Automaticity of chronically accessible constructs in person?×?situation effects on person perception: It's just a matter of time.

Models of Person?×?Situation influences on social behavior and judgment have invoked 2 distinct mechanisms: a personality disposition and a situational press. In this study we conceptualized both influences in terms of a single underlying mechanism, construct accessibility. We pitted the characteristic ways that individuals perceive others against situational influences on accessibility (i.e., contextual priming) and tracked over time the relative power of these competing influences on the outcome of an impression-formation task. Ss possessed either a chronically accessible (chronics) or an inaccessible (nonchronics) construct for either outgoing or inconsiderate behavior. As the delay since the priming event lengthened (from 15 to 180 s), chronics were progressively more likely to use the chronically accessible construct instead of the primed alternative construct to categorize an ambiguous target behavior, whereas nonchronics' relative use of the primed and alternative constructs did not change as a function of postpriming delay. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The interaction model of anxiety and the threat of Quebec's separation from Canada.

The interaction model of anxiety was investigated by assessing trait and state anxiety in students at a Canadian university during the Quebec referendum. The results of Study 1 confirmed that the threat of separation by Quebec from Canada was perceived as an ambiguous, uncertain situation. In Study 2, reactions to this situation were assessed by having participants complete measures of anxiety and situation perception at Time 1 (i.e., 3 hr before the event) and Time 2 (i.e., 1 week after the vote). The results provide support for the interaction model; individuals who were high in trait anxiety in ambiguous situations and appraised the referendum situation as threatening were characterized by elevated state anxiety before the uncertain outcome of the vote. The results illustrate the need to examine trait anxiety and specific appraisals of situational threat in uncertain life situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Creating satisfaction in steady dating relationships: The role of personal goals and situational affordances.

This research extends previous work indicating that individuals are more effective at regulating their behavior when they are in goal-congruent contexts by examining whether individuals particularly need concrete goal-relevant situational affordances once they are in these broadly affirming contexts. Specifically, the authors explore this issue by using the broad context of steady dating relationships (i.e., intimacy-relevant contexts), and considering the role of both intimacy goals and intimacy-affording daily life situations in producing relationship satisfaction and maintenance over time. Results indicate that those with a strong focus on intimacy experience considerable relationship satisfaction regardless of whether they spend time in daily life situations that facilitate intimacy, whereas those without such a focus depend for satisfaction on the presence of intimacy-conducive situations (e.g., time alone with one's partner, or social support from one's partner). Discussion focuses on the theoretical implications of these findings for the Person x Situation literature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Integrating dispositions, signatures, and the interpersonal domain.

A person's behavior across situations can be characterized in terms of a mean level (disposition), a dispersion within the person around that mean level, and a stable organization to the pattern of dispersion (signature). The authors' goals were to examine the structure and stability of behavior, both at the level of behavioral dispositions and at the level of behavioral signatures. Participants completed event-contingent records of their social interactions over a 20-day period. Participants recorded their own social behavior (dominant, agreeable, submissive, quarrelsome) in 4 situations defined by the perceived social behavior of their primary interaction partners (agreeable-dominant, agreeable-submissive, quarrelsome- submissive, quarrelsome-dominant). Findings suggest that (a) once the normative influences of situations on behavior are removed, the remaining behavioral variation reflects both consistent cross-situational differences between individuals (dispositions) and consistent situational differences within individuals (signatures); (b) both dispositions and signatures display a 2-dimensional structure in adherence to the interpersonal circle; and (c) both dispositions and signatures constitute stable aspects of personality functioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychosocial stress and coping in smokers who relapse or quit.

Selected responses and coping skills in 23 male and 21 female adult smokers and ex-smokers were evaluated in 4 situational contexts: general social competence, smoking-specific high-risk-for-relapse situations, social anxiety, and relaxation. Results show that quitters coped better than relapsers with intrapersonal (e.g., negative mood) smoking-specific situations. Quitters had lower heart rates than relapsers during relaxation and intrapersonal situations and had lower anxiety scores at the end of the procedures. Women showed more stress and less confidence in their ability to cope than men. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Forming implicit and explicit attitudes toward individuals: Social group association cues.

