Metacognition and problem solving: A process-oriented approach.

Four studies were conducted to demonstrate that the positive effects of verbalization on solution transfer found in previous studies were not due to verbalization per se but to the metacognitive processing involved in the effort required to produce explanation for solution behaviors. In Experiments 1, 2, and 3, a distinction was made between process-oriented, problem-oriented, and simple "think aloud" verbalizations. The process-oriented (metacognitive) solvers performed significantly better than nonprocess control groups on both training and transfer tasks. Experiment 4 further demonstrated this effect by showing that process-oriented participants consistently form more sophisticated problem representations and develop more complex strategies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Gender, life experiences, and moral judgment development: A process-oriented approach.

The purpose of this study was to reexamine the issue of gender differences in moral development from a process-oriented perspective. We hypothesized that life experiences and value orientations toward those experiences would exert differential influences on the processes (but not necessarily the outcomes) of moral development for women and men. Ss were 52 men and 50 women (mean adult age?=?26.8 years) who were tested over a 10-year period spanning from high school (1973) to young adulthood (1983). We used path analysis (using ordinary least squares regression) to estimate the effects of education experiences, occupational experiences, and marriage of Ss' moral judgment development (assessed using J. R. Rest's, 1979, Defining Issues Test). Although we found no significant outcome differences between women's and men's adult levels of moral development, education, or occupational attainment, we did find that the process linking education, occupation, and marriage to adult moral development differed for men and women. We interpreted these results as reflecting the influence of contemporary patterns of sex role socialization on adult processes of moral development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A process-oriented approach for averting confounds resulting from general performance deficiencies in schizophrenia.

The most pervasive and least well-addressed problem in cognitive studies of schizophrenia is the propensity of schizophrenia patients to show inferior performance on a variety of cognitive tasks. Consequently, apparent specific cognitive abnormalities may actually reflect the interaction of task discriminating power with generalized deficit. L. J. Chapman and J. P. Chapman (1973) suggested psychometric approaches for eliminating such artifactual group differences. Unfortunately, their solution neglects important issues of process specification and does not provide a viable strategy for process-oriented investigators. Psychometric remediation of artifactual Group?×?Task interactions inevitably confounds the processes being measured, resulting in theoretically ambiguous findings. Moreover, evidence that changes in measurement reliability can both increase and decrease group discrimination challenges a basic underlying assumption of the Chapmans' matching solution. This article presents a process-oriented approach to solving this problem in schizophrenia research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Task performance and perceptions of anxiety: Averaging and summation in an evaluative setting.

Suggests that individuals' "stage fright," or perceptions of anxiety and performance, is a function of tendencies to both average and summate the impact of audience members. We found that under certain conditions adding an evaluative member to an audience decreased anxiety, whereas in other conditions the addition of evaluative members increased anxiety. These results are not expected from social impact theory or social facilitation research and suggest that individuals do not react to groups of individuals in a manner analogous to the way in which trait information is typically averaged in forming impressions of individuals (Anderson, 1981). An averaging-summation model that does account for these findings is presented. This research has implications for research on crowding, stress, social influence, and affective responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Explaining gender differences in self-pay expectations: Social comparison standards and perceptions of fair pay.

Examined gender differences in self-pay expectations and the factors that mediate these differences. On the basis of B. Major and E. Konar's (1984) model, 5 mediators were considered: career paths, objective job inputs, perceived job inputs, job facet importance, and social comparison standards. The mediating role of a 6th factor, fair pay standards, was also examined. College seniors planning to enter a variety of occupational fields completed the Career Expectations Survey, which assessed their self-pay expectations and the 6 mediating factors. Findings indicate that, regardless of occupational field, women had lower career-peak self-pay expectations than men. The best mediator of the gender gap in self-pay expectations was fair pay standards. Implications for future research on the construct of fair pay standards and its importance in understanding the gender wage gap are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Links between sexual abuse in childhood and behavioural disorders in adolescent girls: A multivariate approach.

Assessed the links between adolescent behavioral problems and childhood sexual abuse in 3 groups of girls (aged 13–19 yrs). A set of questionnaires was administered to a control group (N?=?181) and 2 clinical groups, one (N?=?62) presenting with sexual behavioral problems and the other (N?=?107) with behavioral problems of a nonsexual nature. Girls in the clinical groups who disclosed sexual abuse had experienced frequent abuse, with penetration, at an older age. Abuse revealed in the control group was less frequent, involved fondling only, and occurred at an earlier age. Considering the clinical groups alone, sexually related behavioral disorders were associated with high frequency, severity, an adolescent abuser, and a reaction of fear. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the role of "instructions to the subject" in psychological experiments.

