Motivational and Other Sources of Work Accomplishments in Mid–Life: A Longitudinal Study

ABSTRACT Earned Income and work accomplishment were determined at age 41 for 89 adults whose mothers had been interviewed for their child-rearing practices when the adults were 5 years old. At age 31, in spontaneous thought but not self-report, n Achievement predicted earned income and socialized power motivation predicted work accomplishment at age 41. Hardships (or "bad breaks") during childhood and adolescence predicted work outcomes for both men and women, as did education for men. Parenting achievement pressure in the first 2 years of life was associated with adult n Achievement and earned income, while moderate encouragement of assertiveness by mothers who were warm to boys and cool to girls was associated with adult socialized power motivation and work accomplishment. Controls for social class of origin, IQ, temperament, and education did not explain the relations between parenting, motivation, and work outcomes, although education played a larger role for men than women who worked both inside and outside the home.     

Preliminary letter identification in the perception of words and nonwords.

Words with mixed uppercase and lowercase letters (e.g. fAdE) were perceived more accurately than mixed-case pseudowords (e.g. gAdE), and mixed-case pseudowords were perceived more accurately than mixed-case unrelated letter strings (e.g. eFdT). In addition, same-case words were perceived more accurately than their mixed-case counterparts. The same held true for pseudowords but not for unrelated letter strings. The results are compatible with the view that both letter identify and visual form information are used in word perception.     

Motivational factors in health and disease

Evidence is reviewed that measures of motive strength, as measured through content analysis of associative thought, are related to physiological systems, the functioning of which affect health outcomes. Studies show that affiliative and power motive syndromes assessed in associative thought are associated with health and illness. A relaxed or easygoing affiliative motive syndrome characterizes insulin dependent Type I diabetics and can, if aroused, lead to poorer blood sugar control in such diabetics. A stressed power motive syndrome is associated with sympathetic activation, release of stress hormones, depressed immune functions, and greater susceptibility to infectious diseases. Affiliative trust and a greater sense of agency as measured in associative thought content are associated with better health. An intervention study and a longitudinal study have demonstrated that differences in the levels of these motivational variables are not simply the result of illness but lead to alterations in subsequent health status.     

Indirectly expressed motivational deficits among arthritic adults

The present experiment examined whether adults suffering from arthritis evidence motivational deficits reflective of a diminished sense of effectiveness in dealing with their environment. Content-coding of imaginative stories revealed that both osteoarthritics and rheumatoid arthritics possess significantly lower levels of achievement and power motivation compared with control subjects. Furthermore, arthritic patients with poor health status, as assessed by the Arthritis Impact Measurement Scales, were found to be especially low in their level of achievement motivation. No differences between arthritics and healthy controls were found when self-report measures of achievement and power motivation were used in place of the thematically coded indices. That is, arthritics reported that their desire to do something better and their desire to influence others was just as strong as that of healthy adults. This suggests that arthritic adults suffer from a motivational deficit that may not be revealed in response to direct questions about their motives or goals.This research was funded by a National Institute of Health Grant (AR 20613) to the Multipurpose Arthritis Center at Boston University and by a fellowship from the Seaver Institute.     

An investigation of cross-modality effects in implicit and explicit memory

Three experiments are reported which investigate the effects of study/test compatibility on implicit and explicit memory performance. In the first experiment subjects either named each visually presented target item, or generated each item from a close semantic associate. They were then given either a free recall test or a visual word-stem completion task. A generation effect was evident in the free recall data (generated items were better recalled than named items) and this pattern was reversed for word-stem completion. In the second experiment subjects again named or generated items and were then given an auditory word-stem completion task. Under these conditions, cross-modal priming was found both for named and for generated items, but the reverse generation effect, which was evident in Experiment 1 with word-stem completion, was eliminated. In the final experiment, subjects were asked to name the targets, read them silently, or read them under conditions of articulatory suppression, and were then given an auditory stem completion task. Significant cross-modal priming was observed under all three conditions. The strongest priming was found in the naming condition and the weakest in the suppression condition. The results are interpreted within the transfer appropriate processing framework.     

