Inducing affect about self or other: Effects on generosity in children.

85 7–12 yr olds were asked to discuss happy, sad, or affectively neutral incidents that had been experienced either by themselves or by another child. Following the inducement of affect, the Ss were given the opportunity to share their experimental earnings with some less fortunate children. As predicted, a significant interaction of the discussion topic (self/other) and affect was found. Ss relating sad experiences encountered by another individual shared significantly more than those describing sad incidents that they had experienced. Although older Ss were more generous than the younger Ss in sharing their experimental earnings, age did not interact with the other experimental variables. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personal responsibility and altruism in children.

Applied P. G. Zimbardo's (1970) deindividuation model to the study of prosocial behavior by asking 177 4–13 yr old Halloween trick-or-treaters in groups of 2–5 Ss to donate candy to hospitalized children under 3 conditions. The designation of personal responsibility for the amount donated was manipulated as follows: no child identified as responsible; one child identified as responsible; and each child identified as responsible. As predicted, personal responsibility increased the likelihood of contributing as well as the number of candies donated. Assigning individual responsibility increased the number of candies donated by each S only if they were in small groups. The absence of a similar outcome among Ss in large groups suggests that the greater social support and/or the greater potential for the diffusion of responsibility in these groups effectively countered the effect of the manipulation of responsibility. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attribution of responsibility for onset of spinal cord injury and psychosocial outcomes in the first year post-injury.

Attribution questionnaires were administered to spinal cord injury patients during rehabilitation and at 1-yr (postinjury) follow-up in a prospective study of the relationship between attributions and psychosocial outcomes. Ss were also asked to complete life and family satisfaction scales prior to discharge and at 1-yr follow-up. A staff member reviewed chart data and rated the patient as an innocent victim or risk denier. Sample sizes for analysis varied (because of dropouts and missing data) from 80 to 104 primarily male patients. Results show that self-attribution of responsibility was associated with lower life satisfaction during rehabilitation, but this difference dissipated by 1-yr postinjury. Self-attribution of responsibility was not predictive of patient assessed family adjustment. It is concluded that staff assessment of patient responsibility for onset of injury is not predictive of outcomes even when congruence/incongruence between patient and staff attributions is examined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's causal attributions to self and other as a function of outcome and task.

In this study, we tested three hypotheses. First, children do not attribute their positive outcomes more to internal causes and their negative outcomes more to external causes. Second, children attribute the outcomes of others more to internal causes on an academic task than they do on a leisure task. Third, children attribute their own outcomes to external causes and another's outcomes to internal causes. To test these hypotheses, we had children attribute their own or another's positive or negative outcomes on academic, social, and leisure tasks to ability, effort, task difficulty, and luck. The results indicated that children attributed their positive outcomes more to ability, effort, and luck than they did their negative outcomes. This effect did not depend on the person to whom they made attributions. Thus, the results for type of outcome and self or other were not as hypothesized. The results for type of task were as hypothesized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The other side of academic freedom is academic responsibility.

This article argues that academic freedom is not absolute, but is delimited by legal, bargained and social factors. Further, it is argued that academic freedom implies certain obligations on university faculty, and in doing so recognizes the legitimate role of political correctness in the modern university, Given these limitations, the article considers some of the appropriate limits to political correctness, and argues that what are needed are the proper place and procedure to debate the balance between academic privilege and responsibility. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lexical access in children and adults.

Investigated the retrieval of words from lexical memory in 12 kindergartners, 11 1st graders, 11 3rd graders, and 11 graduate students. Ss named color slides depicting 100 stimulus pictures. Picture-naming latency was the dependent variable. Results of multiple-regression analyses indicate that the codability of pictorial representations of a concept and the frequency of the concept's label contributed to the prediction of naming latency. The effects of these sociolinguistic variables were relatively constant across all age groups. Results support a model of vocabulary growth in which the lexicons of both children and adults in a language community are internally structured and accessed along parameters that reflect the salience of concepts and linguistic events in the environment. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Semantic retrieval in children and adults.

Studied the processes by which 15 undergraduates and 48 8-, 11-, and 13-yr-olds retrieved semantic information from long-term memory. Ss were timed as they judged whether sentences pairing animal names and properties (e.g., "A lion has a mane") were true. Relationships between animal names and properties were varied in 2 ways: properties were at (a) 1 of 3 levels of "saliency" (rated association strength) and (b) 1 of 3 levels of specificity. Closely comparable results were obtained at each age level. Sentences with highly salient properties were verified more quickly than were those with less salient properties, and statements with low-specificity properties were verified more quickly than sentences with more specific properties. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation of phonological awareness to reading disability in children and adults.