Proposes that a notable procedural difference between human behavioral experiments and those which are basically physical and biological lies in the instructions to the S. It is noted that C. H. Grahame (see record 1950-04957-001) considers that the instruction stimulus is a selector of a given class of discriminations, and has controlled effects on the S. The purposes served by such instructions are therefore discussed, as well as problems arising from their use, and methods of dealing with such problems. (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Discovering African American parents' perceptions of play therapy: A phenomenological approach.

A qualitative investigation illuminating the perceptions of eight African American caregivers of elementary school-age children. In particular, this study explored questions that pertained to African American parents' (a) thoughts about counseling, (b) beliefs about the purpose of play, and (c) perceptions about play as a therapeutic agent in counseling. Analysis of African American caregivers' responses to interview questions revealed information about two main themes: (a) value of play and (b) receptivity to counseling. Participants identified developmental learning and energy release as two of the main values surrounding play. They also indicated that receptivity to counseling was directly related to specific facilitative factors, or lack thereof. Implications for play therapists' work with parents and directions for future research are explored. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

On getting good subject mileage: Reuse of subjects in experiments involving groups.

Presents a combinatorial solution to the problem of reusing Ss, which often arises in experiments on groups. Blocking and Latin square approaches are examined and contrasted. A compromise solution is offered applying a variation of "v, k, λ" balancing techniques to incomplete block designs. Suggestions are offered for testing individual effects as well as for using ordinary 1-way ANOVA. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Student perceptions of and expectations for male and female instructors: Evidence relating to the question of gender bias in teaching evaluation.

253 undergraduates completed a course evaluation questionnaire that included formal teaching performance ratings, perceptual orientation scales, and indicators of degree and context of student–instructor contact. Ss represented 11 female-instructed courses and 28 male-instructed courses. Male and female instructors were found to be placed within a unitary perceptual frame of reference. Female instructors were perceived as warmer and more potent individuals, but were required by the Ss to offer greater interpersonal support and were judged more closely than male instructors in providing it. Results suggest that although direct gender bias may not be observed in formal student evaluations of their instructors, female faculty members are nonetheless subject to culturally conditioned gender stereotypes. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mothers' and children's expectations for adolescence: The impact of perceptions of an older sibling's experience.

The present study examined the role of perceived experience with an older child in mothers' expectations for subsequent children's adolescence as well as the impact of perceived experience with an older sibling on young adolescent children's expectations for their own adolescence. Participants were 305 sixth- and seventh-grade adolescents and 287 of their mothers. Participants were interviewed via telephone. For both mothers and children, the quality of experience with an older child/sibling was a better predictor of target-based expectations for the young adolescent than was the simple presence or absence of an older sibling. In some cases the link between quality of experience with an earlier born adolescent and mothers' expectations for the target child's adolescence was modified by the target child's temperament. In general, the results support a modeling hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Retranslation of expectations: An approach to the construction of unambiguous anchors for rating scales.

A procedure was tested for the construction of evaluative rating scales anchored by examples of expected behavior. Expectations, based on having observed similar behavior, were used to permit rating in a variety of situations without sacrifice of specificity. Examples, submitted by head nurses as illustrations of nurses' behavior related to a given dimension were retained only if reallocated to that dimension by other head nurses, and then scaled as to desirability. Agreement for a number of examples was high, and scale reliabilities ranged above .97. Similar content validity should be obtained in other rating situations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comparing teacher and peer perceptions of aggression: An ecological approach.

Teacher and peer perceptions of aggression were investigated in a sample of 899 students. Teachers rated their students in Grades 3–8 on an 8-item scale assessing peer-directed aggression. Students completed a questionnaire within classrooms that measured acceptance, rejection, and peer-directed aggression. Both teachers and peers reported higher levels of aggression in boys than in girls. Teacher and peer perceptions of aggressive behavior were more congruent for boys than for girls, but this congruence differed significantly as a function of ethnicity. Significant differences among individual classrooms also existed in both teacher and peer ratings, as well as in the relationships between the 2 measures. Findings of gender, grade level, ethnic, and classroom differences are compared with previous research, and issues relevant to the identification of highly aggressive youth are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Global ischemic neuronal damage relates to behavioural deficits: a pharmacological approach

