Depressive affect: A test of behavioral hypotheses. Reply to Buchwald.

In reply to Buchwald's (see record 1978-21210-001) critique of Wener and Rehm (see record 1975-25511-001), it is argued that the alternative hypotheses he offers are not compelling and the artifact he identifies is not of sufficient magnitude to have been solely responsible for the results of the reanalysis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depressive affect: A test of behavioral hypotheses. Reply to Wener and Rehm.

In reply to Wener and Rehm's (see record 2005-08994-001) comments on Buchwald's critique (see record 1978-21210-001) of an earlier article by them (see record 1975-25511-001), it is argued that (a) there are no grounds for interpreting their certainty ratings as a measure of self-confidence and that (b) the data they offer to refute the possibility of an artifact does not do so. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Comment on "Depressive affect: A test of behavioral hypotheses" by Wener and Rehm.

Critically examines A. E. Wener and L. P. Rehm's (see record 1975-25511-001) study in which Ss who were told that 80% of their responses were correct gave higher certainty ratings for their responses and had shorter latencies than Ss who were told that 20% of their responses were correct. The present article argues that to interpret these findings as evidence that a low rate of reinforcement leads to depression is gratuitous. Further, the danger of artifacts in Wener and Rehm's reanalyses of data is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Projection: A test of the psychoanalytic hypothesis.

Investigated classical Freudian projection with 83 male and 105 female college students. After completing the Sexual Defensiveness Scale, Ss selected a most unfavorable other from a group of photographs. The experimental Ss then examined a portfolio containing pornographic material. Following this, all Ss described an unfavorable other and themselves according to a standard list of trait rating scales. Results show that higher sexually defensive experimental Ss denied being sexually aroused and, in accordance with the psychoanalytic hypothesis, projected the highest amounts of arousal (the trait lustful) onto an unfavorable other. This effect was significantly increased when the unfavorable other was a male target and was further increased when female Ss rated male targets. Findings offer support for the concept of classical projection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A test of behavioral rigidity.

A battery of rigidity tests, some of which were selected from the literature and others which were newly constructed were administered to a group of 216 Ss selected to represent a wide range of age, occupation, and education. Factor analysis of the results resulted in the rejection of the hypothesis of a single rigidity factor. Instead, behavioral rigidity seems best described by three factors, interpreted as "motor-cognitive speed," "personality-perceptual rigidity," and "motor-cognitive rigidity." Subsequent testing on another population produced a simple structure matrix in substantial agreement with that obtained from the first sample. Norms and test manual are made available through the American Documentation Institute. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A test of the declining interest hypothesis.

Responds to the comment by A. Rowan and K. J. Shapiro (see record 1997-07159-001) on H. A. Herzog's (see record 1996-13937-001) examination of media coverage of the animal rights movement. Herzog agrees with Rowan and Shapiro's assessment of the movement's impact on popular culture and contemporary attitudes toward the treatment of animals. Herzog states that the amount of coverage in print media represents a fairly crude reflection of the cultural status of a grassroots social movement. However, he offers the meager turnout for the 1996 "March for the Animals" as an excellent test of the "declining interest hypothesis." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A biased test of the encoding shift hypothesis.

A recognition memory experiment with 72 8-, 11-, and 20-yr-olds investigated the hypothesis that with age, semantic encoding becomes increasingly important relative to acoustic encoding. Target words were paired with words related either semantically or acoustically in order to bias encoding in the direction of features common to both words. In support of the encoding shift hypothesis, recognition accuracy improved with age when encoding was biased semantically relative to accuracy when encoding was biased acoustically. (5 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hypnotic age regression: A test of the functional ablation hypothesis.

The hypothesis that responses acquired after the time to which S is hypnotically age regressed are functionally ablated was tested by utilizing a modification of the retroactive interference paradigm with a paired associates task. 5 preselected female Ss learned List A (S1-R1). 2 wk. later they learned List B (S1-R2) whereupon they were hypnotically age regressed to the date of original learning, when R1 strength was high, and given further S1-R1 trials. Appropriate A-A and A-B-A comparison groups (N = 10 each) were employed. The findings that the hypnotic age regression procedures failed to preclude the occurrence of interlist intrusions in the relearning of S1-R1 does not support the hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Realistic job previews: A test of the adverse self-selection hypothesis.

The realistic job preview (RJP) literature has focused more on posthire outcomes such as employee retention than on prehire outcomes such as applicant attraction and job choice behavior. This study extends the RJP literature by focusing on 2 important issues related to applicant attraction: (a) the weight applicants place on negative information in relation to other variables such as pay level and promotional opportunity and (b) whether the "best" applicants react differently to negative information than do other applicants (adverse self-selection). Results indicate that applicants place a fairly high negative weight on negative job information, relative to other vacancy characteristics. The results regarding adverse self-selection are less clear but suggest that the highest quality applicants may be less willing to pursue jobs for which negative information has been presented, especially when doing so imposes opportunity costs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Visual control of braking: A test of the !? hypothesis.

Deceleration during braking could be controlled by (1) using the time derivative of the relative rate of optical expansion, relative to a –0.5 margin value of tau-dot (D. N. Lee, 1976) or (2) computing the required deceleration from spatial variables (i.e., perceived distance, velocity, or object size). Participants viewed closed-loop displays of approach to an object and regulated their deceleration with a brake. The object appeared on a checkerboard ground surface (providing velocity, distance, and size information) or with no background (providing only optical expansion). Mean tau-dot during braking was –0.51, and estimates of the critical value of tau-dot based on brake adjustments were –0.44 and –0.52, close to the expected value. There were no overall effects of the ground surface or object size. The results are consistent with a tau-dot strategy, where the direction and magnitude of brake adjustments are regulated using tau-dot. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality and organizations: A test of the homogeneity of personality hypothesis.