The authors explored how social group cues (e.g., obesity, physical attractiveness) strongly associated with valence affect the formation of attitudes toward individuals. Although explicit attitude formation has been examined in much past research (e.g., S. T. Fiske & S. L. Neuberg, 1990), in the current work, the authors considered how implicit as well as explicit attitudes toward individuals are influenced by these cues. On the basis of a systems of evaluation perspective (e.g., R. J. Rydell & A. R. McConnell, 2006; R. J. Rydell, A. R. McConnell, D. M. Mackie, & L. M. Strain, 2006), the authors anticipated and found that social group cues had a strong impact on implicit attitude formation in all cases and on explicit attitude formation when behavioral information about the target was ambiguous. These findings obtained for cues related to obesity (Experiments 1 and 4) and physical attractiveness (Experiment 2). In Experiment 3, parallel findings were observed for race, and participants holding greater implicit racial prejudice against African Americans formed more negative implicit attitudes toward a novel African American target person than did participants with less implicit racial prejudice. Implications for research on attitudes, impression formation, and stigma are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Instigative aggression as a function of past experience and target characteristics.

Examined third-party-instigated aggression by manipulating the provocativeness of the same or a new target in Part 2 of a task. Effects of previous experience with aggression (i.e., interacting with partners supportive of or disapproving of aggression in Part 1) were also examined. Ss were 80 female undergraduates. Although the provocativeness of the target accounted for the most variance in the amount of aggression expressed, when the target in Part 2 was new, prior experience influenced aggression. Results are discussed in terms of an interactional model of behavior. The clearer the current situational demands (i.e., known, predictable target) were, the less the influence of past aggressive experience on continued aggression; the more ambiguous the current situation (i.e., new, unpredictable target) was, the more the influence of past aggressive experience on continued aggression. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Longitudinal Relations of Regulation and Emotionality to Quality of Indonesian Children's Socioemotional Functioning.

Data regarding individual differences in children's regulation, emotionality, quality of socioemotional functioning, and shyness were obtained from teachers and peers for 112 Indonesian 6th graders. Similar data (plus parents' reports) also were collected when these children were in 3rd grade. For boys, regulation and low negative emotionality generally predicted positive socioemotional functioning (e.g., social skills, adjustment, prosocial tendencies and peer liking, sympathy) within and across time and across reporters, even at the follow-up when initial levels of regulation or negative emotionality were controlled. For girls, relations were obtained primarily for concurrent teacher reports, probably because girls tended to be fairly well regulated and socially competent and variability in their scores was relatively low. Shyness for both sexes tended to be associated with concurrent measures of low regulation, high negative emotionality, and low quality of social competence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting unpredictability: Do measures of interpersonal rigidity/flexibility and distress predict intraindividual variability in social perceptions and behavior?

Maladjusted individuals have been theorized to exhibit problematic intraindividual variability of social behavior across situations. This variability is either excessively high (i.e., unpredictable) or low (i.e., rigid), or the behavior is inappropriately matched to the interpersonal context (noncomplementary). However, research has not tested systematically whether interpersonal distress and purported measures of rigidity actually predict these different types of variability across a broad range of social situations. Participants completed measures of interpersonal functioning and then responded to a range of hypothetical interpersonal scenarios, rating perceptions of others and their own expected behavioral responses (Study 1). A subset of participants also rated others’ and their own social behaviors across a week of naturalistic social interactions (Study 2). Results most consistently suggested that interpersonal distress predicts high intraindividual variability, with little support for the measurement or theory of rigidity. Moreover, variability of social perceptions partially mediated the link between distress and behavioral variability. Results largely persisted even after accounting for gender and variables’ mean levels, and cannot be fully explained by interpersonal complementarity. The implications of these dynamic processes for understanding personality and interpersonal adjustment are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex differences in the use of demand and withdraw behavior in marriage: Examining the social structure hypothesis.

Studies consistently show sex differences in married couples' use of demand and withdraw behavior. The social structure hypothesis proposes that these differences are the result of power differentials between spouses. This study examined the link between 3 aspects of marital power and demanding and withdrawal behavior. Contrary to social structure predictions, results showed that wives did not possess less decision-making ability or access to resources and appeared to exhibit greater situational power (i.e., domineering and dominant behaviors) than did their husbands during problem-solving discussions. Furthermore, the spouse who exhibited the most demands also exhibited the most domineering and dominant behaviors, whereas the spouse who exhibited the most withdrawal exhibited the least domineering and dominant behaviors during problem-solving discussions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anxiety sensitivity and situation-specific drinking