Intimate Justice: A Critical Analysis of Sexual Satisfaction

This article elaborates an intimate justice framework to help guide research on sexual satisfaction. Using a critical historiography approach, I examine the etiology and development of the psychological construct of “satisfaction” over the last century and argue that social and political antecedents to satisfaction ratings are an essential and under-theorized aspect of research in this field. By examining what are considered to be the most influential definitions in life satisfaction research, I identify conceptual gaps, oversights, and disagreements that characterize this body of work, and specifically its theoretical treatment of inequity. Moving to the intimate domain, I argue that the field of sexual satisfaction must include theories and methods that systematically consider the role of social and sexual stigmas as antecedents to sexual satisfaction ratings. In the conclusion, building from existing social justice theories, I propose an intimate justice framework as a means to guide research that can highlight issues of entitlement and deservingness in sexual satisfaction research. This is particularly important as sexual satisfaction is increasingly used as an indicator of individual and relational well-being; however, this construct is presently limited and inadequately measured for women and men who experience limited sexual rights in the socio-political domain because of their gender and/or sexual minority status.     

Understanding Strengths in Relation to Complex Trauma and Mental Health Symptoms within Child Welfare

Strengths can have a potent effect in mitigating the impact of trauma on mental health needs and functioning. Yet, evidence is limited on the role that strengths may have in ameliorating trauma-related or mental health symptoms over time. Providing a comprehensive assessment that includes strengths, as well as needs, is an important step in making appropriate service recommendations for youth in child welfare. This study assessed 7,483 children and adolescents entering an intensive stabilization program through the Illinois child welfare system. The interaction of individual, child strengths in relation to complex trauma exposure, traumatic stress symptoms, risk behaviors, and other mental health needs were examined. Results indicated strengths are relatively stable over time and inversely associated with several negative outcomes, including risk behaviors (?.32, p?<?.001), emotional/ behavioral needs (?.33, p?<?.001) and overall functioning (?.47, p?<?.001). Traumatic stress symptoms were also related to increases in these negative outcomes. Overall, strengths had a buffering effect on traumatic stress symptoms and outcomes over time. The role of strengths in relation to traumatic stress symptoms, however, was less consistent. Youth with histories of complex trauma exposure had significantly fewer useable strengths than youth without this exposure. However, strengths improved for both youth with and without complex trauma exposure over the course of stabilization services. These findings suggest that early identification and development of child strengths can mitigate risk-taking behaviors, mental health, and functional difficulties among youth in the child welfare system. Implications for more targeted trauma-informed and strengths-based assessment, and treatment/service planning are discussed.     

The effect of background music and noise on the cognitive test performance of introverts and extraverts

Previous research has found that the performance of introverts on complex cognitive tasks is more negatively affected by distracters, e.g. music and background noise, than the performance of extraverts. The present study extends previous research by examining whether or not background noise would prove to be as distracting as music. In the presence of silence, background UK garage music and background noise, 118 female secondary school students carried out three cognitive tests. It was predicted that introverts would do less well on all of the tasks than extraverts in the presence of music and noise but in silence performance would be the same. A significant interaction was found on all three of the tasks. It was also predicted that there would be a main effect of background sound: Performance would be worse in the presence of music and noise than silence. Results confirmed this prediction with one exception. This study also found a positive correlation between extraversion and intelligence, the implications of which are also discussed. The findings support the Eysenckian hypothesis of the difference in optimum cortical arousal in introverts and extraverts. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Repetition priming of words, pseudowords, and nonwords

In 5 experiments, the authors assessed repetition priming for words, pseudowords, and nonwords using a task that combines an implicit perceptual fluency measure and a recognition memory assessment for each list item. Words and pseudowords generated a consistently strong repetition effect even when there was a failure to recognize the stimulus. In 2 of the experiments, the repetition effect for nonwords was reliably above chance even when there was a failure to recognize the stimulus. The authors propose a parallel distributed processing (PDP) model based on the work of J. McClelland and D. Rumelhart (1985) as a way to understand the mechanisms potentially responsible for the pattern of findings. Although the error-driven nature of learning in the model results in a poor fit to the nonword priming data, this is not endemic to all PDP models. Using a model based on Hebbian learning, the authors instantiate a property that they believe is characteristic of implicit memory--that learning is primarily based on the strengthening of connections between units that become active during the processing of a stimulus. This model provides a far more satisfactory account of the data than does the error-driven model.     

Are there interactive processes in speech perception?

Lexical information facilitates speech perception, especially when sounds are ambiguous or degraded. The interactive approach to understanding this effect posits that this facilitation is accomplished through bi-directional flow of information, allowing lexical knowledge to influence pre-lexical processes. Alternative autonomous theories posit feed-forward processing with lexical influence restricted to post-perceptual decision processes. We review evidence supporting the prediction of interactive models that lexical influences can affect pre-lexical mechanisms, triggering compensation, adaptation and retuning of phonological processes generally taken to be pre-lexical. We argue that these and other findings point to interactive processing as a fundamental principle for perception of speech and other modalities.