Personal warmth and psychological health at midlife

Personal warmth, arguably a strong trait in the makeup of psychological health, seems to fade in conceptual importance at midlife. In contrast, ideas of interiority and androgyny appear to gain conceptual importance at midlife. The present study sought to rebalance these foci by determining the predictive power of personal warmth for psychological health of men and women at age 50: first, by developing separate California Psychological Inventory (CPI) scales to assess personal warmth; next, by joining these warmth scales with the 20 standard CPI scales to predict psychological health. Without the personal warmth scale, the standard CPI scales do not significantly predict psychological health for men; for women, the standard scales do. For both genders, the personal warmth scales add significantly to the predictability of psychological health. The results point to an amendment of current theoretical formulations of interiority and androgyny to better understand optimal psychological development in men and women at midlife.     

Algorithms for processing spatial information

Pairs of stimuli taken from a psychometric measure of spatial aptitude were shown to 9-year-olds, 13-year-olds, and adults. The stimuli in pairs were (a) either identical or mirror images, and (b) presented in orientations that differed by 0-150 degrees. Individuals judged, as rapidly as possible, if the stimuli in a pair would be identical or mirror images if presented at the same orientation. In Experiment 1, in which the stimuli were letter-like characters, at all ages most persons solved the problems using an algorithm in which an individual encodes the stimuli in working memory, mentally rotates one stimulus to the orientation of the other, compares them to determine if they are identical, and responds. In Experiment 2, the stimuli were multielement flags; here, the modal algorithm for both 9- and 13-year-olds differed from the previously described algorithm in that if the comparison process revealed that the stimuli were dissimilar, individuals did not respond immediately, but continued processing until a self-imposed deadline was reached. Among adults, the modal algorithm was the same one used in Experiment 1. Results are discussed in terms of the roles of encoding in contributing to the use of a particular algorithm.     

Developmental trends in children's component selection

A new method is introduced for assessing children's component selection—i.e., the disposition to attend to a single feature of multifaceted stimuli. Eight-year-old children were found to exercise component selection to a lesser degree than 4-year-olds; while children at both age levels attended primarily to one stimulus component (shape), the older children showed a moderate amount of attention to a secondary redundant feature (color) as well. However, a comparable age difference in attention deployment was not observed when a single stimulus dimension (shape) was “relevant” in two variant tasks. These results imply a developmentally increasing ability to distinguish between conditions in which attending to redundant stimulus information can and cannot be useful. That this ability undergoes little further development beyond age 8 was suggested in a second experiment with 8- and 12-year-olds in which the three tasks produced relatively similar developmental trends in performance.     

The role of inference in children's comprehension and memory for sentences

In a series of studies, young children often failed to construct and remember inferred relationships which they were capable of understanding. A cued recall procedure was employed to assess the relative effectiveness of implicit and explicit word prompts for sentence memory. The implicit cues were much less effective than the explicit cues for 6–7 yr old children while the cue types did not differ for 11–12 yr olds. Instructions to imitate the actions described by the sentences eliminated the memory difference for the young children. Developmental improvement in spontaneous inferential operations and intentional plans to remember are mechanisms which appear to yield an elaborated memory representation and greater access routes through indirect and implied relationships.     

Motivation concepts and sexual identity

The association dimension of the Picture Identification Test (PIT) was used to investigate the motivation concepts of male and female university students classified as Declared Homosexual, Sexually Uncertain, Clinical Control, and Normal Control. The t test was used to identify Need Association Dyads which discriminated (p < .01) groups. Greater than chance numbers of variables discriminated each of the pairs of groups within each sex except the Sexually Uncertain versus Clinical Control Male groups, the Declared Homosexual versus Clinical Control Female groups, and the Declared Homosexual versus Normal Control Female groups. PIT Need Association Dyads were discussed as a type of implicit personality theory assessment with emphasis on the beliefs subjects hold about the simultaneous expression of needs.     

Attraction and altruism: With a little help from my friends

The present experiment was designed to determine whether the reinforcement value of an altruistic response is a function of attraction toward the victim and/or the affective state of the subject. Subjects (N = 95) received positive or negative evaluations from a victim or from a bystander and subsequently performed an altruistic response which terminated shock delivery to a victim on a series of 14 trials. Analyses of variance indicated that the acquisition of an altruistic response was greatest when attraction toward the victim was most positive (p < .0001) and nonexistent when attraction toward the victim was least positive. The results were consistent with the proposition that attraction rather than affect mediates altruistic reinforcement. Those subjects receiving negative evaluations from the victim failed to acquire the altruistic response, suggesting that failure to help may function as a form of passive aggression.     

Cheating,intention, and punishment from an equity theory perspective

Male college students were given the opportunity to deliver aversive noise to a partner (confederate) contingent on the partner's “mistakes” in a learning task. Subjects were either not informed about a reward or told that they, their partner, or a charity would receive a monetary reward for speedy learning. Half of the subjects observed the confederate cheat, while half did not observe any deceptive behavior. The intensity of punitive behavior seemed to vary in accordance with predictions derived from equity theory. That is, cheating for a charity, a “good cause” resulted in less intense punishment than did cheating for selfish gain. On the other hand, mistakes, uncomplicated by cheating, which deprived a charity were punished more intensely than were mistakes whose only result accrued to the confederate himself.