxis: Reflective Practice in the Classroom

The cultivation of reflective practice has become a commonly accepted goal of theological education. However, theological educators must face the challenge of teaching and assessing reflective practice. Hypothesizing that this concern is best addressed in community, the authors of this article devised a collaborative action‐research project using Thomas Groome's “shared Christian praxis” model. They describe the ways in which they have, over the course of the project, modified their pedagogy to improve their students' reflection on practice.     

Imagining Success: Multiple Achievement Goals and the Effectiveness of Imagery

Imagery (richly imagining carrying out a task successfully) is a popular performance-enhancement tool in many domains. This experiment sought to test whether pursuing two achievement goals (vs. one) benefits performance after an imagery exercise. We examined mastery goals (aiming to improve skill level) and performance goals (aiming to outperform others) among 65 tennis players who were assigned to a mastery goal condition, a performance goal condition, or a mastery goal and performance goal condition. After reading instructions for a service task, which included the goal manipulation, participants completed 20 tennis services. They then completed an imagery exercise and, finally, completed another 20 services. Postimagery service performance was better in the dual-goal condition than in the other conditions.     

The Unravelling of Identities and Belonging: Criminal Gang Involvement of Youth from Immigrant Families

Grounded in the experiences of 30 gang-involved respondents in Calgary, this Canadian study examined criminal gang involvement of youth from immigrant families. Our analysis showed that gang-involved youth had experienced multiple, severe and prolonged personal and interpersonal challenges in all facets of their lives and that gradual disintegration of their relationships with family, school and community had resulted in the unravelling of self-concept, ethnic identity, sense of belonging and sense of citizenship and progressively propelled them towards membership in high-risk social cliques and criminal gangs. Our findings brought attention to the need for coordinated, comprehensive support for youth from immigrant families through family-based, school-based and community-based programs.     

Naming Faces: The Effects of Facial Distinctiveness and Surname Frequency

The effects of the frequency of a surname in the population and of the distinctiveness of a face on the latency to name famous faces were explored. Distinctive faces were named more quickly than were typical faces. Celebrities with low-frequency surnames were named faster than celebrities with high-frequency surnames, but only if their faces were distinctive. Subsequent experiments showed that the effect of surname frequency could not be attributed to differences in the articulatory onsets of the surnames and was not present in a task that did not require a naming response. Experiments in which surnames were taught to previously unfamiliar faces showed that familiar surnames (e.g. the surnames of celebrities) were produced more rapidly than were unfamiliar surnames. If familiar surnames were taught, no effect of surname frequency was observed. It is concluded that lexical access to peoples' names is frequency sensitive—surnames shared by few individuals are accessed faster than are high-frequency surnames. However, when learning names to unfamiliar faces, familiar surnames (i.e. the surnames of people already known to the subject) are learned and accessed more quickly than unfamiliar surnames.     

Intragroup social influence and intergroup competition

Three experiments examined the role of intragroup social influence in intergroup competition. In the context of a mutual fate control situation, participants in Experiment 1 demonstrated more intergroup competition in the presence than in the absence of social support for shared self-interest. Experiment 2 revealed that, in the context of a Prisoner's Dilemma Game, this social support effect was stronger when noncorrespondence of outcomes between the interacting groups was low than when it was high. Results from Experiment 3 were consistent with the possibility that the effect of social support is attenuated when noncorrespondence of outcomes is high because under these circumstances intergroup competition is prescribed by a norm of group interest. The implications of these findings for understanding the antecedents of interindividual-intergroup discontinuity are discussed.