Global cerebral ischemia leads morphologically to selective neuronal damage in the CA1 sector of the hippocampus and in the striatum and functionally to a deficit in spatial learning and memory in the water maze. The results of earlier studies which examined the relationship between neuronal damage and the deficits in the water maze were not clear cut. It has been observed, however, that neuroprotection reduces both the deficits in the water maze as well as the neuronal damage. The present study therefore approached the relationship between the neuronal damage and the deficits in water maze using pharmacological means. Global cerebral ischemia was induced in male Wistar rats by four-vessel occlusion for 20 min. Ischemic rats were treated with the N-methyl-D-aspartate receptor antagonist dextromethorphan, 50 mg/kg, with the calcium antagonist levemopamil, 30 mg/kg, with the radical scavenger EPC-K1, 10 mg/kg, or with solvent. Treatment with dextromethorphan or levemopamil reduced the deficit in spatial learning by limiting the increase in swim distance due to ischemia. Both substances also reduced the deficit in spatial memory by minimizing the ischemia-induced reduction in time spent in the quadrant of the former platform position during the probe trial. EPC-K1 had no influence on the ischemia-induced behavioural changes. Group comparisons demonstrated that the swim speed and the percentage of the swimming path along the sidewall were affected neither by ischemia nor by any of the treatments. Histological examination revealed neuronal damage in the hippocampus and in the striatum in all of the ischemic rats. Treatment with dextromethorphan or levemopamil reduced the hippocampal damage by 32% and 36%, respectively. In addition, dextromethorphan diminished the striatal damage about 78%. Correlation analysis demonstrated a correlation between the cumulative swim distance of all 20 escape trials and hippocampal damage (r = 0.65, P < 0.001) but not between swim distance and striatal damage (r = 0.14, P = 0.364). No correlation was found between quadrant time of the probe trial and either hippocampal damage (r = -0.21, P = 0.19) or striatal damage (r = -0.02, P = 0.889). The average percentage of the swimming path along the side wall related to the hippocampal damage (r = 0.28, P = 0.035) but not to the striatal damage (r = 0.05, P = 0.381). With respect to the average swim speed a correlation to striatal damage was observed (r = -0.69, P < 0.001) but not to hippocampal damage (r = -0.15, P = 0.168). These results clearly demonstrate that using the pharmacological approach it is possible to uncover certain correlations between functional deficits in the water maze and neuronal damage which are both due to global cerebral ischemia.     

Generalization of persistence: The transfer of approach behaviour to differing aversive stimuli.

In 3 experiments it was found that intermittent punishment with electric shock increased persistence to quantitatively and qualitatively different punishers but failed to increase resistance to extinction. Male albino Wistar rats (N=16, 26, and 17, respectively) served as Ss. It is suggested that while approach tendencies acquired to 1 fear state may be elicited by quite different fear states, generalization between fear and frustration may be limited by fairly narrow boundary conditions. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identification of the latent dimensions of instruments that measure perceptions of and expectations about counseling.

Numerous instruments have been developed to measure respondents' perceptions and expectations of counseling. Seven instruments with 33 scales to measure 22 different dimensions of counseling have been used most frequently in counseling psychology research. These instruments were administered to 253 undergraduate students after a 10-min videotape presentation of a staged counseling session. Their responses were factor analyzed by using a principal-factors extraction procedure and an oblique rotation. Six interpretable factors were identified, three each that measured respondents' expectations about and perceptions of counseling. No overlap occurred between the factors that pertained to expectations and perceptions. The results are consistent with previous research that has questioned the independence of scales that reportedly measure perceptions of counselor expertness, attractiveness, and trustworthiness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality€nvironment constellations and alcohol use: A process-oriented study of intraindividual change during adolescence.

Tested the salience of documented risk and protective factors in contributing to intra-individual changes in alcohol use behaviors and negative consequences of use during adolescence within an interactionist and process-oriented perspective. 870 Ss from a longitudinal study of normal adolescent development completed self-report questionnaires. Ss were 12 or 15 yrs old at the 1st test and were retested twice at 3-yr intervals (92% longitudinal retest rate). Person–environment constellations comprising high impulsivity, disinhibition, and deviant peer group associations, and to a lesser extent, low parental control, most strongly influenced high-risk developmental trajectories of use intensity and problems. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)