Dimensions of response to novelty are associated with social engagement and aggression in adult male rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta).

In this study, the authors tested the hypothesis that behavioral response across social and nonsocial, novel and familiar conditions may be guided by the same trait(s) related to impulsivity in adult male rhesus macaques. The authors assessed 23 individuals' behavioral response to a series of nonsocial novel scenarios, as well as aggression and sociality within familiar and novel social contexts. Factor analysis of responses to nonsocial novelty identified two factors: Caution, which reflected latency to engage different novel situations, and Interest in Novelty, which consisted of duration and quality of exploration. Each dimension was associated with different social manifestations. Caution was negatively correlated with social aggression in novel and familiar social circumstances; Interest in Novelty was positively associated with social engagement in familiar, but not novel, social circumstances. The authors conclude that traits influencing impulsive response to novelty contribute to risky and normal social behavior across social contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A note on the Couch and Keniston measure of agreement response set.

In a previous study, the authors have identified an "agreeing response set" and this may be related to what Edwards had identified as "social desirability set." Evidence (correlations between the OAS scale, a measure of agreement set, and responses on the MMPI), indicates that both scales are influenced by acquiescent tendencies as well as by social desirability tendencies. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3HF73E. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intelligence, schooling, and society.

IQ test scores are measures of g, or general intelligence, the common element present in diverse tests of cognitive abilities that are positively related to each other. IQ scores are related to the acquisition of knowledge in school and occupational settings. IQ test scores also relate to the academic achievements of one's children. In many contexts, the relationship between IQ and various outcomes is not attributable to the relationship between IQ and social class background. IQ is an index that distinguishes among individuals with common social and demographic backgrounds. The relationship between IQ and various outcome measures may be reduced by relying on multivariable selection procedures, by modifying educational and occupational practices, and by interventions designed to increase IQ. Representative studies that provide evidence for these assertions are considered. Although the influence of the ability indexed by IQ may be reduced, it probably cannot be eliminated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Goal-relevant dimensions of hypochondriacal tendencies and their relation to symptom manifestation and psychological distress.

A national sample of 60 male and 61 female adults completed a telephone interview that included measures of hypochondriacal tendencies, psychological distress, and symptom manifestation. They also provided cognitive evaluations for their most important health goal on scales measuring self-efficacy, value, planning, self-reward, self-criticism, self-monitoring, social comparison, and positive and negative goal-based arousal. Health goal cognition significantly predicted hypochondriacal tendencies measured 15 to 30 days after the goal assessment, even after controlling for chronic illness diagnosis. Correlations between goal cognition and hypochondriacal tendencies differed from those observed for psychological distress, and no significant correlations emerged with symptom manifestation. Results support a motivational account of hypochondriacal tendencies and extend previous goals research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The pushes and pulls of close relationships: Attachment insecurities and relational ambivalence.

Attachment theorists have emphasized that attachment-anxious individuals are ambivalent in their relational tendencies, wishing to be close to their relationship partners but also fearing rejection. Here we report 6 studies examining the contribution of attachment anxiety and experimentally induced relational contexts (both positive and negative) to explicit and implicit manifestations of (a) attitudinal ambivalence toward a romantic partner and (b) motivational ambivalence with respect to the goals of relational closeness and distance. Attachment-anxious individuals exhibited strong attitudinal ambivalence toward a romantic partner, assessed by both explicit and implicit measures. They also exhibited strong motivational ambivalence regarding closeness (both explicit and implicit), and this motivational conflict was intensified in relational contexts that encouraged either approach or avoidance tendencies. Participants who scored relatively high on avoidant attachment proved to be implicitly ambivalent about distance issues but mainly in negative relational contexts. Several alternative interpretations of the results were considered and ruled out. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Predicting preschoolers' peer behavior and status from their interpersonal strategies: A comparison of verbal and enactive responses to hypothetical social dilemmas.

The purposes of this study were (a) to compare a verbal and an enactive procedure for assessing preschool children's social strategies in hypothetical situations in terms of their ability to predict social behavior with peers and peer acceptance and (b) to examine some of the psychometric properties of the two assessment methods. Children's responses to a set of hypothetical social situations were elicited both with puppets and props (enactive assessment) and with a set of pictures (verbal assessment). The responses were rated in terms of their friendliness and assertiveness. Enactive friendliness ratings contributed significantly to regression equations predicting teacher and observer ratings of prosocial and aggressive behavior but not to peer group acceptance, whereas the verbal method contributed little predictive power beyond that provided by the enactive ratings. Implications for social skill assessment and intervention with children are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Alcohol and cognitive control: Implications for regulation of behavior during response conflict.

