Memory and goal setting: the response of older and younger adults to positive and objective feedback

Earlier research suggested that goal setting for memory does not have the same advantages for older adults as for younger adults. Using ideal goal-setting conditions with individualized goals, the authors compared goals plus positive feedback, goals plus objective feedback, and control. Performance increased over trials and was higher for both goal conditions than for control. The positive feedback condition showed the highest goal commitment and motivation. Older adults showed strong performance gains and more motivation and goal commitment than the young. The results showed that older adults can benefit from goal setting under optimal learning and feedback conditions.     

Team learning: collectively connecting the dots

This article tests the degree to which personal and situational variables impact the acquisition of knowledge and skill within interactive project teams. On the basis of the literature regarding attentional capacity, constructive controversy, and truth-supported wins, the authors examined the effects of cognitive ability, workload distribution, Agreeableness, Openness to Experience, and structure on team learning. Results from 109 four-person project teams working on an interdependent command and control simulator indicated that teams learned more when composed of individuals who were high in cognitive ability and when the workload was distributed evenly. Conversely, team learning was negatively affected when teams were composed of individuals who were high in Agreeableness. Finally, teams using a paired structure learned more than teams structured either functionally or divisionally. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed, as well as possible limitations and directions for future research.     

Personality over time: Methodological approaches to the study of short-term and long-term development and change

Although theories of personality emphasize the integrative, enduring, and dynamic nature of personality, the current modal research design in personality ignores the dimension of time. We consider a variety of recent methods of longitudinal data analysis to examine both short-term and long-term development and change in personality, including mean-level analyses both across and within individuals across time, variance structures across time, and cycles and dynamic models across time. These different longitudinal analyses can address classic as well as new questions in the study of personality and its development. We discuss the linkages among different longitudinal analyses, measurement issues in temporal data, the spacing of assessments, and the levels of generalization and potential insights afforded by different longitudinal analyses.     

Rolling away the stone: post-abortion women in the Christian community

This article seeks to bring to awareness and address the issues of a neglected group of people in need of pastoral care: women who have had an abortion. It offers some commentary regarding what many women experience following an abortion, focuses on the story of a specific woman, and goes on to offer a biblical perspective for a pastoral response to their needs. Responses to the article are offered by a healthcare chaplain and a seminary professor.     

Assumptions of infantile amnesia: are there differences between early and later memories?

Most adults are able to provide few, if any, reports of autobiographical memories from the first years of life. Early memories that do exist have been characterised as highly emotional, containing an abundance of perceptual as opposed to propositional information, and more often in the third than the first person perspective. These qualities figure prominently in theories of the source of the phenomenon of infantile amnesia. However, early and later memories have not been directly compared with regard to these features. In the present research, we compared early and later memories in the same individuals, with the same methodology. Results indicated few objective differences between the early and later memories of women (Experiment 1) and men (Experiment 2). The findings are discussed in light of their implications for theories as to the source of infantile amnesia.     

The Differential Test of Conduct and Emotional Problems as an evaluative tool for the Willie M. program.

The Differential Test of Conduct and Emotional Problems (DT/CEP) was utilized as a treatment outcome evaluation tool for the severely emotionally and behaviorally handicapped clients served by Specialized Youth Services of Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. A significant change was found in both conduct problem and emotional disturbance scales, indicating improvement for both modalities over a nine-month period. No significant difference in improvement was indicated between males and females. The DT/CEP was established as a justified treatment evaluation tool, with attention given to cautions of scale interaction provided by the test authors (Kelly and Vitali, 1990).     

Group Performance Depends on the Majority Rule

Some group decisions require a two-thirds or three-quarters majority of the people voting; others require only a simple majority. Does the accuracy of a group's decision making depend on which majority rule is used? A signal detection theory analysis was used to answer this question. Each member of a group was presented with a noisy display of either a signal or a nonsignal, and then each member cast a yes or no vote for the existence of a signal. The group decision was determined by a majority rule of the members' votes. Normative groups and groups of 5 or 7 people exhibited the same behavior: Performance was best when the group used a simple-majority rule and decreased when the group used more stringent rules. The worst performance was produced by a unanimous rule. Some group members adopted more liberal response criteria when the majority rule was made more stringent.     

The management of science and the mismanagement of the world

The truth of a scientific proposition, finding, or an abstract ethical principle is not a static property inherent in it. Truth happens as the result of the management of human affairs. It becomes true, is discovered and made true by actions. Its verity is in fact a series of actions, a process: the process of its implementation. Its validity is gained through what may generally be called “the management of truth: (C. West Churchman and Ian I. Mitroff). ... The truth of an idea is not a stagnant property inherent in it. Truth happens to an idea. It becomes true, is made true by events. Its verity is in fact an event, a process: the process namely of its verifying itself, its verification. Its validity is the process of its validation. William James This paper will also appear in the volumeThe Experimenting Society: Policy Essays in Honor of Donald T. Campbell. New Brunswick, N.J., Transaction Publishers, 1994 (in press).