Chance, choice, and the future of reproduction.

Argues that the most important trend in human reproduction is the progressive dominance of choice over chance. The origin of this trend in biological evolution is identified, and its development through human history is traced. Some contemporary manifestations of this trend are described: There are 3 general strategies that people follow while making childbearing decision—terminating, sequencing, and preplanning strategies. These 3 types form a continuum and seem to follow the historical trend toward greater reproductive control. It is suggested that there is a need to understand how individuals and couples actually make childbearing decisions. To some extent, people rationally evaluate the costs and benefits of childbearing and then try to maximize satisfaction through their decisions. However, there are important nonrational elements in this process. Some of these may derive from the evolutionary newness of human decision making and can be related to the complex task faced by the human mind as it processes and integrates various cognitive, emotional, and motivational factors. The psychological effects of surrogate maternity and progenesis (selecting for or against specific characteristics in a specific offspring) are also discussed. (4 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Risk-taking in games of chance and skill: Informational and affective influences on choice behavior.

Three studies to pinpoint the underlying dynamics related to risk-taking in skilled and chance situations are presented. Study 1 is an attempt to demonstrate that cognitive and motivational theories of risk-taking must be combined to account for individual differences in skilled situations. Here, both informational influences as related to uncertainty orientation (R. M. Sorrentino and J. C. Short, 1986) and affective influences as related to achievement-related motives are examined. In support of these notions, this study found that individual differences in uncertainty orientation and achievement-related motives combine to produce the greatest preference or avoidance of moderate risk (as opposed to low or high) in a skilled situation. Studies 2 and 3 show that the effect for uncertainty orientation generalizes to chance situations. Gender differences were also found to combine or interact with these effects. Taken together, these 3 studies help to clarify many issues remaining in the risk-taking area. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The teacher's pet phenomenon: Rate of occurrence, correlates, and psychological costs.

The teacher's pet phenomenon was investigated in 80 5th-grade Israeli classrooms. Pets were identified through students' sociometric nominations in 80% of the classrooms: exclusive pets in 26% and unexclusive pets in 54% of the classrooms. Pets tended to be girls rather than boys, of Ashkenazi rather than Sephardi origin, very good (but not necessarily the best) students academically, and perceived as charming, socially skilled, and compliant. Teachers who had pets were found to hold somewhat more authoritarian attitudes than teachers who did not have pets, and the rate of occurrence of the pet phenomenon was higher in religious than in secular schools. Students' affective reactions to their teachers were more positive in classrooms without pets, and most negative in exclusive-pet classrooms. Potential favoritism in assigning teacher grades to exclusive pets was also investigated: No overall favoritism was found, but a trace of favoritism by more authoritarian teachers was discovered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intertemporal choice: Neuronal and psychological determinants of economic decisions.

This introductory article provides a short overview of empirical and theoretical articles presented in the special issue on psychological and neural models of intertemporal decision making, which is divided into 2 parts. The first part consists of contributions presenting different models of intertemporal choice. These contributions provide an overview of current conceptualizations; that is, providing several psychological and neural frameworks, investigating how memory processes are related to the anticipation of time, and showing how the perception of time underlies our decisions about the future. A final article deals with factors that influence choices on environmental policies where the consequences of decisions are delayed by decades or more. The second upcoming part is concerned with functional neuroimaging of intertemporal decision making. Two reviews of studies in neuroimaging and 2 empirical articles examine the questions of which brain regions (and associated functions) are involved in deciding on options with different temporal consequences. We hope this volume will be conducive in developing a better understanding of intertemporal decision making as part of complex sets of neural processes as well as psychological factors that include cognitive reasoning, emotional states, and the interconnected perception of time. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inefficiency of lactation in primiparous rats: the costs of first reproduction