Alcohol intoxication often leads to dysregulated behavior in contexts characterized by conflict between prepotent response tendencies and incompatible alternative responses. Recent research has identified 2 components of an anterior executive attention system that are essential for adaptive behavior when response conflict exists. Event-related potential (ERP) measures of evaluative and regulative cognitive control were collected to determine if impaired executive attention was responsible for observed behavior deficits when intoxicated. Intoxicated participants displayed task performance deficits on incongruent color-naming trials relative to sober controls. Alcohol did not affect P3 magnitude/latency, indicating that timing and integrity of stimulus evaluation remained intact. In contrast, alcohol did reduce frontal components of ERP that index evaluative and regulative cognitive control processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceiving others’ personalities: Examining the dimensionality, assumed similarity to the self, and stability of perceiver effects.

In interpersonal perception, “perceiver effects” are tendencies of perceivers to see other people in a particular way. Two studies of naturalistic interactions examined perceiver effects for personality traits: seeing a typical other as sympathetic or quarrelsome, responsible or careless, and so forth. Several basic questions were addressed. First, are perceiver effects organized as a global evaluative halo, or do perceptions of different traits vary in distinct ways? Second, does assumed similarity (as evidenced by self-perceiver correlations) reflect broad evaluative consistency or trait-specific content? Third, are perceiver effects a manifestation of stable beliefs about the generalized other, or do they form in specific contexts as group-specific stereotypes? Findings indicated that perceiver effects were better described by a differentiated, multidimensional structure with both trait-specific content and a higher order global evaluation factor. Assumed similarity was at least partially attributable to trait-specific content, not just to broad evaluative similarity between self and others. Perceiver effects were correlated with gender and attachment style, but in newly formed groups, they became more stable over time, suggesting that they grew dynamically as group stereotypes. Implications for the interpretation of perceiver effects and for research on personality assessment and psychopathology are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of social reinforcement and the behavior of models in shaping children's moral judgment.

This experiment was designed to test the relative efficacy of social reinforcement and modeling procedures in modifying moral judgmental responses considered by Piaget to be age-specific. 1 group of children observed adult models who expressed moral judgments counter to the group's orientation, and the children were reinforced with approval for adopting the model's evaluative responses. A 2nd group observed the models but received no reinforcement for matching their behavior. A 3rd group of children had no exposure to models but were reinforced for moral judgments that ran counter to their dominant evaluative tendencies. Following the treatments, the children were tested for generalization effects. The experimental treatments produced substantial changes in the children's moral judgment responses. Conditions utilizing modeling cues proved to be more effective than the operant conditioning procedure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Assessment of psychopathy as a function of age.

The assessment of psychopathy was examined as a function of age in 889 male prison inmates between the ages of 16 and 69. Ratings of psychopathy were made with the Psychopathy Checklist (PCL), which measures 2 correlated factors. Factor 1 describes a cluster of affective-interpersonal traits central to psychopathy. Factor 2 describes traits and behaviors associated with an unstable, unsocialized lifestyle, or social deviance. Cross-sectional analyses revealed that mean scores on Factor 1 were stable across the age-span; mean scores on Factor 2 declined with age. The prevalence of antisocial personality disorder, and, to a lesser extent of PCL-defined psychopathy, also declined with age. The results are consistent with a conceptualization of psychopathy as encompassing 2 correlated but distinct constructs. They also suggest that age-related differences in traits related to impulsivity, social deviance, and antisocial behavior are not necessarily paralleled by differences in the egocentric, manipulative, and callous traits fundamental to psychopathy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's Evaluation of Sources of Information About Traits.

Children's assessment of the value of different sources of information about psychological traits was investigated among 6- to 7-year-olds and 10- to 11-year-olds across 5 studies (N=330). Older children were more likely than younger children to reject self-report as a source of information about the highly evaluative traits smart and honest, but no such age-related difference was seen for the less evaluative comparison traits outgoing and nervous. A similar pattern of age-related differences was seen when children were asked to identify which of 4 sources of information--self-report, teacher report, peer report, or direct observation--would be most useful for obtaining information about the evaluative and comparison traits. The age-related increase in skepticism about self-report as a source of information for evaluative traits was associated with an increased appreciation of the role that social desirability plays in self-presentational processes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation between coping strategies, sex-typed traits, and environmental characteristics: A comparison of male and female managers.

