Interpersonal evaluations following threats to self: Role of self-esteem.

In 2 studies, the authors used dyadic interactions to assess the influence of ego threat on likability as a function of self-esteem. In both studies, 2 naive participants engaged in a structured conversation; in half of the dyads, 1 participant received an ego threat prior to the interaction. In the 1st study, threatened high self-esteem participants were rated as less likable than were threatened low self-esteem participants. The 2nd study confirmed that ego threats are associated with decreased liking for those with high self-esteem and with increased liking for those with low self-esteem. A mediational analysis demonstrated that decreased liking among high self-esteem participants was due to being perceived as antagonistic. Study 2 also indicated that the findings could not be explained by trait levels of narcissism. These patterns are interpreted in terms of differential sensitivity to potential interpersonal rejection. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Student, peer, and self evaluations of college instructors.

Compared student, peer (or colleague), and self ratings in terms of item statistics, convergent and discriminant validity, and relation to student learning. Ratings from the 3 sources (involving 263 students and 14 instructors) were similar in range and distribution, although colleagues tended to give the most favorable ratings, students the least favorable. Individual student and colleague reliabilities were also similar; composite student reliabilities were considerably higher than composite colleague reliabilities, only partly because of differing sample sizes. Student and self ratings and rankings were quite good in terms of convergent and discriminant validity, but no student, peer, or self rating was significantly related to residualized student achievement. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Superstars and me: Predicting the impact of role models on the self.

The authors propose that superstars are most likely to affect self-views when they are considered relevant. Relevant superstars provoke self-enhancement and inspiration when their success seems attainable but self-deflation when it seems unattainable. Participants' self-views were affected only when the star's domain of excellence was self-relevant. Relevant stars provoked self-enhancement and inspiration when their success seemed attainable in that participants either still had enough time to achieve comparable success or believed their own abilities could improve over time. Open-ended responses provided rich evidence of inspiration in these circumstances. Relevant stars provoked, if anything, self-deflation when their success seemed unattainable in that participants either had already missed the chance to achieve comparable success or viewed their abilities as fixed and so unlikely to improve. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parental evaluations of children and children's self-evaluations.

"Two self-evaluative measures, labelled Self-Favorability and Self-Acceptance, were derived from self-ratings by 74 8th- and 9th-grade children. Analogous measures of parental Favorability and Acceptance with respect to the child were derived from ratings by parents of 51 of the children. Sociometric information was available for the children. Although the measures of Favorability and Acceptance had adequate reliability, correlations between the two variables were low in both parents and children. Correlations between parental evaluations and children's self-evaluations tended to be small but consistently positive." From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:1FG90H. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

My friend is embarrassing me: Exploring the guilty by association effect.

It is contended that people (known here as associates) erroneously believe that their social standing suffers when people with whom they are associated (offenders) act in socially inappropriate ways. Accordingly, the anticipated evaluations of associates and observers were contrasted in 6 studies. Study 1 participants read a second-person scenario from the perspective of an associate or an observer. Associates anticipated that observers would give them less positive ratings when the offender picked his or her nose (versus control), but observers' ratings were unaffected. In Study 2, associates erroneously anticipated that observers' ratings of them would vary systematically as a function of whether or not they were introduced as friends of an offender who had/had not committed academic misconduct. In Study 3, anticipated ratings of associates were negatively affected by the actions of an offender whom they did not know previously. Study 4 showed that perspective-taking is the key to attenuating the effect and reducing feelings of embarrassment. The last 2 studies clarified the role of physical proximity and felt closeness. Consistent with results of a scenario study (Study 5), Study 6 participants' anticipated ratings were negatively affected by a combination of increased physical proximity and felt closeness. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Standard and nonstandard Hawaiian English-speaking children: Comprehension of both dialects and teacher's evaluations.

28 5th graders, who were standard English and nonstandard Hawaiian English speakers, listened to stories in both standard English and nonstandard Hawaiian English and answered questions about the stories. Processing effort for comprehension in both dialects was assessed by a subsidiary reaction time (RT) task performed while listening to stories; slower RT was taken to indicate greater processing demands of comprehension. Teachers' evaluations of the Ss' language behaviors, academic performance, classroom behaviors, and future endeavors were also collected. The nonstandard Hawaiian English speakers' comprehension was easier and more accurate with the nonstandard than the standard English stories, and the standard English speakers' comprehension was easier and more accurate with the standard than the nonstandard English stories. Teachers' evaluations and expectations for the nonstandard Hawaiian English speakers were consistently worse than those for the standard English speakers. (42 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

CLASS: A standardized in-class program for acting-out children: II. Field test evaluations.

Two experiments evaluated the effects of a packaged teacher-consultant-mediated intervention program (CLASS) for modifying acting-out behavior in the regular classroom. Consultants were instructed (a) as part of an 8-wk course by 2 briefly trained college instructors, or (b) in a 2–4 day workshop by the program's developers. 27 experimental and 27 control Ss (from kindergarten through 2nd grade) from 3 school districts were involved. Results indicate that the experimentals, in contrast to the controls, significantly increased their proportion of appropriate behavior postintervention in the next academic year (Exp II) and required fewer remedial services and special class placements up to 3 yrs later. The program's external generalizability and cost-effective service-delivery strategy are discussed. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Peer reviewer evaluations and evaluations of peer reviewers: Effects of theoretical orientation.

