"Individual differences, situational variables, and personality research": Erratum.

Reports an error in the original article by Irwin G. Sarason (Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1962, 65[6], 376-380; (see record 1964-10015-001). On page 379, the second line of Paragraph 1 should read: (p     

Interrelationships among subject, experimenter, and situational variables.

An experiment was performed which employed, not only samples of college Ss, but, also, samples of college Es. The individual difference variables were sex and hostility scores of Ss and Es. Degree of personal contract between S and E and E's prestige value were experimentally manipulated. These variables were studied in a situation in which Ss were reinforced for emission of 1st-person pronouns. The results showed that reinforcement led to an increase in response of the reinforced class, but nonreinforcement failed to result in extinction effects. Both individual difference and experimental variables significantly influenced S's performance. These findings indicate the value of approaching experimental situations from the point of view of interpersonal transactions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of situational and interpersonal variables in projective testing.

Despite the methodological flaws existing in studies concerned with the effects of method of test administration, testing situation, examiner influence, and subject influence on responses made to projective tests, there is strong evidence to show that these variables are important determiners of subject responses. One of the more important variables is the degree to which the S senses that the experimental conditions are integral to the total testing situations, i.e., if there is a feeling of high correspondence then S will be influenced. The implications for the client-clinician relationship are explored. 105 refs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Different strokes for different folks: How individual interest moderates the effects of situational factors on task interest.

Individual interest was examined as a moderator of effects of situational factors designed to catch and hold task interest. In Study 1, 96 college students learned a math technique with materials enhanced with collative features (catch) versus not. Catch promoted motivation among participants with low individual interest in math (IIM) but hampered motivation among those with high IIM. In Study 2 (n = 145), catch was crossed with a hold manipulation, emphasizing utility. Effects of each manipulation depended on IIM. The catch results were similar to those in Study 1. Hold promoted motivation among participants with high IIM and undermined it among participants with low IIM. Discussion centers on the intersection of individual and situational interest. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Association of personal, process, and outcome variables in group counseling: Testing an exploratory model.

This study measured relationships among personal, process, and outcome variables in a student population (n = 205) participating in group counseling. Personal variables included intention to disclose, self-esteem, risk taking, and interpersonal relationships. Process variables included bonding with group members, bonding with leader, impression of therapy, self-disclosure, and resistance. Analyses were conducted with hierarchical models and Mplus. Results indicated gains in interpersonal relationships, which were associated with their own initial scores, with intention to disclose mediated by impression of therapy, and with self-disclosure. Three of the four personal variables (risk taking being the exception) were associated with the process variables of bonding with group and leader and impression of therapy, all moderately interrelated. Self-disclosure was unrelated to any personal or process variables. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A factor analytic investigation of personality variables and reminiscence in motor learning.

The effect of personality type upon learning and reminiscence was studied. Personality factors (as measured by the Guilford-Zimmerman Temperament Survey, 1949) were assessed in relationship to pursuit-motor learning. The results indicated that extraversion appears to be related to performance in the motor task as well as reminiscence, but that the relationship, as found in this study by these methods, is not large. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4CF98B. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interrelationships among personality variables, kinesthetic figure afteraffect, and reminiscence in motor learning.

The relationship among kinesthetic figural aftereffect (KAE), reminiscence in motor learning (Rem), MMPI data, psychiatric diagnosis, age and vocabulary were studied in psychotic and nonpsychotic VA patients. KAE was found to be negatively related to Rem, but there was no significant relationship with MMPI and psychiatric diagnostic data; Rem was found to be positively related with MMPI and psychiatric diagnosis. It was assumed that part of the explanation for whatever relationships existed between the variables might be found in neural processes. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4HJ87M. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The associative-memory basis of cognitive skill learning: Adult age differences.

It has been established that memorizing common problems and their solutions underlies cognitive skill development, and that there are substantial age deficits in the rate of this learning. In a between-groups design, the authors compared learning rates for the same set of problems in skill (SK) training and paired-associate (PA) training. The authors found main effects due to condition (PA problems were acquired earlier) and to age (older adults' learning was delayed), but no condition-by-age interaction. The authors concluded that the age deficit in SK can be accounted for by the age deficit in associative memory; no further explanation is needed. The authors also analyzed fast and slow retrieves in SK and PA, and found that the frequency of fast retrieves did not differ in the two conditions. The overall advantage of PA was due to the occurrence of slow retrieves, which were absent in SK presumably because the skill algorithm displaces slow, explicit memory search in SK, but not fast, familiarity-based retrieval. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Safety in work vehicles: A multilevel study linking safety values and individual predictors to work-related driving crashes.

