Social comparison in adjustment to breast cancer.

Investigated 4 theoretical perspectives concerning the role of social comparison in coping with a threatening event, using 78 29–78 yr old females with breast cancer as Ss. It is noted that, according to the supercoper perspective, personal contact with comparison others is often unavailable to patients; in addition, contact with media supercopers (fellow victims presented as adjusting smoothly) may make patients feel inadequate by comparison. According to the similarity perspective, patients select comparison targets who are similar to themselves because those comparisons should be the most informative. The upward comparison perspective is predictive of comparisons to relatively advantaged or superior individuals. The downward comparison perspective leads to the prediction that, under conditions of threat, individuals make comparisons to people who are inferior or less fortunate in order to enhance their self-esteem. Ss were interviewed to determine which perspective had the most validity in terms of their experience with closed-ended questions. Ss offered spontaneous comparisons throughout the interview. Both closed-ended questions and spontaneously offered comparisons yielded a preponderance of downward comparisons. Findings support the value of using naturalistic methods for studying comparisons and suggest a more active and cognitive role for social comparison than is usually portrayed. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

From poor performance to success under stress: Working memory, strategy selection, and mathematical problem solving under pressure.

Two experiments demonstrate how individual differences in working memory (WM) impact the strategies used to solve complex math problems and how consequential testing situations alter strategy use. In Experiment 1, individuals performed multistep math problems under low- or high-pressure conditions and reported their problem-solving strategies. Under low-pressure conditions, the higher individuals' WM, the more likely they were to use computationally demanding algorithms (vs. simpler shortcuts) to solve the problems, and the more accurate their math performance. Under high-pressure conditions, higher WM individuals used simpler (and less efficacious) problem-solving strategies, and their performance accuracy suffered. Experiment 2 turned the tables by using a math task for which a simpler strategy was optimal (produced accurate performance in few problem steps). Now, under low-pressure conditions, the lower individuals' WM, the better their performance (the more likely they relied on a simple, but accurate, problem strategy). And, under pressure, higher WM individuals performed optimally by using the simpler strategies lower WM individuals employed. WM availability influences how individuals approach math problems, with the nature of the task performed and the performance environment dictating skill success or failure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

From approach to inhibition: The influence of power on responses to poor performers.

This article examines how relative differences in power affect responses to poor performers in organizations. We predicted that higher power individuals would engage in approach-related behaviors, whereas lower power individuals would be inhibited when responding to poor performers. Results from a scenario study and a field study generally supported this prediction, indicating that power was positively related to training or confronting a poor performer and negatively related to compensating for or rejecting a poor performer. A second scenario study investigated the effect of the interaction of power and emotion on individual responses to poor performers. Results showed that the type of emotion expressed moderated the effect of power on inhibition-related responses. We discuss implications for managing poor performers with relative power differences. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Extraversion and performance: A response to Eysenck.

Discusses H. J. Eysenck's (see PA, Vol 52:Issue 6) criticisms of the present authors' study (see PA, Vol 52:Issue 6) which questioned the validity of Eysenck's hypothesis concerning the relationship between extraversion and performance depending on cortical inhibition. Additional data are presented which refute Eysenck's criticisms of Horn and Cohen's sample selection, choice of parameter values, and theoretical formulations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Management of poor performance: A comparison of manager, group member, and group disciplinary decisions.

Managers and 231 members of 41 work groups representing 4 diverse organizations participated in an experiment involving disciplinary decisions. Managers and group members responded individually to scenarios describing a group member's poor performance, followed by group members meeting to reach consensus on the disciplinary decisions. As hypothesized, manager disciplinary decisions were more severe than decisions made by individual group members. Contrary to predictions, the severity of manager and group disciplinary decisions did not differ. A test of choice shifts revealed that when the prevailing view among individual group members was for a relatively lenient disciplinary action, the group consensus decision was more severe than the average of the individual decisions. Attributions and outcome seriousness were found to influence the severity of manager, group member, and group decisions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Minority advances in test performance: A response to Jones.

Suggests that the advances made by minorities in test performance reported by L. V. Jones (see record 1985-26568-001) must be interpreted with some skepticism in light of the self-selecting nature of the College Board Scholastic Achievement Test and the 120-point gap in scores on this test between Blacks and Whites. (1 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The framing of relative performance feedback: Seeing the glass as half empty or half full.

It was proposed that individuals' responses to information regarding their relative position in a performance distribution would depend on how they frame the information. To the degree that they focus selectively on the positive features of the feedback (i.e., the number of others who performed worse than them) rather than the negative features (i.e., the number of others who performed better than them) they should report higher ability levels and more positive affective reactions. In Study I, Ss received feedback indicating that they occupied a particular percentile standing in either a large or small distribution. Individuals with negative orientations (depressives and pessimists) reported lower ability levels as a function of increases in comparison group size, whereas individuals with positive orientations (nondepressives and optimists) reported higher ability levels. Presumably, these effects occurred because negatively oriented persons focused on the negative features of the feedback and positively oriented persons focused on the positive features of the feedback. The results of Study 2 support this explanation. Implications for the social comparison literature are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental change in working memory strategies: From passive maintenance to active refreshing.

