A temporal common ground for learning: The moderating effect of shared mental models on the relation between team learning behaviours and performance improvement

In this longitudinal study, we integrated a team process and a learning curve perspective on team learning and empirically analysed whether team learning processes lead to performance improvement. In addition, we tested whether this relation is moderated by the similarity of team members’ task, team, and temporal mental models. We tested our model on a sample of 67 teams (314 individuals) competing in a management simulation over five consecutive time periods, using random coefficient modelling (RCM). Our findings suggest that team learning behaviours do not have a direct effect on the team learning curve, but temporal and task mental models are crucial for the translation of team learning behaviours into performance improvement. We found that when teams have similar task and temporal mental models, engaging in team learning processes is beneficial, whereas, when teams have dissimilar task and temporal mental models, it is detrimental to performance improvement. We did not find a significant effect for the moderating role of team mental model similarity. Our study emphasizes the importance of integrating different perspectives on team learning and provides support for the role of team cognition as a catalyst for team learning.     

Priming of popout: III. A short-term implicit memory system beneficial for rapid target selection

The priming of popout (PoP) (Maljkovic & Nakayama, 1994, 1996) increases the speed of attentional deployment to subsequent targets having the same feature characteristic and relative position, it lasts for approximately 5-8 trials, and is cumulative. Here we establish PoP as an example of short-term implicit memory by showing that it is qualitatively different from explicit memory. Using a post-cued recall procedure embedded in the stream of search task trials, we show that explicit memory is not selective as is PoP and is of much shorter duration. As such we argue that explicit memory is unlikely to account for the properties of PoP. In examining the decay of PoP, we find that: PoP is not evident after a 90sec delay, it does not show passive decay over much shorter intervals (1-3sec), and it gets decremented by attentional deployments to visually dissimilar stimuli, the size of the decrement being related to task difficulty. The results, taken together, suggest that PoP reflects a functionally beneficial memory system, specialized for the rapid and automatic selection of items for focal attention and saccadic eye movements.     

IDENTITIES IN HARMONY: GENDER–WORK IDENTITY INTEGRATION MODERATES FRAME SWITCHING IN COGNITIVE PROCESSING

Professional women's identity integration—the perceived compatibility between work and gender identities—plays a role in how task or relationship information is processed. Seventy female business school students were primed with either their professional or their gender identity. Business women with higher identity integration showed an assimilation effect to the primed cue. Specifically, they showed higher task orientation than relationship orientation in a recognition task when primed with their professional identity, but less so when primed with their gender identity. Business women with lower identity integration showed a contrast effect to the primed cue: Their recognition reflected a task-relationship orientation opposite to the primed cue. We discuss the implications of these findings for understanding women's performance at work.     

Subjective well-being in urban adolescents of color

Relationships among predictors and criteria of subjective well-being were examined in a sample of 151 urban adolescents of color, ages 12-15. The relative strengths of family, peer, and school-related support and esteem in predicting three measures of subjective well-being (life satisfaction, positive affect, and negative affect) were explored. Results suggested that sense of worth in one's family explained a significant amount of variance in subjective well-being variables, above and beyond the contributions of individual, school, and peer-related variables. Implications for prevention and mental health promotion with urban adolescents of color are discussed based on these findings.     

Needs and Cognition/Behavior Patterns at Work and the Big Five: An assessment of the Personality and Preference Inventory‐Normative (PAPI‐N) from the perspective of the five‐factor model

This study examined the relationship between psychological needs and cognition/behavior patterns at work as measured by the Personality and Preference Inventory – Normative (PAPI‐N) and the five‐factor model of personality as measured by the NEO Five Factor Inventory (NEO‐FFI) in a sample of 91 working adults and 71 psychology undergraduates who worked or had some work experience. Our results showed significant and theoretically congruent correlations between the PAPI‐N scales and the measures of the five‐factor model. These correlations were similar to those found using alternative instruments to measure Murray's needs. Despite the differences in the conceptual origins of the PAPI‐N and the NEO‐FFI and divergences in the aspects of personality measured by the two inventories, joint and interbattery factor analyses showed that most of the needs and cognition/behavior patterns measured by the PAPI‐N can be meaningfully organized within the framework of the five‐factor model. These results provide further empirical evidence for the validity of the five‐factor model and the PAPI‐N, although they also point out personality aspects that are not encompassed by the five‐factor model.     

The secure-base hypothesis: Global attachment, attachment to counselor, and session exploration in psychotherapy

This study explored J. Bowlby's (1988) secure-base hypothesis, which predicts that a client's secure attachment to the therapist, as well as the client's and the therapist's global attachment security, will facilitate in-session exploration. Volunteer clients (N = 59) and trainee counselors (N = 59) in short-term therapy completed the Experiences in Close Relationship Scale (K. A. Brennan, C. L. Clark, & P. R. Shaver, 1998) as a measure of adult global romantic and peer attachment orientations; the Client Attachment to Therapist Scale (B. Mallinckrodt, D. L. Gantt, & H. M. Coble, 1995) as a measure of attachment to counselor; the Working Alliance Inventory (A. O. Horvath & L. Greenberg, 1989) as a measure of working alliance; and the Session Evaluation Questionnaire-Depth Subscale (W. B. Stiles & J. S. Snow, 1984) as a measure of session depth. In line with Bowlby's hypothesis, the findings suggest that session depth is related to the client's experience of attachment security with the counselor and that counselor global attachment moderates the relationship between client global attachment and session exploration. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved).     

Effects of different practice conditions on acquisition, retention, and transfer of soccer skills by 9-year-old schoolchildren

This study was designed to examine effects of three practice models, blocked, variable, and combined, on the acquisition, retention, and transfer of new motor skills. 67 subjects (M age = 9.5 yr., SD = .3) from the fourth year of primary school (31 boys and 26 girls) were assigned at random to three different practice groups (Blocked = 22, Variable = 23, Combined = 22) to study acquisition of two skills, dribbling a soccer ball and kicking a soccer ball at a stationary target using the dominant foot. All participants received a pretest and posttest, a transfer test, and a retention test 2 wk. later. Analysis showed significant improvement after practice of kicking skills by the three groups but not in the dribbling skills, for which only the combined practice group showed any notable improvement. At the end of acquisition, the combined practice group had significantly better performance on the dribbling task than the other two groups. However, the only differences noted in performance of kicking the ball with the dominant foot were by combined practice and blocked groups.     

Prenatal predictors of maternal and newborn EEG

Ninety-two mothers were recruited at a prenatal ultrasound clinic at which time they were given the CES-D for depression and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, and their urines were assayed for cortisol, norepinephrine, epinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin. At the neonatal period the mothers and neonates were assessed on frontal EEG asymmetry. Correlation analyses revealed the following: (1) the mothers’ frontal asymmetry was negatively related to prenatal depression (CES-D) symptoms, negatively related to prenatal norepinephrine levels and positively related to prenatal serotonin levels; (2) the frontal asymmetry of the newborn was positively correlated with the mothers’ frontal asymmetry and negatively correlated with the mothers’ prenatal depression (CES-D) symptoms and negatively correlated with the mothers’ prenatal state anxiety scores. The neonates’ EEG frontal asymmetry was also, like the mother's, negatively related to prenatal maternal norepinephrine and positively related to prenatal maternal serotonin.