Although work-related driving is associated with high accident rates, limited research has investigated the factors influencing driving crashes in the work setting. This study explored multilevel influences on self-reported crashes in the workplace by surveying a sample of work-related drivers (n = 380), their workgroup supervisors (n = 88), and fleet managers (n = 47). At the driver level of analysis, safety motivation predicted self-reported crashes. In turn, drivers' perceptions of their fleet managers' safety values (but not drivers' perceptions of their supervisors' safety values), their own attitudes, and their own efficacy beliefs predicted motivation to drive safely. Furthermore, the influence of supervisors and fleet managers interacted such that drivers were more motivated to drive safely if they perceived both their supervisor and fleet manager to value safety. This study also explored the cross-level relationships between supervisors' and fleet managers' perceptions of organizational safety values and drivers' perceptions of managerial safety values and found a relationship between fleet managers' perceptions of organizational safety values and drivers' perceptions of fleet managers' safety values. These results illustrate that perceptions of workplace safety values are transmitted across levels of the organization. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Focusing and restricting: Two aspects of motivational selectivity in adulthood.

Using a short-term longitudinal design, the authors investigated implications of 2 facets of motivational selectivity--restricting (to few goals) and focusing (on central and similar goals)--for goal-pursuit investment. Participants were 20-69 years old (Time 1, N = 177; Time 2, N = 160). Results show that motivational selectivity in terms of focusing (but not in terms of restricting) is associated with an enhanced involvement in goal pursuit (assessed 3 months later), irrespective of age. Structural equation models demonstrated that this association is completely mediated by the degree of mutual facilitation among goals. Furthermore, motivational selectivity increases from middle to older adulthood. This contributes to the maintenance of high goal involvement into later adulthood, despite aging-related increases in resource limitations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Displacement activity and motivational theory: A case study in the history of ethology.

Behaviors occurring out of their characteristic motivational context and in the midst of conflict and thwarting situations have been called "displacement activities." Such behaviors were originally explained by reference to energy models of motivation. It is now known that the nature and intensity of such activities are primarily a function of 3 sets of variables: type and intensity of peripheral stimulation, the existence of behaviors incompatible with the activity in question, and the existence and duration of states of motivational equilibrium with respect to such incompatible behaviors. The implications of these findings for motivational theory are discussed and it is suggested that drive and energy concepts no longer serve any useful function in the study of species-specific behavior. (80 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of motivation in verbal learning and performance.

"It is the major thesis of the present paper that the question as to whether a given variable acts as a motive or reflects a motivational state can be answered only in the context of explicit assumptions concerning the particular ways in which motivational variables can be differentiated from other variables in their influence on behavior. In view of the current confusions between the concepts of motivation and habit, it would appear to be particularly desirable to distinguish between the associative and nonassociative properties of variables." 57 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The development of competence-related and motivational beliefs: An investigation of similarity and influence among friends.

This research examined the degree to which children's achievement-related beliefs could be predicted from their friends' beliefs, both concurrently and over time. For 3 semesters, 4th-, 5th-, and 6th-grade students (N = 929) completed measures of their competence-related beliefs, motivational beliefs, and friendship choices. Concurrent analyses indicated that friends showed consistent, albeit modest, similarities with regard to their self-perceptions of competence, academic standards, importance of meeting standards, and preference for challenge. During the academic year, friends appeared influential with regard to children's ability attributions for success and the importance they placed on meeting academic standards. Over a grade-level transition, friends appeared influential with regard to children's ability attributions for failure. Overall, associations were stronger among reciprocated than among unilateral friends. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Praise and censure as motivating variables in the motor behavior and learning of schizophrenics.

Hullian assumptions regarding drive level were utilized to predict the performance of acute and chronic schizophrenics on learning tasks of varying complexity. Ss were exposed to 3 conditions of reinforcement: censure, praise, and neutral (neither censure nor praise), and faced with simple and complex learning tasks. Acute schizophrenics responded differently from the chronic Ss to the conditions of reinforcement. The performance of the acute group was facilitated on the 2nd task by the experience of being told they were wrong on the 1st; this was not so with the chronic schizophrenics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Friend influence on prosocial behavior: The role of motivational factors and friendship characteristics.

