Gradable adjectives: A defence of pluralism

This paper attacks the Implicit Reference Class Theory of gradable adjectives and proposes instead a ‘pluralist’ approach to the semantics of those terms, according to which they can be governed by a variety of different types of standards, one, but only one, of which is the group-indexed standards utilized by the Implicit Reference Class Theory.     

Age-related differences in guessing on free and forced recall tests

This study examined possible age-related differences in recall, guessing, and metacognition on free recall tests and forced recall tests. Participants studied categorised and unrelated word lists and were asked to recall the items under one of the following test conditions: standard free recall, free recall with a penalty for guessing, free recall with no penalty for guessing, or forced recall. The results demonstrated interesting age differences regarding the impact of liberal test instructions (i.e., forced recall and no penalty) relative to more conservative test instructions (i.e., standard free recall and penalty) on memory performance. Specifically, once guessing was controlled, younger adults’ recall of categorised lists varied in accordance with test instructions while older adults’ recall of categorised lists did not differ between conservative and liberal test instructions, presumably because older adults approach standard free recall tests of categorised lists with a greater propensity towards guessing than young adults.     

The Clergy Occupational Distress Index (CODI): Background and Findings from Two Samples of Clergy

This study demonstrates the reliability and validity of the Clergy Occupational Distress Index (CODI). The five-item index allows researchers to measure the frequency that clergy, who traditionally have not been the subject of occupational health studies, experience occupational distress. We assess the reliability and validity of the index using two samples of clergy: a nationally representative sample of clergy and a sample of clergy from nine Protestant denominations. Exploratory factor analysis and Cronbach’s scores are generated. Construct validity is measured by examining the association between CODI scores and depressive symptoms while controlling for demographic, ministerial, and health variables. In both samples, the five items of the CODI load onto a single factor and the Cronbach’s alpha scores are robust. The regression model indicates that a high score on the CODI (i.e., more frequent occupational distress) is positively associated with having depressive symptoms within the last 4 weeks. The CODI can be used to identify clergy who frequently experience occupational distress and to understand how occupational distress affects clergy’s health, ministerial career, and the functioning of their congregation.     

Dual process theory and the context of choice: Comments on Dhar and Gorlin

Dhar and Gorlin show that default-interventionist dual-process theory differentially classifies several effects in the consumer choice literature and makes differential predictions across a variety of manipulations. One of the most startling differential classifications in their model is that it drives a wedge between the attraction and enhancement effects, because they arise from System 1 and System 2, respectively. System-2 bias effects explain why sometimes less complex organisms (nonhumans, human children) can display more normative behavior than human adults. Such a finding does not at all undermine the heuristics and biases research tradition, as is sometimes argued.     

Evoked prior learning experience and approach to learning as predictors of academic achievement

Background. In separate studies and research from different perspectives, five factors are found to be among those related to higher quality outcomes of student learning (academic achievement). Those factors are higher self‐efficacy, deeper approaches to learning, higher quality teaching, students’ perceptions that their workload is appropriate, and greater learning motivation. University learning improvement strategies have been built on these research results. Aim. To investigate how students’ evoked prior experience, perceptions of their learning environment, and their approaches to learning collectively contribute to academic achievement. This is the first study to investigate motivation and self‐efficacy in the same educational context as conceptions of learning, approaches to learning and perceptions of the learning environment. Sample. Undergraduate students (773) from the full range of disciplines were part of a group of over 2,300 students who volunteered to complete a survey of their learning experience. On completing their degrees 6 and 18 months later, their academic achievement was matched with their learning experience survey data. Method. A 77‐item questionnaire was used to gather students’ self‐report of their evoked prior experience (self‐efficacy, learning motivation, and conceptions of learning), perceptions of learning context (teaching quality and appropriate workload), and approaches to learning (deep and surface). Academic achievement was measured using the English honours degree classification system. Analyses were conducted using correlational and multi‐variable (structural equation modelling) methods. Results. The results from the correlation methods confirmed those found in numerous earlier studies. The results from the multi‐variable analyses indicated that surface approach to learning was the strongest predictor of academic achievement, with self‐efficacy and motivation also found to be directly related. In contrast to the correlation results, a deep approach to learning was not related to academic achievement, and teaching quality and conceptions of learning were only indirectly related to achievement. Conclusions. Research aimed at understanding how students experience their learning environment and how that experience relates to the quality of their learning needs to be conducted using a wider range of variables and more sophisticated analytical methods. In this study of one context, some of the relations found in earlier bivariate studies, and on which learning intervention strategies have been built, are not confirmed when more holistic teaching–learning contexts are analysed using multi‐variable methods.     

