Predicting state anxiety: A comparison of multidimensional and unidimensional trait approaches

Endler has proposed that trait anxiety is multidimensional, with individual differences varying across several dimensions of stressing situations. Despite empirical support for the independence of some dimensions, some researchers have employed a single score on a multidimensional measure of trait anxiety, summed from the dimension scale scores, as a singular measure of generalized trait anxiety. This violates the theoretical underpinnings of the approach. This study examined whether a total score on a multidimensional measure of trait anxiety could supplement the ability of individual dimension scale scores in predicting state anxiety responses to dimension-congruent stress. Thirty-two female college students who scored at differing levels of dimensional and general anxiety were required to perform two laboratory stress tasks under conditions of stress representing different dimensions of trait anxiety. The results provide support for a multidimensional approach to general trait anxiety but indicate some value of a total score in supplementing predictions based on individual scale scores. The data provide a cautionary note that a total score on a multidimensional measure is of little value unless full consideration is given to the profile of dimension scale scores.     

Measures of timed performance and intelligence

The question of an association between IQ and measures of timed performance derived from inspection time and reaction time was examined in a sample of 182 adults and by reanalyzing data involving 48 adults from a previously published study. Multiple regression analysis found that measures of timed performance accounted for as much as 25% of IQ variance in the normal population, but that the inclusion of borderline and mildly retarded subjects resulted in much higher correlation coefficients because of the markedly less efficient performance of these persons in tasks of this kind. This outcome raised doubts about the validity of combining data from retarded and nonretarded subjects. Results ran counter to claims that tasks of the kind used are largely uninfluenced by cognitive variables, so that findings are not necessarily explained satisfactorily in terms of a mental speed factor. It was concluded that these measures of timed performance do not, at this time, provide a basis from which a reliable culture-fair measure of intelligence might be devised.     

Timing in the performance of Erik Satie's ‘Vexations’

In traditional studies of single cue probability learning the subject's errors and the covariation he/she establishes between the judgments and the cue (cue dependency) are confounded. Learning results in increased cue dependency which is necessarily accompanied by decreasing errors. This paper presents a method for disentangling errors from cue dependency. This is done by (1) making the criterion contingent upon the judgments instead of the cue, and (2) giving standard instructions, implying that the cue is informative about the criterion. In this way errors are controlled independently of any covariation that the subject may create between the cue and the judgments, and indirectly between the cue and the criterion (task regularity). The paper examines whether subjects aim at small errors or task-regularity when the task does not allow them to do both. It was found that error reduction does occur only when task-regularity can be maintained. Conclusion: task regularity, and thus cue-dependency, has priority to error reduction under the standard conditions used in single cue probability learning experiments. The study may be viewed as an example of conditions under which a cue illusion (false beliefs in the validity of a cue) arises.     

Acute pain in a clinical setting: Effects of cognitive-behavioural skills training

The present study evaluated the efficacy of cognitive-behavioural skills training, patterned after stress-inoculation training, as a preventive intervention for the attenuation of acute clinical pain during a noxious X-ray procedure—the knee arthrogram. Thirty-six adult male outpatients were randomly assigned to one of three groups: Skills Training. Attention-Placebo, and No-Treatment Control. An experimental pain test was administered before and after the interventions, as a generalization measure. Arthrogram pain was assessed by three dependent measures: patient's ratings, radiologist's ratings and videotape ratings completed by two‘blind’ raters. The results failed to support the efficacy of skills training for the attenuation of acute clinical pain, or its generalization to the experimental pain test. Although Skills Training subjects reported using significantly more coping strategies during the arthrogram. many subjects in the two control groups also reported using their own spontaneous strategies. Equivocal data were obtained on the role of ‘self-efficacy’ expectancies in mediating pain behaviour and experience. Experimental pain threshold but not pain tolerance was significantly related to acute clinical pain experienced during the arthrogram.     

