Do causal attributions mediate the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic interest?

Many investigators have demonstrated that task-contingent extrinsic incentives can reduce an individual's interest in some intrinsically rewarding task. Although it has been widely assumed that this “undermining effect” is mediated by the individual's causal attributions for engaging in the task, there has been little independent verification of this notion. In the present study subjects were asked to perform an inherently interesting problem-solving task. Half of the subjects were told that they could earn money by solving the task successfully (Money condition), whereas the other half were not (Control condition). Consistent with previous research, Money condition subjects expressed less liking for the task. In addition, Many condition participants attributed their task performance to less internal causes. Furthermore, across conditions, subjects who attributed their behavior to less internal causes were less apt to enjoy the task. The present data, therefore, more convincingly implicate the mediating role of causal attributions in the relationship between extrinsic rewards and intrinsic interest. Alternative explanations are discussed.     

Thematic elaboration and proximity in childrens recall, organization, and long-term retention of pictorial materials.

Preschool and fifth-grade children were asked to learn and recall lists of nine pictures of common objects in which the thematic relationship and the physical proximity of subsets of items were varied. Five presentation conditions (lists) were employed: (1) subgroups of three items simultaneously presented with an explicit theme, (2) the same items as in (1) but randomly arranged in the subset, (3) unrelated items presented simultaneously in groups of three, (4) nine items presented successively but temporally blocked in subgroups of three, and (5) nine items displayed successively in a random arrangement. Recall and clustering scores indicated that the older children spontaneously elaborated pictures when subsets of items were presented simultaneously and when these items formed a natural theme. The preschool children failed to elaborate, responding more on the basis of the proximity of the items. Proximity was a potent recall cue for both age groups. Long-term tests, carried out after one week, showed good retention, the output organization of which closely paralleled that observed during original learning.     

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.     

The effect of pictures on the retention of novel words and prose passages

The effect of pictures on the retention of novel words and prose passages was examined for both good and poor readers. The findings suggest that for both groups of subjects the presence of pictures enhances recall of the prose passages but has no effect on the recognition and pronunciation of novel words. Systematic differences in the strategies used by good and poor readers were also observed.     

Free recall by deaf and hearing children: semantic clustering and recall in trained and untrained groups.

Free recall tasks with semantically categorizable stimuli were given to 60 deaf and 60 hearing children, divided equally among Grades 3, 5, and 7 (ages 9, 11, and 13 years, respectively). Half the children were trained to use semantic categorization as a memory aid after the first study-test trial. All subjects were told category labels and sizes on the third recall trial. As hypothesized, older children showed more spontaneous semantic clustering and higher recall scores than younger children. Training increased clustering in all groups, while the provision of category information at retrieval increased clustering regardless of training condition. Contrary to expectations, deaf children used semantic clustering as much as hearing children. Deaf children's recall scores, however, were significantly lower than hearing children's. The specific contrasts observed between deaf and hearing children's performance suggest that deaf children's recall deficiencies probably reflect either inadequate knowledge of category membership or inflexibility in reclassifying individual items, rather than a general inability to recognize and use the categorical nature of a list as a mnemonic aid.     

The attribution of friendliness

A study was conducted to explore attributions of friendliness resulting from live interaction. Subjects had either one or two encounters with a confederate whose behavior in each encounter was either friendly or unfriendly and was either spontaneous or forced by role requirements. Single encounter subjects formed impressions of the confederate that reflected the friendliness or unfriendliness of the confederate's behavior but these impressions were not modified by their knowledge that the confederate's behavior was freely chosen or forced. The same was true for subjects who had two friendly or two unfriendly interactions with the confederate. Subjects who found the confederate to be friendly in one encounter and unfriendly in the other formed impressions that took into account the causes of the confederate's behaviors. In general, these subjects modified their impressions according to the cause of the confederate's behavior in the second encounter.     

Confidence-judgment accuracy as a predictor of test performance

As part of the regular classroom testing procedure, undergraduate students in an introductory psychology course were asked to provide confidence judgments along with their answers to multiple-choice test items. The two objectives of the study were to determine the extent of students' confidence-judgment accuracy and the degree of relationship of this memory-monitoring ability to overall test performance. The results showed that even the students having the poorest test performance showed some confidence-judgment accuracy, and, more importantly, there was a strong positive relationship between confidence-judgment accuracy and test performance, r(43) = .49. Thus, students who know more also are better able to distinguish between known and unknown information.     

Validity of Adler's active-constructive,active-destructive,passive-constructive,and passive-destructive typology

This research investigated the validity of Adler's typology: active-constructive, achievement-oriented; active-destructive, hostile; passive-constructive, attention-seeking; and passive-destructive, interpersonal detachment. Four possible measures of the constructive-destructive dimension and two possible measures of activity-passivity were used, with all eight possible combinations being used to establish the Adlerian types (active-constructive, etc.). A total of 192 male undergraduates served as subjects. The Full I-E Scale in combination with the CPS Activity-Lack-of-Energy Scale produced groups that demonstrated the Adlerian relationships, active-constructive, achievement-oriented, and so forth. There were strong secondary personality manifestations within the respective groups.     

Sleep disturbances and depression are bidirectionally associated among college student athletes across COVID-19 pandemic exposure classes

College athletes may be vulnerable to sleep disturbances and depression during the COVID-19 pandemic as a result of large shifts in social and athletic obligations. In a national sample of college athletes, we examined the associations between sleep disturbances and depression across two timepoints, using COVID-19 exposure as a moderator. Data were collected from 2098 NCAA Division I, II, and III college athletes during two timepoints, from April 10 to May 23, and from August 4 to September 15, 2020. First, a latent class analysis was conducted with five indicators of levels of COVID-19 exposure to determine different exposure profiles. Second, to examine the directionality of associations between sleep disturbance and depression, a cross-lagged panel model was added to the latent class membership structural equation model; this allowed for testing of moderation by COVID exposure class membership. Four highly homogeneous, well-separated classes of COVID-19 exposure were enumerated: Low Exposure (57%); Quarantine Only (21%); High Other, Low Self Exposure (14%); and High Exposure (8%). COVID-19 exposure class membership did not significantly moderate associations between sleep disturbances and depression. However, student athletes significantly differed in T2 depression by their COVID-19 exposure class membership. Depression and sleep disturbances were positively correlated at both timepoints (r_T1 = 0.39; r_T2 = 0.30). Additionally, cross-lagged associations were found such that T2 depression was associated with T1 sleep disturbances (β = 0.14) and vice versa (β = 0.11). These cross-lagged associations were not significantly affected by athletes’ level of COVID-19 exposure during the beginning of the pandemic.