The Pediatric Neuropsychologist Introduction to the Special Section

Abstract

The rapid expansion of clinical neuropsychology during the past decade has fostered increasing specialization in the practices of neuropsychologists. Recent surveys indicate that a small but significant number of neuropsychologists devote most of their professional activities to children and adolescents. The growing interest in pediatric and child-clinical neuropsychology is reflected most recently in the formation of the Pediatric Neuropsychology Interest Group (PNIG) in August 1995 and the subsequent establishment of an internet mailing list devoted to pediatric neuropsychology in October 1996. This new special section of Child Neuropsychology was created to foster increased communication and opinion exchange among the community of pediatric and child-clinical neuropsychologists regarding research, training, and clinical issues. In this inaugural section, we present a thoughtful discussion of training issues in pediatric neuropsychology. Future sections that are already planned will discuss the reporting of neuropsychological evaluations, and graduate and postdoctoral preparation for specializing in child neuropsychology. As Editors of the special section, we welcome and encourage additional contributions from readers regarding these or any other issues as they pertain to the growth and development of the profession of pediatric neuropsychology.     

Depression reduces perceptual sensitivity for positive words and pictures

There is evidence of maladaptive attentional biases for lexical information (e.g., Atchley, Ilardi, & Enloe, 2003; Atchley, Stringer, Mathias, Ilardi, & Minatrea, 2007) and for pictographic stimuli (e.g., Gotlib, Krasnoperova, Yue, & Joormann, 2004) among patients with depression. The current research looks for depressotypic processing biases among depressed out-patients and non-clinical controls, using both verbal and pictorial stimuli. A d′ measure (sensitivity index) was used to examine each participant's perceptual sensitivity threshold. Never-depressed controls evidenced a detection bias for positive picture stimuli, while depressed participants had no such bias. With verbal stimuli, depressed individuals showed specific decrements in the detection of positive person-referent words (WINNER), but not with positive non-person-referent words (SUNSHINE) or with negative words. Never-depressed participants showed no such differences across word types. In the current study, depression is characterised both by an absence of the normal positivistic biases seen in individuals without mood disorders (consistent with McCabe & Gotlib, 1995), and by a specific reduction in sensitivity for person-referent positive information that might be inconsistent with depressotypic self-schemas.     

Basic emotions: Theory and measurement

Abstract

There have been new conceptualisations and new evidence bearing on the question of whether or not some emotions are basic. There has been innovation in work on cognitive appraisals of emotions, in cross-cultural research, and in developmental psychology. We introduce some of these ideas, and in introducing the contributors to this volume, we lay out four considerations that affect understanding of whether or not some emotions are basic. These considerations are the separability of components of emotion, the differences of definitions, and indicators used by different theorists of basic emotions, questions about whether some emotions are derived from others, and mappings between elicitors, accompaniments, and consequences of emotions.     

Structural constraints and object similarity in analogical mapping and inference

Theories of analogical reasoning have viewed relational structure as the dominant determinant of analogical mapping and inference, while assigning lesser importance to similarity between individual objects. An experiment is reported in which these two sources of constraints on analogy are placed in competition under conditions of high relational complexity. Results demonstrate equal importance for relational structure and object similarity, both in analogical mapping and in inference generation. The human data were successfully simulated using a computational analogy model (LISA) that treats both relational correspondences and object similarity as soft constraints that operate within a limited-capacity working memory; but not with a model (SME) that treats relational structure as pre-eminent.