Change in strategies is often mentioned as a source of memory development. However, though performance in working memory tasks steadily improves during childhood, theories differ in linking this development to strategy changes. Whereas some theories, such as the time-based resource-sharing model, invoke the age-related increase in use and efficiency of a strategy of active maintenance of memory traces, other theories, such as the task-switching model, do not mention strategy change. According to these models, either the cognitive load of the task or the duration of maintenance would account for recall performance. In the present study, we varied orthogonally these 2 factors. The results revealed that a different and unique factor affected recall performance at different ages: the duration of maintenance at age 6 and the cognitive load at age 7. As described by the task-switching model, younger children would not implement any maintenance activities while performing a concurrent task, their memory traces suffering from a time-based decay. This suggests that an increasing capacity of cognitive monitoring allows children to shift from this passive maintenance of memory traces to the active refreshing thereof at around the age of 7, reunifying the 2 current accounts of working memory development as 2 developmental stages. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teaching reading to poor readers in the intermediate grades: A comparison of text difficulty.

The authors compared the influence of text difficulty--reading-level matched or grade-level matched--on the growth of poor readers' reading ability over 18 weeks of 1-to-1 tutoring. Forty-six 3rd-5th graders, including 25 with disabilities, were assigned randomly to 1 of 2 tutoring approaches or a control condition. Significant differences favored tutored children. Between approaches, the only significant difference was oral reading fluency, which favored students who read material at their reading level. Students who began with lower fluency made stronger gains in text matched to reading level; students with higher fluency profited from both treatments. When the 3 groups were combined, fluency was the strongest contributor to reading comprehension outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social rank strategies in hierarchical relationships.

Social rank theorists propose that threat appraisals evoke escalation behavior toward subordinates and de-escalation behavior toward superiors. These hypotheses were examined among records of behavior sampled ecologically from the work environments of 90 individuals. At the level of the event, situated threat appraisals (feeling criticized) predicted different kinds of behavior across status situations. Individuals tended to quarrel when criticized by subordinates and to submit when criticized by superiors. At the level of the person, aggregated rank appraisals (feeling inferior) predicted different kinds of behavior across status situations. Individuals who typically felt more inferior tended to quarrel more frequently with subordinates and to submit more frequently with superiors. Findings implicated inferiority and threat as fundamental dimensions underlying the behavior of the social rank system. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social comparison in everyday life.

94 college students recorded details of their social comparisons over 2 wks using a new instrument, the Rochester Social Comparison Record. Major results were (1) comparison direction varied with relationship with the target; (2) precomparison negative mood led more often to upward comparison than to downward comparison, supporting a selective affect–cognition priming model in which dysphoria primes negative thoughts about the self (G. H. Bower, 1991; J. P. Forgas et al, 1990) rather than a motivational self-enhancement model (T. A. Wills, 1981, 1991); (3) upward comparison decreased subjective well-being, whereas downward comparison increased it; and (4) high self-esteem individuals engaged in more self-enhancing comparison. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attending to affect: Appraisal strategies modulate the electrocortical response to arousing pictures.

Arousing (unpleasant and pleasant) pictures elicit increased neurophysiological measures of perceptual processing. In particular, the electrocortical late positive potential (LPP) is enhanced for arousing, compared with neutral, pictures. To determine whether the magnitude of the LPP is sensitive to the way stimuli are appraised, 16 participants viewed both pleasant and unpleasant pictures and categorized them along an affective or nonaffective dimension. Results indicate that the LPP was reduced for both pleasant and unpleasant pictures when participants made nonaffective, compared with affective, judgments. These results are consistent with previous studies that have used functional neuroimaging to investigate the role of appraisal on emotional processing. The results are further discussed in terms of the utility of using the LPP to study emotion regulation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

From contrast to reinforcement: Role of response contingency in anticipatory contrast.

Intake of a 0.15% saccharin solution is suppressed if access to the saccharin is followed by access to 32% sucrose in brief daily pairings. The present series of four experiments was concerned with factors that lead to this anticipatory contrast effect (suppressed saccharin intake) rather than a reinforcement effect. In Experiment 1, anticipatory contrast was obtained with an autoshaping procedure (no lick requirement on the initial tube), and degree of contrast did not vary as a function of intersolution interval in the range of 0–25 s. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that requirements of 10, 100, 200, or 400 licks on the first tube available led to a reinforcement effect in latency, but a requirement of 0 licks (autoshaping procedure) led to a contrast effect in licks and latency. In Experiment 4, a group with a 200-contingent-lick requirement showed a reinforcement effect in latency, but a group yoked to this contingent group showed a contrast effect in both latency and licks. Overall, the results suggest that anticipatory contrast occurs under conditions of a "relaxed" instrumental contingency. The data are discussed in terms of control of behavior by stimulus–stimulus, response–stimulus, and stimulus–response associations, and the results are related to behavioral contrast, to flavor–outcome associations, and to "misbehavior" produced by Pavlovian-instrumental interactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Translations in gerontology: From lab to life: Psychophysiology and speed of response.