To assess the typical drinking situations of high anxiety sensitive individuals, relative to low anxiety sensitive individuals, a large sample of university student drinkers (N = 396) completed the 42-item version of the Inventory of Drinking Situations (IDS-42) and the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI). As hypothesized, ASI scores were significantly positively correlated with drinking frequency on the higher order IDS-42 factor of negatively reinforcing drinking situations and not significantly correlated with drinking frequency on the higher order factor of positively reinforcing drinking situations. Also, ASI scores were significantly positively correlated with drinking frequency on the lower order drinking situations factors of Conflict with Others, Unpleasant Emotions, and Physical Discomfort. ASI scores were also unexpectedly significantly correlated with more frequent drinking on the higher order factor of temptation drinking situations and with more frequent drinking on the lower order drinking situations factor of Testing Personal Control. These results have important implications for designing early prevention and intervention programs for high anxiety sensitive university student drinkers by helping them to develop alternatives to drinking in those situations (e.g., negatively reinforcing drinking situations) which place them at greatest risk for alcohol misuse.     

Working memory and the syndromes of schizotypal personality

The aim of this study was to investigate dorsolateral prefrontal function, as assessed by a spatial working memory task, in relation to the syndromal features of schizotypal personality. We found a weak association between a self-report measure of schizotypy and the working memory performance. Those with a high score on the schizotypal personality questionnaire tended to make more errors on the spatial working memory task. One sub-scale of the schizotypal personality questionnaire that taps into social functioning was significantly correlated with working memory deficit. This result suggests the presence of subtle prefrontal deficit in a sub-group of psychometrically ascertained schizotypic individuals and renders support for the past reports of working memory deficit in schizophrenia and schizotypy.     

Stability in the midst of change: A dispositional approach to job attitudes.

Analyzed data on the job satisfaction of over 5,000 45–59 yr old males to investigate the dispositional argument that job attitudes are consistent within individuals, showing stability both over time and across situations. Data were collected longitudinally over multiple waves, with the majority of the sample assessed on job satisfaction during 1966, 1969, and 1971. Results show significant stability of attitudes over a 5-yr time period and significant cross-situational consistency when individuals changed employers and/or occupations. Prior attitudes were also a stronger predictor of subsequent job satisfaction than either changes in pay or the social status of the job. Implications of these results for developing dispositional theories of work behavior are discussed, along with possible implications for popular situational theories (e.g., job design, social information processing). (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Syntactic ambiguity resolution in discourse: Modeling the effects of referential context and lexical frequency.

Sentences with temporarily ambiguous reduced relative clauses (e.g., The actress selected by the director believed that …) were preceded by discourse contexts biasing a main clause or a relative clause. Eye movements in the disambiguating region (by the director) revealed that, in the relative clause biasing contexts, ambiguous reduced relatives were no more difficult to process than unambiguous reduced relatives or full (unreduced) relatives. Regression analyses demonstrated that the effects of discourse context at the point of ambiguity (e.g., selected) interacted with the past participle frequency of the ambiguous verb. Reading times were modeled using a constraint-based competition framework in which multiple constraints are immediately integrated during parsing and interpretation. Simulations suggested that this framework reconciles the superficially conflicting results in the literature on referential context effects on syntactic ambiguity resolution. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intraindividual stability in the organization and patterning of behavior: Incorporating psychological situations into the idiographic analysis of personality.

In nomothetic analyses, the cross-situational consistency of individual differences in social behavior, assessed in vivo in a camp setting, depended on the similarity in the psychological features of situations. As predicted by the social-cognitive theory of personality, idiographic analyses revealed that individuals were characterized by stable profiles of if… then…, situation–behavior relationships that formed "behavioral signatures" of personality (e.g., he aggresses when warned by adults but complies when threatened by peers). Thus, the intraindividual organization of behavior variation across situations was enduring but discriminatively patterned, visible as distinctive profiles of situation–behavior relationships. Implications were examined for an idiographic reconceptualization of personality coherence and its behavioral expressions in relation to the psychological ingredients of situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Employing people with disabilities: Impact of attitude and situation.

