Stress as a state of anticipatory vigilance

The pituitary-adrenocortical system is activated in stressful situations, and the adrenocortical hormones have been implicated by Selye in the diseases of stress. Evidence indicates that the adrenocortical hormones peak during the period of anticipation of stressful events, not during actual confrontation with them. The circadian cortisol rhythm shows peaks before waking, not during active periods of the day, and cortisol does not appear to be required during physical activity. The role of these hormones appears to be to suppress ongoing physiological activity in order to increase vigilance and to get the organism ready to take action before the impact of dangers.     

The word frequency effect in lexical decision: Finding a frequency-based component

Subjects making lexical decisions are reliably faster in responding to high-frequency words than to low-frequency words. This is known as the word frequency effect. We wished to demonstrate that some portion of this effect was due to frequency differences between words rather than to other dimensions correlated with word frequency. Three groups of subjects (10 engineers, 10 nurses, and I0 law students) made lexical decisions about 720 items, half words and half nonwords, from six different categories (engineering, medical, low-frequency nontechnical, medium-frequency nontechnical, and two groups of high-frequency nontechnical). Results of two analyses of variance revealed a crossover interaction such that engineers were faster in responding to engineering words than to medical words, whereas nurses were faster in responding to medical words than to engineering words. The engineering and medical words were equally long and equally infrequent by standard word counts. We take this as support for a frequency-based component in the word frequency effect. The practical implications of this research for estimating the readability of technical text are discussed.     

Affect, personality, and facial expressive characteristics of older people

This study explored the relationship between emotion-based personality traits and expressive patterns in older subjects. Specifically, the study sought to demonstrate (a) that individuals have emotion expression biases, as revealed by structural and dynamic properties of the face, and (b) that there is a link between facial characteristics (as indexed by the judgments of trained and naive raters) and personality traits. An encoding/decoding paradigm was used; 30 adult, naive judges rated five emotion-pose photographs for each of 14 older subjects who had also completed a personality trait measure. Results indicated that individuals vary in their ability to accurately encode emotion states and that these patterns are linked to personality traits in an affect-specific way. The results are discussed within the framework of Darwinian theory and Plutchik's model of personality.     

关联负变化(CNV)与反应时的关系

本实验采用选择性叠加方法,研究了关联负变化(Contingent NegativVariation以下简称CNV)与反应时的关系。证明:最长、最短反应时差异显著时,相对应的CNV面积差异也显著。CNV的这种差异主要表现在CNV面积的后半部分。对形成这种现象的原因作了讨论。     

A CROSS-CULTURAL STUDY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL DIFFERENTIATION

A cross-cultural study of psychological differentiation of Canadian and Pakistani high school students was undertaken to examine the nature of psychological differentiation in relation to differences in age/grade, gender, and academic programs. The study involved 707 Canadian students from grades 6, 8, 10, and 12; and 349 Pakistani students from grades 8, 9, 10, and 12. The Group Embedded Figures Test was employed as a measure of the field-dependence-independence cognitive style. Analyses of data included two-way and three-way analyses of variance to determine the effects of grade, gender, and academic program upon GEFT scores. Differences in psychological differentiation between high school students in the two cultures were discussed in terms of Berry's eco-cultural model.     

Cue depreciation: when word fragment completion is undermined by prior exposure to lesser fragments

The ability to think of a previously studied item has often been shown to be impaired when, in one way or another, the extraitem context is changed from study to test. In a series of five experiments, such impairment is induced in a somewhat different way. A fragment (e.g. r-i--rop) of a just-studied word (raindrop) is shown to be less readily completed if it is presented bit by bit (r------p, r----r-p, r-i--r-p, r-i--rop) rather than all at once (Experiments 1, 3, 4, and 5). No such effect is found if the word has not been studied beforehand (Experiments 2, 3, 4, and 5). This pattern of results occurs even when fragments of studied and nonstudied words occur in the same test and under conditions in which subjects cannot tell whether a given fragment is of a studied or nonstudied word (Experiments 4 and 5). In addition, for words that have been studied beforehand, the impairment is shown to increase systematically with the number of steps involved in the presentation of the word fragment (Experiment 3) and also to persist when the time allowed for completion of the final version of the fragment is increased from 4 s to a full minute (Experiment 5).     

The process of scapegoating in a neonatal nurses' group

This paper reviews the literature on scapegoating, elaborating on the underlying mechanisms before describing the process of scapegoating as it occurred in a neonatal nurse support group. Illustrative vignettes are used to discuss how scapegoating was used by group members to avoid painful feelings arising from their care of extremely ill infants. Group process is related to the stages of the group's development as feelings were addressed more directly and the need to use scapegoating as a defense decreased.     

两例先天性无痛症患者的心理生理特点研究 Ⅰ.情绪特点

本工作研究两例先天性无痛症患者的心理特点,主要是其情绪特点,以探讨疼痛和情绪的关系,并借以检验疼痛学说的意义。例一,女,10岁,智力略低于正常,艾森克少年儿童人格问卷表评定人格正常。与身体损伤有关的恐惧感明显缺乏,但与社会和教育影响有联系的恐惧感却甚于正常儿童。情绪急躁,易发作暴发性脾气而不能控制。在突然刺激(强光、强铃声)下的反应和正常儿童相近。例二,男,13岁,智力明显落后,人格评定正常,各种恐惧感均明显缺乏。情绪经常呈明显欣快状态。突然刺激下有口语惊吓和动作反应但无相应的面部表情和植物性神经系统的变化。两例均有无目的的多动作表现。看来疼痛和情绪有某种关系,但本结果并不能证实疼痛的情绪学说。     

METAANALYSES OF VALIDITY STUDIES PUBLISHED BETWEEN 1964 AND 1982 AND THE INVESTIGATION OF STUDY CHARACTERISTICS

Review and metaanalyses of published validation studies for the years 1964-1982 of Journal of Applied Psychology and Personnel Psychology were undertaken to examine the effect of (1) research design; (2) criterion used; (3) type of selection instrument used; (4) occupational group studies; and (5) predictor-criterion combination on the level of observed validity coefficients. Results indicate that concurrent validation designs produce validity coefficients roughly equivalent to those obtained in predictive validation designs and that both of these designs produce higher validity coefficients than does a predictive design which includes use of the selection instrument. Of the criteria examined, performance rating criteria generally produced lower validity coefficients than did the use of other more "objective" criteria. In comparing the validities of various types of predictors, it was found cognitive ability tests were not superior to other predictors such as assessment centers, work samples, and supervisory/peer evaluations as has been found in previous metaanalytic work. Personality measures were clearly less valid. Compared to previous validity generalization work, much unexplained variance in validity coefficients remained after corrections for differences in sample size. Finally, the studies reviewed were deficient for our purposes with respect to the data reported. Selection ratios, standard deviations, reliabilities, predictor and criterion intercorrelations were rarely and inconsistently reported. There are also many predictor-criterion relationships for which very few validation efforts have been undertaken.