A central proposition of attraction-selection-attrition theory (B. Schneider, 1987) and of the literature on organizational socialization was tested. Support for the hypothesis that organizations are relatively homogeneous with respect to the personality attributes of their managers was found. A multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) conducted on a sample of approximately 13,000 managers from 142 organizations representing a broad cross-sample of U.S. industries revealed a significant effect for organizational membership on the personality characteristics of managers. Results of a 2nd MANOVA, nesting organizations within industries, revealed a significant effect for both organization and industry on the personality characteristics of managers. Some implications of these findings are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A test of the salience hypothesis of dream recall.

Tested the hypothesis that dream salience (subjective impact of the generated dream) would be greater for frequent than infrequent dream recallers. Dream recall data from 8 frequent and 8 infrequent recallers (male undergraduates) were obtained under 2 conditions: tape-recorded verbal reports given to the E after interruption of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep and written diary reports after awakening by alarm clock in the absence of the E. Analysis of the verbal reports confirmed the hypothesis. The relatively greater difference between the 2 groups in mean percentage of dream diary recall for Stage 2 (non rapid eye movement; NREM) than for REM awakenings suggests that salience differences between the 2 groups may be greater following NREM than REM awakenings. Although salience may be affected by dream recall as well as dream generation processes (imagery ability seems related to both), the higher frequency of temporal references to past and future in the dreams of frequent recallers appears to relate to the generation process alone. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual learning style and learning proficiency: A test of the hypothesis.

Given the potential importance of using modality preference with instruction, the authors tested whether learning style preference correlated with memory performance in each of 3 sensory modalities: visual, auditory, and kinesthetic. In Study 1, participants completed objective measures of pictorial, auditory, and tactile learning and learning style self-assessments. The results indicate that objective test performance did not correlate with learning style preference. In Study 2, the authors examined in more detail the information participants used to answer the learning style self-assessment. The findings indicate that participants answered the inventory using general memories and beliefs rather than specific examples of learning in different modalities. These results challenge the hypothesis that individuals learn best with material presented in a particular sensory modality. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A test of the complementarity hypothesis in A-B research.

Results of a study with 48 male undergraduates fail to support J. Berzin and E. Seidman's (see record 1969-13028-001) complementarity hypothesis, which predicts that it would be more beneficial to pair therapists with patients on the basis of dissimilar reactions to stress. Rather, the data tend to support the notion of greater effectiveness of "A" therapists, or the "super-A" hypothesis of G. M. Chartier and W. Weiss (see record 1974-28173-001). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A Social Relations Model test of Sullivan's anxiety hypothesis.

Interpersonal relationships and mutual influence are important aspects of both personality and behavior. However, empirical tests of mutual influence in anxiety have not occurred because of difficulties in design and assessment. In this report, we present a study of two training groups of graduate students and a study of an outpatient psychotherapy group. In both studies relationship-specific variance was significant and accounted for a substantial proportion of the systematic variance. In the training groups, there were also significant individual differences in experienced anxiety. These studies support the importance of relationships in anxiety but not Sullivan's hypothesis of the exclusive interpersonal nature of anxiety (Sullivan, 1964). The results address Endler and Magnusson's (1976a, 1976b) interactional approach to anxiety by assessing dynamic interaction rather than mechanistic interaction. In addition, these studies extend the use of the Social Relations Model to a new area, anxiety, and demonstrate its use in separating relationship-specific adjustments in anxiety from individual differences in anxiety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

IQ and delinquency: A direct test of the differential detection hypothesis.

A number of studies have reported that juvenile delinquency is negatively related to IQ scores. The IQ/delinquency relation has been questioned on the basis of the differential detection confound, which attributes the apparent relaton to biased likelihood of detection, and thus inclusion in research, of low-IQ delinquents. A direct test of the differential detection hypothesis was conducted by comparing the mean IQ scores of two groups of delinquent subjects from the same birth cohort. Group 1 had been detected in delinquent acts by police. Group 2 was not known to police, but was equivalent to Group 1 on amount and seriousness of self-reported delinquency. The two groups did not differ significantly on IQ, but both groups scored significantly below nondelinquent cohort members. Results were inconsistent with the prediction of group differences posed by the differential detection hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A further test of the general monitoring skill hypothesis.

This study tested the general monitoring skill hypothesis, which states that skilled adult learners monitor their comprehension using domain-general metacognitive knowledge in addition to domain-specific knowledge. College students completed 8 tests of fluid and crystallized ability. The 8 tests yielded 3 performance components, whereas measures of monitoring yielded 2 principal components. These findings supported 2 main conclusions: Monitoring scores are correlated across multiple domains, and individuals may possess separate general monitoring skills for fluid and crystallized tasks. The authors also examined the degree to which modular, information-encapsulation, and domain-general theories of cognition accommodated these findings. Domain-general theories, such as the general monitoring skill hypothesis, provided the best explanation of the data. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Differentiating anxiety and depression: A test of the cognitive content-specificity hypothesis.

The development and initial psychometric properties of the Cognition Checklist (CCL), a scale to measure the frequency of automatic thoughts relevant to anxiety and depression, are described in this article. Item analyses of the responses of 618 psychiatric outpatients identified a 14-item depression and a 12-item anxiety subscale that were significantly related, respectively, to the revised Hamilton Rating Scales for Depression and Anxiety. Patients diagnosed according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III; American Psychiatric Association, 1980) with anxiety disorders had higher mean CCL anxiety scores than patients with DSM-III depression disorders who, in turn, had higher mean CCL depression scores. The validity of the CCL supports the content-specificity hypothesis of the cognitive model of psychopathology (Beck, 1976). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)