To investigate the energetic costs of lactation in a female mammal in relation to previous reproductive history, we compared the performance of adult female Long-Evans rats that had previously bred (multiparous) with young females that had not previously given birth (primiparous). All litters were standardized to 10 +/- 1 young. We compared maternal production (growth of pups), body mass, and energy intake (food consumption) of mothers, as well as their energy expenditure (resting oxygen consumption). The mass of litters at birth and the growth of pups during lactation did not differ according to reproductive history of the mothers. The body mass of primiparous mothers was less than that of multiparous mothers, and primiparous mothers showed an increase in mass during early lactation. To accomplish the essentially identical production of offspring under these circumstances, the primiparous mothers consumed and expended more energy than the multiparous mothers. This remarkable performance of first-time mothers results in an overall efficiency of energy allocation to reproduction amounting to only 25%, compared with 38% in multiparous mothers. The energetic inefficiency of primiparous female lactation results largely from the excessive expenditures associated with physiological and behavioral performances of first-time reproduction, together with a small component of additional expenditure due to further growth by the primiparous mothers. We suggest that this inefficiency probably contributes to the observed low reproductive success of novice breeders; furthermore, active restraint of fecundity may be an evolutionary response to the constraints of the energetic inefficiency of primiparous breeding by female mammals.     

The psychology of chance encounters and life paths.

Psychological theories have neglected the fundamental issue of what determines people's life paths. The thesis of this article is that chance encounters play a prominent role in shaping human lives. In a chance encounter the separate chains of events have their own causal determinants (e.g., entry skills, values, emotional ties), but their intersection occurs fortuitously. Some fortuitous encounters touch only lightly, others leave more lasting effects, and still others lead people into new life trajectories. The science of psychology cannot shed much light on the occurrence of fortuitous encounters, but it can provide the basis for predicting their impact on human lives. An analysis is presented of personal factors and milieu properties that govern the branching power of chance encounters. (43 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Popular interest in psychological findings: The Times correspondence over the Burt scandal.

Investigated the range and complexity of ideas that people hold on psychological issues by examining the correspondence to The Times (of London) concerning the scandal in which Sir Cyril Burt was accused by the medical correspondent of the Sunday Times of faking his data. It is concluded that while newspaper correspondence will not be able to provide very useful material for empirical research, it does reveal some of the differences between academics in their basic methods and orientations as well as the gulf between academics and laypeople. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tuning in to psychological change: Linguistic markers of psychological traits and emotions over time in popular U.S. song lyrics.

American culture is filled with cultural products. Yet few studies have investigated how changes in cultural products correspond to changes in psychological traits and emotions. The current research fills this gap by testing the hypothesis that one cultural product—word use in popular song lyrics—changes over time in harmony with cultural changes in individualistic traits. Linguistic analyses of the most popular songs from 1980–2007 demonstrated changes in word use that mirror psychological change. Over time, use of words related to self-focus and antisocial behavior increased, whereas words related to other-focus, social interactions, and positive emotion decreased. These findings offer novel evidence regarding the need to investigate how changes in the tangible artifacts of the sociocultural environment can provide a window into understanding cultural changes in psychological processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

The psychological marketplace.

At a meeting of the Eastern Psychological Association "there were 206 applicants for 125 academic positions, 157 applicants for 467 clinical and counseling positions, and 163 applicants for 198 industrial and research positions." There are "more jobs available than there are psychologists to fill them in the total employment picture." While "the degree requirements are the lowest for the Industrial and Research area, the median starting salary is the highest. The converse is true for the academic positions." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impact of positive psychological capital on employee well-being over time.

The recently recognized core construct of psychological capital or PsyCap (consisting of the positive psychological resources of efficacy, hope, optimism, and resilience) has been demonstrated to be related to various employee attitudinal, behavioral, and performance outcomes. However, to date, the impact of this positive core construct over time and on important employee well-being outcomes has not been tested. This study meets this need by analyzing the relationship between a broad cross-section of employees’ (N = 280) level of PsyCap and two measures of psychological well-being over time. The results indicated that employees’ PsyCap was related to both measures of well-being and, importantly, that PsyCap explained additional variance in these well-being measures over time. The limitations, needed future research, and practical implications conclude the article. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The fate of repetition effects when recognition approaches chance.

Examined whether repetition priming effects remain above baseline when explicit recognition is reduced to chance or near chance levels by forgetting. Ss studied a set of words, and memory was tested explicitly by yes/no (Exps 1 and 3) or forced-choice recognition (Exp 3) after a 20-min delay filled with an interfering task. Memory was then tested implicitly by perceptual identification (Exp 3) or lexical decision (Exps 1 and 2) for words seen only at study, at recognition, or both. In all experiments, recognition d' was about 0.75, and repetition effects remained above baseline and constant across conditions. At delays of 24 hrs (Exp 4) yes/no recognition fell to near chance (d'?     