I examined sex-typed traits (instrumentality and expressiveness), the work environment (demands and interpersonal resources), and importance of stressor episodes as predictors of 3 measures of coping (avoidance, problem reappraisal, and active problem solving) derived from a modified Ways of Coping Checklist. The data were collected from 132 managers (60 men and 72 women). Sex-typed trait measures and demographic information were assessed 1 month before the assessment of the work environment, stressful episodes, and coping responses. Women, compared with men, were more likely to use avoidance and problem-reappraisal coping, whereas there were no gender differences with regard to active problem-solving coping. Multiple regression analyses showed that sex-typed traits, the work environment, and episode importance were significant predictors of the coping scores after the effects of sex were removed, and that patterns of effects were different for each type of coping. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Client distress disclosure, characteristics at intake, and outcome in brief counseling.

Client tendencies to disclose versus conceal personally distressing information (termed distress disclosure) were hypothesized to relate to measures of social support, personality, perceived stress, and symptomatology at intake, as well as improvement over the course of counseling. Seventy-nine college counseling center clients completed questionnaires at intake; 45 of these clients also completed measures at termination. Distress disclosure was related to social support, trait positive affectivity, and trait negative affectivity at intake; and distress disclosure was associated with a decrease in client-rated stress and symptomatology over the course of counseling. These findings point to the importance of attending to client differences in tendencies to disclose versus conceal personally distressing information both at intake and as it relates to change in counseling. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Observations of Aggressive Children During Peer Provocation and With a Best Friend.

Observational methods were used to examine aggressive children's peer relations in 2 contexts: when being teased by a peer and when interacting with a best friend. Because aggressive children may have more difficulty than nonaggressive children in both peer contexts, the authors also examined whether relations between behaviors across contexts varied as a function of aggression. Results indicated that aggression was related to children's behavior when provoked. Children's behavior when provoked was associated with fewer positive and more negative interactions with their best friend, particularly for aggressive children. Results are discussed with respect to social norms in middle childhood and informing interventions for aggressive children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social class, conditional communication, and egocentric speech.

Studied social class differences in ability to communicate conditional information using 132 5th-grade white children, who were divided into lower- and middle-socioeconomic-status (SES) groups of approximately equal IQ. Dyadic groupings were formed by combining lower- and middle-SES children into the 4 possible speaker-listener combinations. The task required speakers to use a conditional communication in describing the rules of a game to a listener. Results showed that as listeners, lower- and middle-SES children responded equally well to the communications of both lower- and middle-SES speakers. However, as communicators, the lower-SES children performed more poorly than the middle-SES children. Both lower- and middle-SES listeners had equally great difficulty complying with the instructions provided by the lower-SES communicators. The data suggest that SES differences cannot be attributed to lack of comprehension of the conditional logic. Instead, it appears that the lower-SES children were difficult to understand because of strong tendencies toward egocentric communication patterns. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

MCMI-II personality traits and symptom traits in parents of children with selective mutism: A case-control study.

The etiology of selective mutism (SM) in children is unknown but is regarded as multifactorial. SM is frequently associated with social anxiety and language disorder or delay. The present study addresses SM and social anxiety as a familial phenomenon by comparing self-reported personality traits and symptom traits (Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory; T. Millon, 1987) in parents of 50 SM children with control parents. Personality and symptom traits reflecting social anxiety are also explored separately in the parents of SM children with and without a comorbid communication disorder. The results confirm SM and social anxiety as a familial phenomenon. Assessment and treatment planning should take this into account. The family data also suggest different family transmissions of SM and social anxiety in the SM group with and without a comorbid communication disorder. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Callous-Unemotional Traits and Delinquent Peer Affiliation.

Association with a deviant peer group is a robust correlate of juvenile antisocial behavior. The current study focused on whether this association differed for antisocial youth with and without callous-unemotional (CU) traits and whether potential mediators of this association differed for the 2 groups. Deviant peer group association was examined in a community sample (N = 98) of high-risk youth. The sample was assessed at 4 yearly intervals. Across all assessment points, children with conduct problems and CU traits showed the highest level of affiliation with deviant peers. At the first 2 assessment points, this effect was largely mediated by dysfunctional parenting and problems in the child's social relationships. In contrast, the mediational role of these variables was much weaker at the last 2 assessment points. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)