Research has shown that for young children, success at learning to read is related to the extent to which they are aware of the phonological structure of spoken language. We determined that this relation is also evident in older children (third graders) and in adults who have had considerable reading instruction. Differences in phonological awareness, measured on three tasks, accounted for much of the variance between good readers and poor readers at both age levels. In contrast, no correspondence was found between reading ability and performance on a nonspeech task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parenting and other influences on the alcohol use and emotional adjustment of children, adolescents, and emerging adults.

Five articles in a special section of Psychology of Addictive Behaviors (see records 2006-07521-001, 2006-07521-002, 2006-07521-003, 2006-07521-004, and 2006-07521-005) are briefly reviewed. With samples spanning an age range of 6 years to college age, the 5 articles examine potential mediators and moderators of psychological adjustment and drinking behavior. These articles illustrate the potential contributions of gender, personality traits, motivational factors, environmental characteristics, and parenting styles on the alcohol use, consequences, and emotional adjustment of children, adolescents, and emerging adults. Strengths and limitations of the different designs and methods are discussed in relation to the specific findings and the potential insights the special section provides. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Talking to children, foreigners, and retarded adults.

Examined speech addressed to different categories of listeners in a study in which 80 undergraduate women taught a block design task to either a 5–7 yr old girl (n?=?6), a retarded adult (4 women, aged 20–33 yrs), a peer who spoke English as a 2nd language (4 adult women [foreigners]), or a peer who was an unimpaired native speaker of English (2 women undergraduates). Speech addressed to children differed from the speech addressed to native adults along every major dimension. It was clearer, simpler, more attention maintaining, and included longer pauses. Speech addressed to retarded adults was similar to speech addressed to 6-yr-olds. Speech to the retarded adults did differ in timing from the other styles of speaking in that it included fewer and somewhat shorter pauses. Speech addressed to foreigners was more repetitive than speech addressed to native speakers, but in all other ways it was similar. Results show that speakers fine-tuned their communications to the level of cognitive and linguistic sophistication of their listener. The hypothesis that baby talk (the speech addressed to children) is a prototypical special speech register from which other special registers are derived is discussed. (66 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

My children and me: Midlife evaluations of grown children and of self.

215 midlife parents (mean age 53.7 yrs) were interviewed about how their adult children (mean age 27.6 yrs) had "turned out." These assessments were then related to parents' views of themselves. Perceived accomplishments and adjustment of children were expected to be positively linked with parents' well-being (e.g., self-acceptance, environmental mastery, purpose in life), and social comparisons were hypothesized to contribute to the link between parents' assessments of children and their own well-being. Multiple regression analyses revealed that children's perceived adjustment significantly predicted 6 of 7 well-being outcomes for mothers and fathers. Children's attainment was less strongly linked with parental outcomes. Personal comparisons were significant negative predictors: Parents who saw their children as better adjusted than themselves had lower well-being. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Adaptation to life changes in children and adults: Cross-sectional studies.

Five studies were conducted to test a general theory of adaptation or sequence of emotional stances to major life changes. Children entering school, middle-class students later in school, students in college, and women getting married and becoming mothers all seemed to renegotiate a similar sequence of concern with receptive issues, then with issues of autonomy and assertion, and finally with issues of integration. Exceptions to these results involved working-class students and new fathers. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Saccadic eye movements of children and adults to double-step stimuli.

Investigated the programming and reprogramming of oculomotor responses to double-step and single-step targets in Exp I with 5 college students, 5 5–6 yr olds, and 7 8–10 yr olds. Independent variables were intertarget interval (50, 100, 150, and 200 msec) and target location. The number of trials on which a saccade was made to both 1st and 2nd targets increased with age and intertarget interval, but the 2 factors did not interact. On trials where responses were made only to the 2nd target, children responded slower than adults but showed generally similar patterns of response latencies. In Exp II, a warning signal was presented 0, 100, or 300 msec prior to the 1st target. For 18 college students, the 100- and 300-msec warning intervals reduced the latency of single-step responses and the 1st saccade of double-step responses, whereas only the 300-msec warning interval was similarly effective with 15 children. All Ss exhibited amplitude transition functions, indicating that the modifiability of saccadic programming is basically similar for adults and children. A comparison of simultaneous programming characteristics suggested possible age differences. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Is empathy-induced helping due to self–other merging?

