Conditionals: A theory of meaning, pragmatics, and inference.

The authors outline a theory of conditionals of the form If A then C and If A then possibly C. The 2 sorts of conditional have separate core meanings that refer to sets of possibilities. Knowledge, pragmatics, and semantics can modulate these meanings. Modulation can add information about temporal and other relations between antecedent and consequent. It can also prevent the construction of possibilities to yield 10 distinct sets of possibilities to which conditionals can refer. The mental representation of a conditional normally makes explicit only the possibilities in which its antecedent is true, yielding other possibilities implicitly. Reasoners tend to focus on the explicit possibilities. The theory predicts the major phenomena of understanding and reasoning with conditionals. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interlaboratory comparison of the assessment of P450 activities in human hepatic microsomal samples

The present study had 3 goals: (a) to provide a preliminary investigation of the dimensions involved in the capacity for intimacy toward the best friend and the sexual partner during adolescence; (b) to determine whether the specific areas of the capacity for intimacy toward the best friend are the same as toward the sexual partner; and (c) to consider the usefulness of conceiving the capacity for intimacy as a multidimensional concept. Canadian high school students (N = 465; 257 girls, 208 boys) completed a questionnaire on the capacity for intimacy, best friend version; 232 of them completed the partner version of the questionnaire. Factorial analysis on the best friend version of the questionnaire identified 3 factors: Social Intimacy, Positive Intimacy, and Negative Intimacy. Factorial analysis on the partner version of the questionnaire identified 4 factors: Social Intimacy, Positive Intimacy, Negative Intimacy, and Sexual Intimacy.     

Elaborative inferences during reading: Do they occur on-line?

Four experiments were conducted to examine the extent to which readers construct elaborative inferences on-line during reading. In Experiment 1, gaze durations were measured while subjects read anaphors to target antecedents that referenced a particular category member either explicitly or implicitly. When the context strongly suggested a particular category member, gaze durations on an anaphor were the same following either an implicit or an explicit antecedent. When the context did not suggest any particular category member, gaze durations were significantly longer following an implicit antecedent. The results confirmed that, with sufficient context, readers will generate a simple elaborative inference on-line. These results were replicated in Experiment 2 in which the materials did not strongly signal the inference but a sentence designed to encourage subjects to infer was included. In Experiment 3, this "demand sentence" was not included, and readers did not appear to construct the targeted inference. The results of Experiment 4 confirmed that once generated, elaborative inferences are stored as part of the long-term-memory representation of a passage. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the psycholinguistics of sarcasm.

Examined comprehension and memory for sarcastic statements in conversation in 6 experiments with 256 undergraduates. Data from 3 reading-time studies indicate that Ss did not need to first process the literal meanings of sarcastic expressions, such as "You're a fine friend" (meaning "You're a bad friend"), before deriving their nonliteral, sarcastic-interpretations. Ss also comprehended instances of sarcasm based on an explicit echoic mention of some belief, societal norm, or previously stated opinion faster than they did instances in which the echo was only implicit. Three additional experiments examining memory for sarcasm showed that sarcasm was remembered much better than literal uses of the same expressions of nonsarcastic equivalents. Ss recalled sarcasm that explicitly echoed a previously mentioned belief or societal norm more often than they remembered sarcasm that did not involve some explicit echo. Overall results demonstrate that ease of processing and memory for sarcastic utterances depends crucially on how explicitly a speaker's statement echoes either the addressee or some other source's putative beliefs, opinions, or previous statement. (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Issues in dimensional structure of affect—Effects of descriptors, measurement error, and response formats: Comment on Russell and Carroll (1999).

In their article "On the Bipolarity of Positive and Negative Affect," J. A. Russell and J. M. Carroll (1999; see record 1998-03256-001) correctly noted that several factors—including the use of a strictly unipolar item response format—can obscure the underlying bipolarity of certain positive and negative affect pairs. However, some of their other conclusions require clarification. First, bipolarity is evident even in uncorrected data obtained with unipolar formats. Second, polychoric correlations and appropriate item-analytic models can circumvent problems that may be associated with unipolar scales; consequently, it is unnecessary (and undesirable) to use bipolar formats in affect assessment. Third, no evidence supports their claim that general mood ratings are less valid than other measures of long-term affect. Finally, aspects of their circumplex model are not well supported by the data; in its place, the authors suggest a more inclusive 3-level hierarchical structure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Antecedent retrieval processes.

In three experiments we examined the nature of the search for antecedents during reading. Subjects read passages that contained two possible antecedents: one appearing early in the passages and the other appearing late. The degree of elaboration was varied, with one antecedent receiving additional elaboration for half the passages and the other antecedent receiving additional elaboration for the remaining half. Reading time differences from the first two experiments demonstrated that late antecedents are reinstated more quickly than early antecedents and elaborated antecedents are reinstated more quickly than nonelaborated antecedents. Experiment 1 showed that concepts that fall in the path of an antecedent search can be activated by the search. Experiments 2 and 3 showed that this activation is restricted to concepts that are from the same general category as the target antecedent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of performance antecedents and consequences in work motivation.

