Three principles of salience in the organization of the patient-analyst interaction.

Explores the proposal that infant research is applicable to adult treatment through organizational principles of interactive regulation. Three organizing principles derived from infant research are used to create metaphors and analogies for adult treatment. These 3 principles (ongoing regulation, disruption and repair, and heightened affective moments) constitute hypotheses about how analyst–patient interactions become patterned and salient. They can further specify modes of therapeutic action in adult treatment. The case of a 36-yr-old professional woman with a depressive outlook on life and a strong belief that therapy would not help is used to illustrate the therapeutic action of the 3 principles. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The self salience model of other-to-self effects: Integrating principles of self-enhancement, complementarity, and imitation.

In a series of studies the Self Salience Model of other-to-self effects is tested. This model posits that self-construal salience is an important determinant of whether other-to-self effects follow the principles of self-enhancement, imitation, or complementarity. Participants imagined interactions (Studies 1 and 2) or were confronted (Studies 3 to 5) with dominant, submissive, agreeable, or quarrelsome person targets. Findings support the prediction that subsequent self-evaluations (Studies 1 to 3) and behaviors (Studies 4 and 5) follow the principles of self-enhancement when the personal self is activated (contrast away from undesirable targets, assimilation toward desirable targets); the principles of complementarity when the relational self is activated (contrast on the dominant-submissive dimension, assimilation on the agreeable-quarrelsome dimension); and the principles of imitation when the collective self is activated (assimilation regardless of desirability or dimension). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of dimensional salience and salience of variability on problem solving: A developmental study.

Presented a matching task to 120 6-20 yr olds to investigate the relative influence of dimensional salience and salience of variability on problem solving. The task included 4 dimensions: form, color, number, and position. On each problem, 1 dimension was relevant and the other 3, which could be either constant or variable, were irrelevant for solution. Ss were asked to find which of 2 stimuli was more similar to a standard stimulus. Results show the same dimensional hierarchy for both reaction time and error scores. The effect of variability, as measured by reaction time and error scores, increased with increasing number of variable irrelevant dimensions and decreased with age. The effect of variability proved to be greater than the effect of dimensions. The implications of the relative influence of dimensional salience and salience variability for problem solving are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Discipline and internalization.

J. E. Grusec and J. J. Goodnow (see record 1994-25033-001) made interesting suggestions about discipline variables that may effect internalization. Unfortunately, (1) their ideas are not integrated into a theory; (2) their definition of internalization is limited because parent–child similarity may result from children's attributing their values to parents; and (3) their ideas seem too heavily cognitive (e.g., the importance assigned to level of generality of parental reprimands, children's understanding of meta-rules, and children's viewing parental interventions as fair and reasonable). A theory linking discipline and internalization must encompass children's capacity for empathy and their feelings of anxiety, fear, and resentment at being interrupted by parents. In this article, the author's own theory of internalization and children's affective and cognitive responses in discipline encounters is summarized, and some of its shortcomings are noted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children''s emerging regulation of conduct: restraint, compliance, and internalization from infancy to the second year

Receptor-mediated endocytosis of circulating collagen is a major physiological scavenger function of the liver endothelial cell and an important catabolic event in the complete turnover of this abundant connective tissue protein. In the present study, transport of collagen through the endocytic pathway was investigated in cultured liver endothelial cells. Collagen conjugated to fluorescein isothiocyanate, to allow detection of the ligand by fluorescence and immunoelectron microscopy, was found sequentially in three different organelles that compose the basic degradative endocytic pathway of eukaryotic cells: early endosomes, late endosomes, and terminal lysosomes. Early endosomes were identified as vesicles positive for early endosome antigen 1 (EEA1). Late endosomes were distinguished as structures positive for the late endosomal/lysosomal marker rat lysosomal membrane glycoprotein 120, but negative for EEA1 and lysosomally targeted BSA-gold. Lysosomes were defined by their content of BSA-gold, injected 24 hours before isolation of cells. Coated pits and coated vesicles mediated an extremely rapid internalization. Shortly after internalization and during the first 20 minutes, ligand was found in early endosomes. From 20 minutes on, ligand started to appear in late endosomes (23%), and by 2 hours the transfer was largely complete (82.5%). Only 2.5% of ligand was transferred to the lysosomes after 2 hours, and this number slowly increased to 21% and 53% after 6 and 16 hours, respectively. We conclude that 1) EEA1 is a useful marker for tracing early events of endocytosis in liver endothelial cells; 2) in contrast to the rapid internalization, transit of internalized ligand through early sorting endosomes generally takes from 20 minutes to 2 hours; and 3) exit from the late endosomes is very slow, requiring several hours.     

Effects of person salience versus role salience on reward allocation in a dyad.

