Causal Attribution and Perceived Realism of Stories

Just as people generate causal explanations for social events around them, story readers usually generate inferences about causality of events when reading a story. The attribution literature suggests that, when judging events that happen to others, people spontaneously generate dispositional explanations for negative events and situational explanations for positive events and the reverse when judging events that happen to themselves. Three experiments examined how these spontaneously generated inferences of causality interacted with causal explanations provided by the text of a story to influence perceived realism. The results indicate that the relationship between spontaneously generated causal attributions and information supplied by the story had little influence on realism judgments about story characters or about other people. When evaluating the story scenario for the self, however, results of all three experiments show that people find information consistent with their own spontaneous attributions more realistic. The results contribute to our understanding of the psychological processes that may drive realism evaluations of stories and possible contrasting mechanisms between attributions in story worlds and the social world.     

In the Same Ballpark or a Whole New Ball Game? Staff as Raters of Youth Behavior

There is a lack of psychometrically sound tools for measuring youth outcomes in out-of-school time (OST) settings. Consequently, behavior ratings completed by OST staff are being scored as though the raters were teachers, even though cross-informant correlations are notoriously low (meta-analysis r?=?.27). Across 26 schools, 227 students were assessed by both teachers and OST staff using the Devereux Student Strengths Assessment (DESSA) to measure Social Emotional Competence. These 4th and 5th grade students were 50% male; 53% 5th graders; and 51% Latino, 20% Mixed/Other, 11% Black, 11% Asian, and 7% White. In the full sample, OST staff rated children’s behavior more harshly than teachers (p?<?.001; d?=?.32), although the scores were associated (r?=?.31, p?<?.001). Among the ratings completed within the same week, teacher and staff distributions were not statistically different. Teacher and staff ratings had a “medium” correlation (r?=?.42; p?=?.01) and a classification consistency (88%) that exceeded chance by a “moderate” amount (κ?=?.43). Few, if any, studies have previously compared the ratings of the same children by teachers and OST providers. Cross-informant inter-rater reliability between teachers and OST staff was higher than expected on the DESSA.     

Alpha,beta: The rhythm of the attentional blink

Extant theories of the attentional blink propose that the most critical factor in determining second target accuracy is the time that elapses between the first and second targets. We report that this conclusion has overlooked an equally important determinant, namely, the frequency of the entraining stream in which these targets are embedded. Specifically, we show in two experiments that the signature of the attentional blink—second target accuracy that increases with intertarget lag—is significantly larger for entraining streams that are in the alpha-beta frequency range, relative to streams that are slower (theta) or faster (gamma). This finding ties the attentional blink critically, for the first time, to these two prominent oscillation frequencies that are known to be involved in the control of human attention and consciousness.     

The company you keep: Fear of rejection in intergroup interaction

People use many cues to infer the likelihood of acceptance or rejection in intergroup interactions. Nearly all prior research has focused on personal cues directly given off by the potential interaction partner (e.g., eye contact and smiling). However, we argue that in the context of intergroup interactions, individuals may be especially sensitive to broader social cues, such as an interaction partner's social network. Across three experiments we explored differences in White participants' evaluations of a smiling Black man presented with a Black or White friend. When this Black man was featured with a Black friend, White participants reported greater rejection concerns and a greater inclination to reject this Black man compared to when he was featured with a White friend (Experiments 1-3) or featured alone (Experiment 2). Furthermore, when participants received a simple intervention designed to buffer against social rejection, the race of the Black man's friend no longer influenced participants' interests in befriending the Black man (Experiment 3). This research demonstrates the power of friendships in interracial interactions and provides evidence for a simple intervention to reduce the weight of rejection concerns in interracial interactions.     

I only have eyes for you: Ovulation redirects attention (but not memory) to attractive men

A number of studies have found a disjunction between women’s attention to, and memory for, handsome men. Although women pay initial attention to handsome men, they do not remember those men later. The present study examines how ovulation might differentially affect these attentional and memory processes. We found that women near ovulation increased their visual attention to attractive men. However, this increased visual attention did not translate into better memory. Discussion focuses on possible explanations, in the context of an emerging body of findings on disjunctions between attention to, and memory for, other people.     

Does logical pluralism imply,or suggest,truth pluralism,or vice versa?

The answers to the questions in the title depend on the kind of pluralism one is talking about. We will focus here on our own views. The purpose of this article is to trace out some possible connections between these kinds of pluralism. We show how each of them might bear on the other, depending on how certain open questions are resolved.

     

The Color Object Association Test (COAT): the development of a new measure of declarative memory for 18- to 36-month-old toddlers.

Few methods exist to measure declarative (explicit) memory in children during the toddler and preschool stages of development. We report the development and psychometric properties of a new measure of declarative memory for this age group, the Color Object Association Test (COAT). In pilot testing and large scale application of the test, the COAT was demonstrated to be a reliable and a valid measure of declarative memory for healthy children ages 18-36 months, living in a disadvantaged community. The test shows a linear developmental trajectory, which allows longitudinal examination of the development of declarative memory in children.     

Population-Wide Parenting Intervention Training: Initial Feasibility

A population-level approach to deliver parenting and family support is a necessary but neglected approach needed to reduce the high prevalence of emotional/behavioral problems in children, decrease inadequate and potentially abusive parenting practices, and to provide improved parenting support to all parents within a specified population. We examined the initial feasibility of a large-scale professional training regimen to prepare existing service providers to implement an evidence-based preventive intervention in the realm of parenting and family support. Data from the U.S. Triple P System Population Trial are used to illustrate how a parenting and family support intervention can be successfully disseminated to a large, multidisciplinary workforce. We discuss lessons learned from this dissemination effort as well as implications for population-based approaches to child and family well-being.     

Delivering phonological and phonics training within whole‐class teaching

Background Early, intensive phonological awareness and phonics training is widely held to be beneficial for children with poor phonological awareness. However, most studies have delivered this training separately from children's normal whole‐class reading lessons. Aims We examined whether integrating this training into whole class, mixed‐ability reading lessons could impact on children with poor phonological awareness, whilst also benefiting normally developing readers. Sample Teachers delivered the training within a broad reading programme to whole classes of children from Reception to the end of Year 1 (N = 251). A comparison group of children received standard teaching methods (N = 213). Method Children's literacy was assessed at the beginning of Reception, and then at the end of each year until 1 year post‐intervention. Results The strategy significantly impacted on reading performance for normally developing readers and those with poor phonological awareness, vastly reducing the incidence of reading difficulties from 20% in comparison schools to 5% in intervention schools. Conclusions Phonological and phonics training is highly effective for children with poor phonological awareness, even when incorporated into whole‐class teaching.     

Does failure to mask T1 cause lag-1 sparing in the attentional blink?

The attentional blink (AB) effect demonstrates that when participants are instructed to report two targets presented in a rapid visual stimuli stream, the second target (T2) is often unable to be reported correctly if presented 200-500 msec after the onset of the first target (T1). However, if T2 is presented immediately after T1, in the conventional lag-1 position (100-msec stimulus onset asynchrony; SOA), little or no performance deficit occurs. The present experiments add to the growing literature relating the "lag-1 sparing" effect to T1 masking. Using a canonical AB paradigm, our results demonstrate that T2 performance at lag 1 is significantly reduced in the presence of T1 masking. The implications of this outcome are discussed in relation to theories of the AB.