Assessed the effects of both antecedents and consequences while keeping supervisory involvement and stimulus changes constant. The safety performance of 200 employees in 4 departments of a processing plant was monitored 3 times/wk over 46 wks. A multiple baseline design was used in which the phases were introduced in steps. Following baseline, the antecedent condition was presented, in which safety rules were explained and safety meetings held, along with frequent supervisor interaction and stimulus changes. Then the performance consequence, feedback, in which a feedback graph was maintained and feedback meetings held, was added. The antecedent condition, even when bolstered by fairly extensive supervisor involvement, resulted in improvements in only 2 out of 4 departments. Only during the consequent condition did performance significantly improve in all departments over baseline and antecedent conditions. Furthermore, employees reported that they preferred obtaining information following their performance. The results confirm that performance consequences such as feedback play a critical role in work motivation and that antecedents alone may not be effective in all cases, even with fairly extensive supervisor involvement. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Antecedents and consequences of psychological and team empowerment in organizations: A meta-analytic review.

This paper provides meta-analytic support for an integrated model specifying the antecedents and consequences of psychological and team empowerment. Results indicate that contextual antecedent constructs representing perceived high-performance managerial practices, socio-political support, leadership, and work characteristics are each strongly related to psychological empowerment. Positive self-evaluation traits are related to psychological empowerment and are as strongly related as the contextual factors. Psychological empowerment is in turn positively associated with a broad range of employee outcomes, including job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and task and contextual performance, and is negatively associated with employee strain and turnover intentions. Team empowerment is positively related to team performance. Further, the magnitude of parallel antecedent and outcome relationships at the individual and team levels is statistically indistinguishable, demonstrating the generalizability of empowerment theory across these 2 levels of analysis. A series of analyses also demonstrates the validity of psychological empowerment as a unitary second-order construct. Implications and future directions for empowerment research and theory are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Measurement of smoking outcome expectancies in children: The Smoking Consequences Questionnaire-Child.

A measure of smoking outcome expectancies was developed for children ages 7-12 years. Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to determine whether a 1-, 2-, 3-, or 4-factor solution was most appropriate for the data set. CFA revealed that the 3-factor model produced the most adequate fit (Positive Reinforcement, Negative Consequences, and Weight Control). The resulting 15-item measure was named the Smoking Consequences Questionnaire-Child (SCQ-C). The fit of the 3-dimensional structure was then examined separately for 3 age groups representing young (7- to 8-year-old), middle (9- to 10-year-old), and old (11- to 13-year-old) children. Overall, the 3-factor structure fit the data well for the 3 groups. As such, we examined the relations of the 3 scales with antecedent variables for the entire sample. The Positive Reinforcement scale was associated with children's smoking behavior and having a family member or peers who smoked. The Negative Consequences scale was inversely related to having a family member or peer who smoked. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The relationship between item ambiguity and discriminating power in a forced-choice scale.

"(a) In questionnaire format, Ambiguous statements were more valid than either Positive or Negative statements for differentiating college achievers from non-achievers. (b) In general, the validity of Ambiguous items either held up or increased in forced-choice format. (c) The 12-tetrad inventory consisting almost exclusively of Ambiguous items was found to have substantial reliability and validity for the purpose used, and did not appear to lend itself to willful misrepresentation on the part of the subjects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When nonsense sounds happy or helpless: The Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT).

This article introduces an instrument for the indirect assessment of positive and negative affect, the Implicit Positive and Negative Affect Test (IPANAT). This test draws on participant ratings of the extent to which artificial words subjectively convey various emotions. Factor analyses of these ratings yielded two independent factors that can be interpreted as implicit positive and negative affect. The corresponding scales show adequate internal consistency, test–retest reliability, stability (Study 1), and construct validity (Study 2). Studies 3 and 4 demonstrate that the IPANAT also measures state variance. Finally, Study 5 provides criterion-based validity by demonstrating that correlations between implicit affect and explicit affect are higher under conditions of spontaneous responding than under conditions of reflective responding to explicit affect scales. The present findings suggest that the IPANAT is a reliable and valid measure with a straightforward application procedure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reasoning about the disclosure of success and failure to friends among children in the United States and China.

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 44(5) of Developmental Psychology (see record 2008-12114-028). An error was introduced in the production process. The heading for the bottom half of Table 1 should be "China," not "Canada."] Children's reasoning about individuals' willingness to disclose their successes and failures was investigated among 194 6- to 11-year-olds in the United States and China. In Study 1, participants showed a valence-matching effect, in which they predicted that individuals would be more likely to disclose their performance to an audience of friends if the friends' level of achievement was similar rather than dissimilar. This effect was weaker among children from China, who were more likely to justify their responses with reference to the implications for learning together or improving future performance. Results of Study 2 suggest that for children from the United States, the disclosure of successful performance to a friend who has performed poorly is seen as implicitly conveying the message "I'm better than you," whereas for children from China the message is "I can help you to do better." Results are interpreted with reference to cultural values and expectations about helping others to learn. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Happiness unpacked: Positive emotions increase life satisfaction by building resilience.