Isolating the components of intelligence

In a recent volume (Sternberg, 1977b), I proposed a method called componential analysis that provides a means to isolate the components of intelligent performance. The method was described in detail, and then tested in a series of experiments. But an important question was left unanswered by this early work: Is componential analysis generalizable to tasks other than analogies? More recently, I have been investigating the generalization of the methodology to other tasks, and have also been engaged in extending the methodology in order to increase its flexibility of application. The present article (a) briefly summarizes the structure of a componential analysis, (b) describes the method of precuing, the method originally used for isolating the components of intelligence, and (c) describes new methods that have also been successful in isolating these components in a variety of reasoning tasks.     

Affective state and preference for immediate versus delayed reward

Fifty-two 9-year-olds were randomly assigned to success and failure treatment conditions involving acceptance or rejection of a drawing made for an art show. In a pilot study, this treatment was shown to influence significantly subjects' affective states. Just after treatment, subjects were presented with choices between pairs of small immediate and large delayed rewards. As predicted, subjects who had experienced success chose more often the large delayed reward than those who failed (p < .02). Prior expectancy for success and sex were not significantly related to choice behavior. The influence of affective state on various parameters of the choice paradigm was discussed, and other evidence was cited indicating that affective state is a major determinant of self-gratification behavior.     

Effectiveness of a brief counseling intervention in stimulating vocational exploration

The intervention procedures used in this study, a brief report of vocational interest scores and small group sessions on vocational planning, were designed to encourage girls to consider the full range of occupations, unrestricted by sex-role stereotypes. In each of three schools, ninth-grade girls with average academic ability or above were randomly assigned to an intervention group (N = 195) and a control group (N = 195). Analyses of 1- and 3-month outcome data indicated that the intervention stimulated occupational exploration and increased congruence between occupational preferences and measured interests. Outcomes differed according to interest type, thus suggesting that certain students may need more counselor attention than others.     

Blocking in successive differential conditioning: Prior acquisition of control by internal cues blocks the acquisition of control by brightness

In each of four experiments the acquisition of discriminative stimulus control by brightness cues (black vs white runway) in a successive go/no-go instrumental discrimination was blocked in groups given prior discrimination training with internal (reward-produced and intertrial interval-related) cues as relevant discriminanda and brightness cues irrelevant. The blocking effects obtained here in instrumental conditioning were substantial and in most cases complete. Blocking occurred whether brightness in Phase I varied across trials but was uncorrelated with reinforcement (varied-irrelevant, V-I, condition) or whether all Phase 1 trials occurred to a single value on the brightness dimension (constant-irrelevant, C-I, condition) which then served as a redundant S+ cue in Phase 2 while the previously unexperienced brightness cue was added to the S- stimulus compound, or vice versa. Blocking in the V-I condition was shown not to be due simply to nondifferential reinforcement of brightness in Phase 1, but to depend on the prior acquisition of discriminative stimulus control by internal cues. As in Pavlovian conditioning, blocking here was an increasing function of amount of prior conditioning to the blocking stimulus. The results encourage the prospect that the procedures used here can be developed into a viable instrumental conditioning companion to the Pavlovian procedures now used almost exclusively to study blocking.     

Noncanonical orientation without occlusion: Children's drawings of transparent objects

The use of a transparent model in a drawing task allows all the features of the model to remain visible whatever its orientation. N. H. Freeman (1980, Strategies of Representation in Young Children, New York/London, Academic Press) found that when drawing a transparent glass with its handle turned away, children made more canonical errors (drawing the handle at the side) than when drawing a similarly orientated opaque cup. According to Freeman being able to see the handle in a noncanonical orientation “triggers” a canonical representation of the object (N. H. Freeman 1980, p. 252). Two experiments are reported which investigated children's drawings of transparent objects. The drawings obtained from children between 4 and 7 years old produced two major findings. First, the tendency toward canonicality when drawing a glass with its handle turned away was significantly reduced when two glasses in differeing orientations were presented side by side. Second, the number of canonical errors was lower when the glass was filled with milk (thus hiding the handle). This latter finding confirms that of N. H. Freeman (1980). However, the first suggests that children use situationally appropriate information when drawing transparent objects in a way similar to that noted by A. M. Davis (1983, Contextual Sensitivity in Young Children's Drawings, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 35, 478–486) using opaque objects.