Two experiments tested the idea that empathy-induced helping is due to self–other merging. To manipulate empathy, half of the participants in each experiment received instructions to remain objective while hearing about a young woman in need (low-empathy condition), and half received instructions to imagine her feelings (high-empathy condition). To check generality of the empathy–helping relationship, half in each empathy condition learned that the young woman was a student at their university (shared group membership), and half learned that she was a student at a rival university (unshared group membership). Self-reported empathy for and willingness to help the young woman were assessed, and 3 measures of self–other merging were taken. In each experiment, an empathy–helping relationship was found, unqualified by group membership, that could not be accounted for by any of the merging measures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Models of the self and other: Fundamental dimensions underlying measures of adult attachment.

Three studies, involving 146 undergraduates and 68 heterosexual couples, assessed the construct validity of the self- and other-model dimensions underlying the 4-category model of adult attachment. Five methods were used to assess the hypothesized dimensions: self-reports, friend-reports, romantic partner reports, trained judges' ratings of peer attachment, and trained judges' ratings of family attachment. Study 2 related the latent attachment dimensions to theoretically relevant outcome latent variables. As predicted, Ss' self models converged with direct measures of the positivity of their self-concepts, and Ss' other models converged with direct measures of the positivity of their interpersonal orientations. Study 3 related the latent attachment dimensions to 3 alternate self-report measures of adult attachment and showed that the 2 dimensions served as an organizing framework for the different measurement approaches. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Responses of normal and disturbed adults and children to mixed messages.

Showed mixed messages containing contradictory communication components to 10 male 22–38 yr old students, 10 male 23–43 yr old schizophrenic inpatients, 10 male 7–9 yr old normal children, and 10 male 7–9 yr old disturbed children. The overall results reveal that normal adults' evaluations of mixed messages were significantly different from those of disturbed adults and from those of normal and disturbed children. Normal adults appeared to be influenced by all communication components (verbal statement, facial expression, vocal tone, and physical gesture) in mixed messages, whereas the other 3 S-groups were primarily influenced by the words. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychological adjustment in adults with cancer: The self as mediator.

Investigated whether discrepancies between actual and ideal self-conceptions influence adjustment and mediate the effects of disease-related health problems on psychological well-being, in a cross-sectional study of 108 cancer patients (aged 26–86 yrs). Ss who had more symptoms and worse functional health and perceived their cancer as a chronic rather than an acute disease had higher levels of self-discrepancies and poorer adjustment. Self-discrepancy was a significant mediator of the effects of perceived health status on purpose in life, positive relations with others, and depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Time-to-contact judgment in the locomotion of adults and preschool children.

The hypothesis of D. N. Lee (1976), that approach and deceleration toward a surface can be controlled through the rate of change of the optic variable τ, was examined for natural human locomotion. In Exp 1, 12 adults were asked to perform locomotor tasks that required running at speed and then decelerating so that either the hand or head made a controlled contact with a door. In Exp 2, 12 preschool children performed a relay-running task that required similar control. In Exp 3, 12 children and 12 adults ran with a stick as an extension to their arm length and performed the same task. The results supported Lee's hypothesis for the initial phase of approach, but Ss switched to a separate adjustment phase 2–3 arm lengths from the target. Children did not adopt an appropriate τ strategy for collision avoidance and appeared unable to modify their approach strategy to allow for a hand-held stick. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Moderators of self–other agreement: Reconsidering temporal stability in personality.

Accurate prediction requires information not only about central tendencies but also about variability. In personality prediction, however, most research has focused on trait-level central tendencies. Previously proposed moderators of personality prediction are all conceptually similar in comparing an individual's central tendency in response patterns with that of the normative person. This article proposes an alternative: Trait-level prediction is enhanced by measuring the temporal stability of response patterns within persons. Across 2 studies, individuals with temporally stable response patterns had higher self–other agreement on conscientiousness and extraversion than did individuals with less temporally stable patterns. By comparison, normatively based variables (interitem variability, scalability, or construct similarity) did not moderate self–other agreement. The implications for personality structure, assessment, and prediction are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)