Beliefs around luck: Confirming the empirical conceptualization of beliefs around luck and the development of the Darke and Freedman beliefs around luck scale

The current study developed a multi-dimensional measure of beliefs around luck. Two studies introduced the Darke and Freedman beliefs around luck scale where the scale showed a consistent 4 component model (beliefs in luck, rejection of luck, being lucky, and being unlucky) across two samples (n = 250; n = 145). The scales also show adequate reliability statistics and validity by ways of comparison with other measures of beliefs around luck, peer and family ratings and expected associations with measures of personality, individual difference and well-being variables.     

The relationship among positive emotional dispositions,career adaptability,and satisfaction in Italian high school students

Using a sample of 242 Italian high school students, we examined the direct relation of hope and optimism on four dimensions of career adaptability (i.e. curiosity, confidence, control, and concern) as well as the mediating effect of these four adaptability dimensions on the relations of hope and optimism on the subcomponents of satisfaction. The results of the study demonstrated that both hope and optimism significantly predicted various dimensions of career adaptability. Additionally, the degree to which hope related to students' subcomponents of satisfaction was mediated by two of the four dimensions of career adaptability (i.e. curiosity and confidence). The dimensions of adaptability did not mediate the relations of optimism on satisfaction. These findings have implications for both research and practice.     

How social connectedness affects guilt and shame: Mediation by hope and differentiation of self

We tested a mediation model of social connectedness and guilt and shame. Social connectedness was hypothesized to be related to greater hope and differentiation of self. Hope and differentiation of self, in turn, were expected to be related to less shame and more prosocial guilt. The results found that hope mediated the relationship between social connectedness and guilt, and differentiation of self mediated the relationship between social connectedness and shame. Alternative explanatory models were explored and taken into consideration in the interpretation of the results.     

The Making of the Reliably Religious Boy

In Men, Religion, and Melancholia: James, Otto, Jung, and Erikson (D. Capps, 1997) and Men and Their Religion: Honor, Hope, and Humor (D. Capps, 2002), I argued that men are no less religious than women, but their religiousness is different from that of women because it has its psychological origins in the emotional separation between a boy and his mother around the ages of three to five. Employing Freud’s “Mourning and Melancholia” (S. Freud, 1917/1963) essay, I suggested that their religiousness is rooted in an ontological state of melancholy (which is different from the psychological state of depression). In Men and Their Religion I identified the religions of honor and of hope as the primary forms of male melancholic religion, and suggested that humor is a third form that may come to one’s assistance when one experiences the limitations of the other two religions. In this article, I focus on my own early adolescent years (age 11–14) and explain how one boy became reliably religious, that is, how he embraced or internalized the religions of honor and of hope. In the companion article, I will explain how these two religions were relativized—and thereby preserved—by the religion of humor.     

Evaluation of the Dispositional Hope Scale in injury survivors

Hope is a higher-order cognitive construct that encompasses the belief in one’s ability to accomplish personal goals. Hope has been conceptualised as consisting of two constructs – Pathways (the individual’s perceived means available to achieve goals) and Agency (belief in ones ability to succeed in using the identified Pathways). This study aimed to validate a measure of hope, the Dispositional Hope Scale (DHS: [Snyder, C. R., Harris, C., Anderson, J. R., Holleran, S. A., Irving, L. M., Sigman, S. T., et al. (1991). The will and the ways: Development and validation of an individual differences measure of hope. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 60(4), 570–585]) in a large sample of traumatic injury survivors (N = 1025). The findings support the psychometric properties of the scale, as well as the two-factor structure of Agency and Pathways, in this population. This study provides support for the use of the DHS as a measure of hope in traumatised populations.     

Resistance to yielding and the expectation of cooperative future interaction in negotiation

The expectation of cooperative future interaction (ECFI) encouraged especially high joint benefit (the total of the two bargainers' individual outcomes) when resistance to yielding was high, but especially low joint benefit when resistance to yielding was low. Process data suggest that this finding can be explained as follows: When resistance to yielding is high, ECFI encourages problem solving and reduced contentious behavior; when resistance to yielding is low, ECFI encourages a collapse of aspirations. The results support Filley's (1975) dualconcern model and cast doubt on Deutsch's (1973) blanket assertion that a cooperative process leads to constructive conflict resolution.     

A developmental perspective on reading dysfunction: Accuracy and rate criteria in the subtyping of dyslexic children

Children referred with specific reading dysfunction were subtyped as accuracy disabled or rate disabled according to criteria developed from an information processing model of reading skill. Multiple measures of oral and written language development were compared for two subtyped samples matched on age, sex, and IQ. The two samples were comparable in reading fluency, reading comprehension, word knowledge, and word retrieval functions. Accuracy disabled readers demonstrated inferior decoding and spelling skills. The accuracy disabled sample proved deficient in their understanding of oral language structure and in their ability to associate unfamiliar pseudowords and novel symbols in a task designed to simulate some of the learning involved in initial reading acquisition. It was suggested that these two samples of disabled readers may be best described with respect to their relative standing along a theoretical continuum of normal reading development.     

The effect of context during word perception in schizophrenic patients

Hospitalized chronic and acute schizophrenics were compared with age- and social-status-matched controls on word perception tests to measure the effect of context on recognition thresholds. In Experiment 1 the method of J. Morton (1964, British Journal of Psychology, 55, 165-180) was adopted to see how related and unrelated contexts influenced word recognition thresholds when both context and stimulus word were presented visually. Experiment 2 was an auditory analog of Experiment 1 and in addition the chronic schizophrenics were selected on the basis of a presence or absence of auditory hallucinations. The influence of context on perceptual thresholds was quite normal in all schizophrenics. However, analysis of the incorrect responses elicited showed that some schizophrenic subjects do produce bizarre or irrelevant responses or perseveration to a greater extent than their controls. These results are explained in terms of automatic and strategic modes of information processing. The automatic processes responsible for the adjustment of perceptual thresholds operate normally in schizophrenics but response production which demands strategic selection and editing of responses is prone to malfunction which results in the observed deviations in the normal use of language.     

Asymmetry of perception in free viewing of chimeric faces

We have devised a new free-vision task to index functional cerebral asymmetry for processing facial characteristics. Confirming its sensitivity to properties of lateralized hemispheric functions, left- and right-handers were clearly differentiated on this task with respect to several aspects of performance that conform with known differences between handedness groups in hemispheric asymmetry. Additionally, there were highly reliable and stable individual differences in perceptual asymmetries within handedness. Analyses of items in the task revealed that most of the differences between items in the asymmetries they elicited were random.     

Facing up to the issues: Reply to Hellige (1983)

In a recent article in this journal, Hellige (Brain and Cognition, 2, 199-203, 1983) presented a critique of the chimeric-face technique that was used by us to validate a hand preference questionnaire. Data were presented by Hellige to show that the left visual field (LVF) bias that occurs on this task is due primarily to differences in detail in the features of the two faces and not because of right hemisphere dominance for face perception. In our rebuttal, we acknowledge that the two faces are not mirror-image duplicates of each other, but contend that this fact does not explain why differences between left-handers and right-handers have been observed on this task. Further data on the role of handedness as well as other variables impacting on this task are presented. A possible explanation is also offered for the rather small extent of LVF bias that Hellige obtained when he used corrected (i.e., true mirror-image) versions of Jaynes' chimeric faces.