The Social Relations Model: An integrative method for personality research

As outlined by Snyder and Ickes (1985), the study of personality can be undertaken using one of three research approaches dispositional, situational, and interactive We show how the Social Relations Model provides an integrative method to estimate simultaneously dispositional, situational, and interactive effects Reviewed are component approaches to the study of personality The Social Relations Model is shown to be a component model (a special case of generalizability theory) applied in a social interaction context In the model, dispositional, situational, and interactive effects are termed actor, partner, and relationship effects, respectively The Social Relations Model can be used to answer a number of important issues in personality research The model can be used to assess reliability, measure the validity of self-ratings, and validate self-report inventories The model requires special designs in winch each person interacts with multiple partners Empirical examples are presented in which social anxiety, sex role inventories, and self-disclosure are studied     

Traditional Christian Belief and Belief in the Supernatural: Diverging Trends in the Netherlands Between 1979 and 2005?

Is there an ongoing decline in religious beliefs in the Netherlands? Using cross-sectional data from 1979 up to 2005, we focus on traditional Christian faith and belief in the supernatural; the literature suggests that they undergo diverging trends. We first describe these trends using the Social and Cultural Developments in the Netherlands surveys covering the 1979–2005 period. Explanations for the trends are formulated and tested using OLS regression models and a counterfactional simulation technique. Our findings indicate that during the 1979–2005 period both traditional Christian faith and belief in the supernatural declined, although the latter at a slower rate. Since church membership rates are continuously declining as well, belonging and believing still go hand in hand in the Netherlands. The most important explanation for both the decline in traditional Christian faith and the decline in belief in the supernatural is the slow but continuous replacement of older religious affiliated cohorts with younger nonaffiliated cohorts.     

On-line Homework/Quiz/Exam applet: Freely available Java software for evaluating performance on line

The Homework/Quiz/Exam applet is a freely available Java program that can be used to evaluate student performance on line for any content authored by a teacher. It has database connectivity so that student scores are automatically recorded. It allows several different types of questions. Each question can be linked to images and detailed story problems. Three levels of feedback are provided to student responses. It allows teachers to randomize the sequence of questions and to randomize which of several options is the correct answer in multiple-choice questions. The creation and editing of questions involves menu selections, buttonpresses, and the typing of content; no programming knowledge is required. The code is open source in order to encourage modifications that will meet individual pedagogical needs.     

Learn locally, think globally. Exemplar variability supports higher-order generalization and word learning

Research suggests that variability of exemplars supports successful object categorization; however, the scope of variability's support at the level of higher-order generalization remains unexplored. Using a longitudinal study, we examined the role of exemplar variability in first- and second-order generalization in the context of nominal-category learning at an early age. Sixteen 18-month-old children were taught 12 categories. Half of the children were taught with sets of highly similar exemplars; the other half were taught with sets of dissimilar, variable exemplars. Participants' learning and generalization of trained labels and their development of more general word-learning biases were tested. All children were found to have learned labels for trained exemplars, but children trained with variable exemplars generalized to novel exemplars of these categories, developed a discriminating word-learning bias generalizing labels of novel solid objects by shape and labels of nonsolid objects by material, and accelerated in vocabulary acquisition. These findings demonstrate that object variability leads to better abstraction of individual and global category organization, which increases learning outside the laboratory.     

Foveal-to-peripheral priming in letter identification reflects response bias, not enhanced visibility

Several studies have suggested that it might be easier to identify a letter when its replication is simultaneously presented in the visual display. We have measured identification accuracy for a memorized target letter that was shown in the peripheral field in two conditions in which a letter either identical or different in shape was flashed simultaneously at fixation. The results of three forced-choice experiments showed that, contrary to Geiger and Lettvin's (1986) previous findings, an identity prime did not improve the visibility of a temporally backward masked target letter. However, the foveal prime letter could apparently bias the subject's decision so that he/she was much more ready to report the more visible prime letter as the peripheral target.     

Consensus in personality judgments at zero acquaintance

This research focused on the target effect on a perceiver's judgments of personality when the perceiver and the target are unacquainted. The perceiver was given no opportunity to interact with the target, a condition we refer to as zero acquaintance. We reasoned that in order to make personality judgments, perceivers would use the information available to them (physical appearance). Consensus in personality judgments would result, then, from shared stereotypes about particular physical appearance characteristics. Results from three separate studies with 259 subjects supported this hypothesis. On two of the five dimensions (extraversion and conscientiousness) on which subjects rated each other, a significant proportion of variance was due to the stimulus target. Consensus on judgments of extraversion appears to have been largely mediated by judgments of physical attractiveness. Across the three studies there was also evidence that the consensus in judgments on these two dimensions had some validity, in that they correlated with self-judgments on those two dimensions.     

Vulnerability of older adults to deception in prison and nonprison contexts

Media reports frequently depict older adults as victims of deception. The public perceives these stories as particularly salient because older adults are seen as fragile victims taken advantage of because of trusting behaviors. This developmental investigation of deception detection examines older and younger adults interacting in 2 contexts, prison and the "free world," to discover whether older adults are vulnerable to deception. Younger prisoners were found to be lie biased. Older adults were better able to discriminate lies than younger adults, and this effect was localized primarily to older female adults. Findings indicate that discriminability strongly increases from younger to older age for women, whereas men do not show an improvement, as age increases, in making decisions about statement veracity.     

Factor analysis of the frontal systems behavior scale (FrSBe)

The Frontal Systems Behavior Scale (FrSBe), formerly called the Frontal Lobe Personality Scale (FLOPS), is a brief behavior rating scale with demonstrated validity for the assessment of behavior disturbances associated with damage to the frontal-subcortical brain circuits. The authors report an exploratory principal factor analysis of the FrSBe-Family Version in a sample including 324 neurological patients and research participants, of which about 63% were diagnosed with neurodegenerative diseases (Huntington's, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's diseases). The three-factor solution accounted for a modest level of variance (41%) and confirmed a factor structure consistent with the three subscales proposed on the theoretical basis of the frontal systems. Most items (83%)from the FrSBe subscales of Apathy, Disinhibition, and Executive Dysfunction loaded saliently on three corresponding factors. The FrSBe factor structure supports its utility for assessing both the severity of the three frontal syndromes in aggregate and separately.