Examined the impact of attitude and hypothetical situational encounters on affective, behavioral and cognitive responses of nondisabled employees toward coworkers with disabilities. 176 Ss completed the Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scale, and responded to 1 of 9 situations of varying levels of intimacy in which they imagined themselves and a person with an immediately obvious disability. Their affective, behavioral and cognitive reactions were assessed by 3 different measures. Both more negative attitudes and situations with higher discomfort levels resulted in the most negative responses. Attitude and situation independently influenced responses. Findings provide a basis for interventions by rehabilitation professionals who work with individuals with disabilities and for employers seeking to implement the Americans with Disabilities Act. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributional Biases in Aggressive Children and Their Mothers.

To investigate if mothers and their aggressive children share the tendency to infer hostile motives from others' behavior in ambiguous social situations, 100 pairs of mothers and their clinic-referred or comparison children (50 boys and 50 girls) were asked to interpret hypothetical situations involving both overtly and relationally provocative scenarios. Results replicated previous findings of studies on social information processing of aggressive children and extended the findings to mothers of aggressive children. Findings were generally consistent with the hypothesis that mothers of aggressive children tend to view others' ambiguous actions as hostile, increasing the probability of responding with aggression and, in effect, modeling a hostile attributional bias for their children. Examinations of mothers' and their children's attributional and behavioral intentions suggested that mothers' and daughters' attributions and behavioral intentions were significantly correlated, whereas mothers' and sons' were not. Gender effects with regard to provocation type are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Behavior therapy and the transdermal nicotine patch: Effects on cessation outcome, affect, and coping.

The process and outcome of a smoking cessation program using behavior therapy alone (BT) or behavior therapy plus the nicotine patch (BTP) was studied in 64 participants. Participants quit smoking on a target date after a period of ad libitum smoking, cognitive-behavior therapy preparing them for cessation, and behavioral rehearsal for high-risk situations, including stress management, and coping with negative affect. Abstinence was significantly higher for the BTP group versus the BT group from the end of behavioral treatment (79% vs. 63%) through the 3-month follow-up (pp?=?.06) and 12-month marks (p?=?38% vs. 22%). More general distress was observed among BT versus BTP participants ( i.e., increased withdrawal, tension, fatigue, and coping frequency with decreased coping effort; coping-to-urge ratio). The coping behavior of the BTP group may have been more effective than that of the BT group, as indicated by their significantly higher level of self-efficacy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A personality trait-based interactionist model of job performance.

Evidence for situational specificity of personality job performance relations calls for better understanding of how personality is expressed as valued work behavior. On the basis of an interactionist principle of trait activation (R. P. Tett & H. A. Guterman, 2000), a model is proposed that distinguishes among 5 situational features relevant to trait expression (job demands, distracters, constraints, releasers, and facilitators), operating at task, social, and organizational levels. Trait-expressive work behavior is distinguished from (valued) job performance in clarifying the conditions favoring personality use in selection efforts. The model frames linkages between situational taxonomies (e.g., J. L. Holland's [1985] RIASEC model) and the Big Five and promotes useful discussion of critical issues, including situational specificity, personality-oriented job analysis, team building, and work motivation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Long-term effects of neonatal medial temporal ablations on socioemotional behavior in monkeys (Macaca mulatta).

Socioemotional abnormalities, including decreased social interactions and increased self-directed activity, were reported when rhesus monkeys with neonatal ablations of either the medial temporal lobe (AH) or the inferior temporal cortex (TE) were paired with unoperated peers at two and six months of age, though these abnormalities were more severe in Group AH (Bachevalier et al., 2001). As adults (Experiment 1), the monkeys were re-evaluated in the same dyads and their reactivity to novel toys, social status, and reactions to separation were also assessed. Group TE now showed only few if any of the abnormal behaviors observed in infancy. In contrast, Group AH continued to display decreased social interactions and increased self-directed activity and showed also increased submission and reduced responses to separation, but normal reactivity to novel toys. To determine whether this degree of socioemotional impairment was less severe than that produced by the same damage in adulthood, we assessed dyadic social interactions of monkeys raised until adulthood in laboratory conditions similar to those in Experiment 1 and then given the AH ablations (Experiment 2). Two months postoperatively these monkeys showed a small reduction in social interactions that became more pronounced six months postoperatively, yet remained less severe than that seen in the infant-lesioned monkeys. No other socioemotional effects, except for an increase in food/water consumption, were observed. The finding that neonatal AH lesions produce more severe socioemotional disturbances than the same lesion in adulthood is the reverse of the effect commonly reported for other cognitive functions after cerebral damage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)