Happiness—a composite of life satisfaction, coping resources, and positive emotions—predicts desirable life outcomes in many domains. The broaden-and-build theory suggests that this is because positive emotions help people build lasting resources. To test this hypothesis, the authors measured emotions daily for 1 month in a sample of students (N = 86) and assessed life satisfaction and trait resilience at the beginning and end of the month. Positive emotions predicted increases in both resilience and life satisfaction. Negative emotions had weak or null effects and did not interfere with the benefits of positive emotions. Positive emotions also mediated the relation between baseline and final resilience, but life satisfaction did not. This suggests that it is in-the-moment positive emotions, and not more general positive evaluations of one’s life, that form the link between happiness and desirable life outcomes. Change in resilience mediated the relation between positive emotions and increased life satisfaction, suggesting that happy people become more satisfied not simply because they feel better but because they develop resources for living well. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of performance antecedents and consequences in work motivation: Correction to Komaki, Collins, and Penn.

Reports an error in the original article by Judith L. Komaki, Robert L. Collins, and Pat Penn (Journal of Applied Psychology, Vol. 67, No. 3, pp. 334-340). An incorrect version of Figure 1 was printed. The correct version is provided. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1982-26864-001.) Assessed the effects of both antecedents and consequences while keeping supervisory involvement and stimulus changes constant. The safety performance of 200 employees in 4 departments of a processing plant was monitored 3 times/wk over 46 wks. A multiple baseline design was used in which the phases were introduced in steps. Following baseline, the antecedent condition was presented, in which safety rules were explained and safety meetings held, along with frequent supervisor interaction and stimulus changes. Then the performance consequence, feedback, in which a feedback graph was maintained and feedback meetings held, was added. The antecedent condition, even when bolstered by fairly extensive supervisor involvement, resulted in improvements in only 2 out of 4 departments. Only during the consequent condition did performance significantly improve in all departments over baseline and antecedent conditions. Furthermore, employees reported that they preferred obtaining information following their performance. The results confirm that performance consequences such as feedback play a critical role in work motivation and that antecedents alone may not be effective in all cases, even with fairly extensive supervisor involvement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Affect and the motivational foundations of social capital.

Social capital is a resource that includes the willingness of members of society to cooperate with each other, even when it is not in their own individual material self-interests to do so, or enforce beneficial social norms, even when this is materially costly for the enforcer. Evidence from economic choice experiments suggests that affect may play an important role in the individual-level decision process that generates these behavioral tendencies. Negative affective responses to uncooperative behavior can lead to a breakdown in social capital, if there is no option to punish. Given a punishment option, however, individuals discipline uncooperative types, even though it is materially costly to do so. This can completely counteract the tendency for social capital to decline in repeated interactions. Positive affect, triggered by punishing uncooperative types, appears to play a role in generating this socially beneficial willingness to sanction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Test of the mention theory of irony.

Argues that the traditional theory of irony, which assumes that an ironist uses a figurative meaning opposite to the literal meaning of the utterance, is inadequate and presents an alternative theory that assumes that the ironist mentions the literal meaning of the utterance and expresses an attitude toward it. The 2 theories make testable predictions about the conditions under which irony is perceived: The mention theory requires antecedent material for the ironist to mention, whereas the standard theory does not. A reading comprehension test, given to 24 undergraduates, involved anecdotes that satisfied the traditional criterion for irony but could include or omit antecedents for echoic mention. Results support the mention theory of irony in that Ss did not perceive a plausible nonnormative utterance to be ironic unless it echoed some antecedent use. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A new look at the effects of noise: A rejoinder.

Outlines a composite theory to account for the effects of noise upon performance. The 4 main determinants are (a) masking, both of acoustic cues and of inner speech; (b) distraction; (c) a beneficial increase in arousal when the noise begins, which gradually lessens and falls below normal to produce a decrement in performance when the noise stops; and (d) positive and negative transfer from noise to quiet. Positive transfer results from the more effective learning of the task in noise under the influence of the increase in arousal. Negative transfer results from the techniques of performance used in noise to counteract the masking or distraction, when they are not appropriate in quiet. (49 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is EBE theory supported by the evidence? Is it androcentric? A reply to Peplau et al. (1998).

In their critique of the author's Exotic-Becomes-Erotic (EBE) theory of sexual orientation (D. J. Bem, see record 1996-01742-006), L. A. Peplau, L. D. Garnets, L. R. Spalding, T. D. Conley, and R. C. Veniegas (see record 1998-01102-009) challenge his reading of the evidence concerning the antecedents of sexual orientation; they also contend that the theory neglects women's experiences. In reply, the author argues that L. A. Peplau et al. have misunderstood the critical antecedent variable of the theory and, hence, have misidentified the particular empirical findings that would serve to confirm or disconfirm its central contentions. The author also argues that the sex differences they cite are not relevant to the theory, whereas an important sex difference they do not cite is actually anticipated by it. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)