Investigated the effects of both provider and reviewer theoretical orientation on the evaluation of treatment in the context of document-based peer review and on the consequent evaluation of the reviews themselves. 141 staff members from 35 university counseling centers were assigned to 1 of 2 treatment groups, each of which received different combinations of client problems (depression and anxiety) and provider theoretical orientation (psychodynamic and cognitive-behavioral); each S reviewed 2 sets of treatment documents composed of 2 of the 4 treatment combinations. There was no relationship between quality of review and theoretical orientation of the reviewer or treatment provider and no relationship between theoretical orientation and reimbursement recommendations. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

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)     

Attribution of responsibility to the self and other in children and adults.

240 Ss from 5 age groups (6–7.5, 8–9.5, 10–11.5, 12–13.5 yrs and adult graduate and undergraduate students) were administered stories representing F. Heider"s (1958) criteria for responsibility attribution under 1 of 2 conditions—the actor was either a hypothetical other or the self. As predicted, an Age?×?Stimulus Level interaction was found, although its nature differed for attribution of blame and causality. In relation to the moral judgment measure, a further interaction of Story Character?×?Age was found, and response patterns formed a Guttman scalogram. However, scale types were not clearly age linked. Although these data confirm the utility of Heider"s responsibility-attribution criteria, no strong evidence was obtained to support a developmental interpretation of his theory. Results are also discussed in terms of Piagetian research and an extension of Heider"s schema. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Initial evaluations in the interview: Relationships with subsequent interviewer evaluations and employment offers.

The authors of this study examine how evaluations made during an early stage of the structured interview (rapport building) influence end of interview scores, subsequent follow-up employment interviews, and actual internship job offers. Candidates making better initial impressions received more internship offers (r = .22) and higher interviewer ratings (r = .42). As predicted, initial evaluations of candidate competence extend beyond liking and similarity to influence subsequent interview outcomes from the same interviewer (ΔR2 = .05), from a separate interviewer (ΔR2 = .05), and from another interviewer who skipped rapport building (ΔR2 = .05). In contrast, assessments of candidate liking and similarity were not significantly related to other judgments when ratings were provided by different interviewers. The findings of this study thus indicate that initial impressions of candidates influence employment outcomes, and that they may be based on useful judgments of candidate competence that occur in the opening minutes of the structured interview. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Custody evaluations: A critical review.

Discusses the role of evaluators in child custody litigations, current methods of custody evaluation, and the content of such evaluations. The value of clinical impressions and standardized assessment instruments is considered, and ways of eliciting the child's preference are examined. Ethical dilemmas associated with the performance of custody evaluations are discussed, and it is argued that mental health professionals should serve as strictly impartial evaluators. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Macbeth: The self of evil.

This article advances the thesis that Shakespeare's play, Macbeth, is best understood as a drama which centers on the alteration in the relationship between Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Lord Macbeth, the hero of the realm, is revealed to be a man whose self required an archaic self-object--Lady Macbeth--to maintain its cohesiveness. As the play unfolds and Lady Macbeth becomes fragmented, Macbeth experiences a profound disarray with tragic consequences for all in the kingdom, including wholesale murder and the killing of "innocent babes." Shakespeare's play is dominated from beginning to end by the vicissitudes of a failed self/self-object relationship and the attempted repair of this relationship. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Parents'' evaluations of wheezing in their children with asthma

Two cases of Behcet's disease associated with myelodysplastic syndrome are described. Both patients showed a chromosomal abnormality, trisomy 8. Based on the laboratory findings in our patients and a careful review of the literature of similar cases, the association of the chromosomal abnormality with the pathogenesis of Behcet's disease is suggested.     

My head says yes but my heart says no: Cognitive and affective attraction as a function of similarity to the ideal self.

The authors hypothesized that similarity to the ideal self (IS) simultaneously generates attraction and repulsion. Attraction research has suggested that a person likes individuals who are similar to his or her IS. Social comparison research has suggested that upward social comparison threatens self-evaluation. In Experiment 1, attraction to a partner increased and then decreased as the partner became more similar to and then surpassed the participant's IS. In Experiment 2, the cognitive and affective components of attraction increased and decreased, respectively, as the partner approached and surpassed the participant's IS to the extent that the dimension of comparison was meaningful and participants anticipated meeting their partner. Similarity to the IS generates opposing cognitive and affective reactions when the self-evaluative threat of upward comparison intensifies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

My workplace: Intervention Center, Rikshospitalet. Expert gathering over children with heart disease

Intensity of vasopressin gene expression was compared in neurosecretory cells of supraoptic, postoptic, paraventricular and 6 accessory nuclei (extrahypothalamic included) of adult intact Wistar rats to study the morphofunctional specialization of magnocellular hypothalamic nuclei. Messenger RNA (mRNA) was revealed by radioautographic in situ hybridization, using 35S labelled exonic-intronic probe. By densitometry the amount of label was shown not to differ significantly in neurosecretory cells of all nuclei studied. The latter reflects similar basal level of vasopressin gene expression in all magnocellular nuclei of intact rats. The explanations of this fact as well as possible perspectives of studying molecular biological basis of functional specialization of different magnocellular hypothalamic formations are discussed.     

Midlife women's generativity and authoritarianism: Marriage, motherhood, and 10 years of aging.

Generativity and authoritarianism assessed at age 52 were correlated with criterion variables assessed at age 62 in a sample of well-educated women (N = 81). Results indicated that generativity predicted positive personality characteristics, satisfaction with marriage and motherhood, and successful aging. By contrast, although authoritarianism is linked in the literature to endorsing traditional gender roles, authoritarianism was uncorrelated in the current study with happiness about marriage and was negatively related to perceptions of motherhood. Furthermore, authoritarianism was correlated with neuroticism later in life. These data suggest that midlife authoritarianism may be problematic as women transition from their 50s to their 60s. Midlife generativity, in contrast, seems to offer one path to life satisfaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)