This study examined motivation (prosocial goals), individual characteristics (sex, ethnicity, and grade), and friendship characteristics (affective quality, interaction frequency, and friendship stability) in relation to middle adolescents' prosocial behavior over time. Ninth- and 10th-grade students (N=208) attending a suburban, mid-Atlantic public high school and having at least 1 reciprocated friendship were followed for 1 year. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that a friend's behavior is related to an individual's prosocial goal pursuit, which in turn, is related to an individual's prosocial behavior. Further, the affective quality of a friendship and the frequency with which friends interact moderate relations of a friend's prosocial behavior to an individual's prosocial goal pursuit. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Feeling duped: Emotional, motivational, and cognitive aspects of being exploited by others.

Feeling duped is an aversive emotional response to the perception of having been taken advantage of in a interpersonal transaction (primarily those involving economic exchange), partly as a result of one's own decisions. The actual likelihood of being duped, as well as the heightened vigilance for it, should increase as a function of opportunity (e.g., information asymmetry that gives one side a big advantage in knowledge) and motivation (e.g., an exceptionally huge payoff may make it worth defrauding a long-term business partner). Being duped produces an aversive self-conscious emotion with a threat of self-blame. There appears to be stable individual differences in the motivation (called sugrophobia) to avoid being a sucker. High sugrophobes will be vigilant and skeptical of potential deals. Low sugrophobes may not even realize in some instances that they were duped. The aversive reaction to feeling duped stimulates counterfactual ruminations that may intensify sugrophobia but also aids in extracting useful lessons. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

A latent curve model of parental motivational practices and developmental decline in math and science academic intrinsic motivation.

A longitudinal approach was used to examine the effects of parental task-intrinsic and task-extrinsic motivational practices on academic intrinsic motivation in the subject areas of math and science. Parental task-intrinsic practices comprise encouragement of children’s pleasure and engagement in the learning process, whereas task-extrinsic practices comprise parents’ provision of external rewards and consequences contingent on children’s task performance. A conditional latent curve model was fit to data from the Fullerton Longitudinal Study (A. W. Gottfried, A. E. Gottfried, & D. W. Guerin, 2006), with academic intrinsic motivation in math and science assessed from ages 9 to 17 and parental motivational practices measured when children were age 9. The results indicated that task-intrinsic practices were beneficial with regard to children’s initial levels of motivation at age 9 as well as with regard to motivational decline through age 17. Conversely, parents’ use of task-extrinsic practices was adverse with regard to children’s motivation both at age 9 and across the 8-year interval. Theoretical implications of the findings with regard to academic intrinsic motivation are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Me against myself: Motivational conflicts and emotional development in adulthood.

Two studies investigated adult age differences in the frequency and emotional consequences of motivational conflicts (i.e., feeling that one wants to or should do something else in a given situation). Study 1 compared younger and older adults. Study 2 included a more age-heterogeneous sample ranging from 20 to 70 years. Data were obtained using diary and experience-sampling methods. Multilevel regression showed that motivational conflict was associated with lower emotional well-being. With age, the frequency of motivational conflict decreased, while emotional well-being increased. Importantly, the age-related decrease in motivational conflicts partly accounted for the age-related increase in emotional well-being. Findings were consistent across studies and robust after the authors controlled for age differences in a number of control variables including time use. The authors conclude that an age-related decrease in motivational conflicts in daily life may be among the factors underlying the positive development of emotional well-being into older adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The silence of the library: Environment, situational norm, and social behavior.

On the basis of the idea that situational norms are mentally represented as associations between environments and normative behavior, it was proposed that an environment can automatically direct normative behavior. More specifically, when situational norms are well-established (e.g., when entering the library, one should be silent), an environment is capable of automatically activating mental representations of normative behavior and the behavior itself. In these experiments, participants were exposed to pictures of environments, and effects on accessibility of representations of normative behavior and on actual behavior were assessed. Results indicated that representations of behavior and actual behavior itself are activated automatically when (a) goals to visit the environment are active and (b) strong associations between environment and normative behavior are established. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)