Reviews the literature in the areas of perception, memory, learning, motor skills, intelligence, neural activity, and personality. General support is given to the proposition that advancing age is accompanied by a decrease in the speed with which the central nervous system processes information. This principle is considered manifest in the observation that individuals tend to show a slowness in response as they become older. It is argued that whereas speed of behavior in the young adult may be regarded as a performance-related dependent variable, in the case of the aging individual it should be regarded as an independent variable with which to interpret all phenomena considered important in behavior. Factors which qualify the principle are discussed, together with its implications for accident-prone behavior in the aged. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social desirability and acquiescence in response to personality items.

Acquiescence has been defined in 2 ways. Either this response set operates only when items are ambiguous, or acquiescent tendencies operate independently of item content. These 2 definitions were related to the social desirability variable. 10 independent 40-item scales were constructed from MMPI items, systematically varying the social desirability content and the True-False keying. Responses were obtained from 227 Ss. Of the 35 intercorrelations which were predicted to be different by the 2 hypotheses, 21 supported the social desirability hypothesis and 14 supported the acquiescence hypothesis. A tendency to say False rather than True was noted. This response set to deny appeared relatively weak compared to the tendency to respond in a socially desirable manner. (21 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Training reading comprehension in adequate decoders/poor comprehenders: Verbal versus visual strategies.

Third through fifth grade adequate decoders who were poor comprehenders were trained for 10 weeks in either the verbally based reciprocal teaching (RT) program (n?=?22) or the visually based visualizing/verbalizing (V/V) program (n?=?23), or they were assigned to an untreated control group (n?=?14). Training reading comprehension strategies in small groups enhanced comprehension as the experimental groups made significant gains on 11 measures, whereas the untreated control group made only 1 significant gain. Between experimental group comparisons (yielding effect sizes?>?.32) favored the RT group on several measures that depend on explicit, factual material, while the V/V group was favored on several visually mediated measures. Regarding which experimental condition was statistically optimal, the RT group made only 1 significantly greater gain than the V/V group on answering text-explicit open-ended questions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social facilitation from Triplett to electronic performance monitoring.

This article reviews the origins and development of social facilitation theory beginning with N. Triplett's (1898) early work during the late 1800s. Early studies of the phenomenon focused on individual performance enhancement when others were present. Performance impairments were observed but not explained until R. B. Zajonc's (1965) integration of previous work that provided a coherent explanation for earlier inconsistencies. Beginning with his drive theory, the authors describe various social, physiological, behavioral, and cognitive explanations for social facilitation that have been advanced over the years and discuss their origins in some of the earliest social psychological research. Finally, the authors present their own framework for examining social facilitation phenomena and highlight problems and opportunities for advancing the theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's goals and strategies in response to conflicts within a friendship.

Little is known about the skills required for friendship, as distinct from those required for peer acceptance. The present study examined whether children's goals and strategies in friendship conflict situations are predictive of their friendship adjustment, after accounting for level of peer acceptance. Fourth- and 5th-grade children (N?=?696) responded to 30 hypothetical situations in which they were having a conflict with a friend. Results indicated that children's goals were highly related to their strategies and that children's goals and strategies were predictive of their real-life friendship adjustment. Pursuing the goal of revenge toward a friend was the goal or strategy most strongly associated with lacking friends and having poor-quality friendships. Gender differences were also found for each goal and strategy, with girls displaying a more prosocial goal and strategy orientation than boys. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social comparison processes and academic achievement: The dependence of the development of self-evaluations on friends' performance.

The purpose of this study was to examine the role of social comparison processes in children's self-evaluations. Children's aptitudes to gauge their self-evaluations of their abilities in school activities (i.e., perceived academic competence) on the basis of their actual performance depended on how well their reciprocated friends performed academically. Self-evaluations of performance were not affected when the comparison was based on levels of nonreciprocated friends' achievement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A comparison of two models for predicting mathematics performance: Social learning versus math aptitude–anxiety.

Contrasted the ability of 2 theoretical models to explain the mathematics final examination performance of 97 female and 46 male undergraduates. The 1st model, comprising A. Bandura's (1977) social-learning theory variables, included situationally specific mathematics skills (previous course examination grades), incentives, self-efficacy expectations, and outcomes expectations. These data were collected immediately prior to the final examination. The 2nd model, the mathematics aptitude–anxiety model, included general mathematics ability, gender, sex-role orientation, and mathematics anxiety. These data were collected during the last class before the examination. The social-learning theory model accounted for significantly more performance variation than did the alternative model. Within the social-learning model, each of the variables (skills, incentives, efficacy expectations, and outcome expectations) accounted for significant and unique increments in performance variation. Only mathematics aptitude accounted for significant variation in the alternative model. Implications of the results for increasing mathematics performance are discussed. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)