The choice of the problem.

"I have rummaged around and turned up six widely used bases for doing an experiment: curiosity, confirmability, compassion, cost, cupidity, and conformability—or, more simply, 'Am I interested,' 'Can I get the answer,' 'Will it help,' 'How much will it cost,' 'What's the payola,' 'Is everyone else doing it?' " There are "three fundamentals which form the basis for good experiments or good problems": thorough knowledge and understanding of general area of concern; dissatisfaction and a healthy opposition to present knowledge and methodology—a skepticism, negativism, or iconoclasm; capacity for generalizing findings. From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2AK23W. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The process of recurrent choice.

Recurrent choice has been studied for many years. A static law, matching, has been established, but there is no consensus on the underlying dynamic process. The authors distinguish between dynamic models in which the model state is identified with directly measurable behavioral properties (performance models) and models in which the relation between behavior and state is indirect (state models). Most popular dynamic choice models are local, performance models. The authors show that behavior in different types of discrimination-reversal experiments and in extinction is not explained by 2 versions of a popular local model and that the nonlocal cumulative-effects model is consistent with matching and that it can duplicate the major properties of recurrent choice in a set of discrimination-reversal experiments. The model can also duplicate results from several other experiments on extinction after complex discrimination training. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of choice in reader engagement.

Two experiments investigated the effect of choice on cognitive and affective engagement during reading. Both experiments compared college students who either selected what they read or were assigned the same story without being allowed to choose. Experiment 1 found that unrestricted choice heightened favorable affective perceptions of the reading experience compared with denied-choice and control groups but had no effect on cognitive measures of engagement. Experiment 2 replicated these findings when individuals within a single group were offered choice or were denied choice. The authors discuss the need for a more explicit theory of choice, which presently does not exist. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Critique of Miller's "Chance, choice, and the future of reproduction."

Discusses W. B. Miller's (see record 1984-17604-001) argument that the decision of whether to have a child involves a psychological process in which an individual freely chooses from among many alternatives. It is asserted that the political context of today, in which women's reproductive rights are an issue of great controversy, constrains such ideologically based freedom. Political, legal, and social conditions that limit women's reproductive control are described. Miller's support of progenics, which favors a particular type of offspring in evolutionary terms, is questioned. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The human subject in psychological research.

Examines the human S in terms of his changing role in the historical development of psychology, his image and task performance in contemporary psychology, and limitations and weaknesses of his present function. The discussion covers the bias in S selection, preconceptions and suspicions of Ss entering the laboratory, distorted performance in the experimental task, and ethical implications of psychological research. It is suggested that psychology's image of the S as a stimulus-response machine is inadequate and that many studies are based on data supplied by Ss who are neither randomly selected nor assigned, nor representative of the general population, nor naive, and who are suspicious and distrustful of psychological research and researchers. (34 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The psychological dimensions of arthritis.

Reviews the literature on the psychological assessment and therapy of persons with arthritis, focusing primarily on the diagnostic category of rheumatoid arthritis. Assessment has involved attempts to define an arthritic personality using psychoanalytic concepts, but more recently it has included the identification of stressors as precursive and exacerbative of disease and the measurement of the impact of arthritis on psychosocial and functional variables. Psychological or behavioral therapy strategies for pain and stress management, psychotherapy in group settings, and attention to medical compliance are among the sparsely reported treatment techniques. It is concluded that therapies that initially address the physical condition, as opposed to mental health needs, are likely to be most acceptable to the patient and most successful in outcome. (72 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The measurement of psychological androgyny.

Describes the development of a new sex-role inventory that treats masculinity and femininity as 2 independent dimensions, thereby making it possible to characterize a person as masculine, feminine, or "androgynous" as a function of the difference between his or her endorsement of masculine and feminine personality characteristics. Normative data, provided by 561 male and 356 female college and junior college students, are presented, as well as the results of various psychometric analyses. Findings indicate that: (a) The dimensions of masculinity and femininity are empirically and logically independent. (b) The concept of psychological androgyny is a reliable one. (c) Highly sex-typed scores do not reflect a general tendency to respond in a socially desirable direction, but rather a specific tendency to describe oneself in accordance with sex-typed standards of desirable behavior for men and women. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)