Research has shown that resource allocation in a dyad sometimes follows the principle of equity (proportional reward) and sometimes that of parity (equal reward). However, existing evidence does not clarify the conditions under which each of these rules is invoked. A number of theorists have suggested that salience of the other as a person should lead to parity-based allocation, whereas salience of the other as a functionary filling a role should lead to equity-based allocation. The present study with 60 male and 60 female undergraduates tested these possibilities. Ss were led to perceive their own inputs to group performance as being either substantially lower or substantially higher than a partner's inputs. The partner had been portrayed to the S in terms that made salient the partner's personal characteristics, the partner's role assignment, or neither of these. Among females, subsequent reward allocation followed the predicted pattern in both high- and low-input conditions. Among males, contrary to expectation, person salience led to heightened feelings of competitiveness and to increased allocations to the self. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stimulus salience and retrospective revaluation.

The effect of conditioning or extinguishing the more salient element of a previously reinforced compound on responding to the less salient element of that compound was assessed in rats. Experiment 1 established that the 2 elements making up an audiovisual compound differed significantly in salience. In Experiment 2A, compound conditioning was followed by either reinforcement or extinction of either the less or more salient element. On test, evidence of retrospective revaluation of the less salient element was found but not of the more salient element. In Experiment 2B, extinction of the more salient element was found to be more effective than its reinforcement in producing retrospective revaluation of the less salient element. The implications of these results are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Risk in infancy: Origins and implications.

This article focuses on biological risks that can adversely influence development during infancy and later. In the first part of the article, the origins of risks and their potential consequences are discussed relative to prepregnancy, prenatal, perinatal, and postnatal periods. Epidemiological data are presented. The second part of the article addresses issues pertaining to assessment of infant development and interventions provided for infants whose development may be in jeopardy. Finally, goals for prevention are highlighted and the need for a nationally derived data base on risk and outcomes is emphasized. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Impulsive motor behavior: Effects of personality and goal salience.

This experiment used a circle tracing paradigm to extend our recent theoretical development concerning the contributions of extraversion and neuroticism to impulsive performance on continuous motor tasks. Ss (N?=?137) completed the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and were randomly assigned to 1 of 2 circle conditions: The goal condition provided subjects with a salient behavioral end point for their tracings, whereas the no-goal condition promoted behavioral uncertainty. In both conditions, Ss were asked to trace the circle under neutral and inhibition instructions. Using J. A. Gray's impulsivity and anxiety dimensions to group subjects, impulsive subjects under inhibition instructions displayed significantly faster tracing speed than nonimpulsive subjects in the presence of a salient goal, whereas anxious subjects appeared behaviorally impulsive in a situation promoting uncertainty and response conflict. Conceptualizing impulsivity and anxiety in terms of extraversion and neuroticism, with impulsive Ss as neurotic extraverts and anxious Ss as neurotic-introverts, it is proposed that Ss' level of extraversion determines the type of stimuli to which they are responsive and that level of neuroticism influences the magnitude of this reaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Roles of salience and strategy in conjunction search.

In some cases, the search for a conjunction target proceeds through the smaller group of elements in a display, whereas in others, search is limited to those elements that share a particular feature with the target. In 6 experiments, participants searched for a conjunction target among displays consisting of various proportions of 2 distractor types. Smaller-group search was more prevalent than target-feature search with denser displays and with features that were highly discriminable. Explicit instructions to limit search to a specific feature affected performance only when the discriminability of the guiding feature was much greater than the other target feature. Together, these experiments show that bottom-up factors have more influence in guiding conjunction searches than previously thought. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The generalizability of salience effects.

Stimuli that engulf attention often have a disproportionately large impact on the judgment process, even when logically irrelevant. The present 3 studies, with a total of 279 undergraduates, examined the boundary conditions of such salience effects in a scenario where Ss observed a dyadic conversation in which the visual prominence of 1 of the 2 participants was manipulated. Two hypotheses were examined: (a) Salience effects are dependent on quantity of information encoded and disappear at low levels of attention, and (b) salience effects will disappear if higher involvement in the situation serves to heighten and focus attention on more relevant cues. Neither hypothesis was supported. Rather, salience effects were found (a) when the perceiver was distracted, (b) whether the perceiver's impressions were assessed immediately or after a delay, (c) when the conversation had high interest value, (d) regardless of the perceiver's cognitive tuning set, and (e) when the perceiver was involved in the discussion. It is concluded that salience effects are highly generalizable and that they have a significant impact on both trivial and important social judgments. It is suggested that salience effects are not customarily under the control of the social perceiver, but may be automatic. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Prototype salience and implicit personality theories.

Based on a model of personality prototypes developed by N. Cantor and W. Mischel (see record 1977-25296-001) it was reasoned that people use beliefs about personality (e.g., extraversion, introversion) to process information about people. Prototypes serve to organize the matrix of perceived trait relationships, to organize implicit personality theories. It was argued in the present study that perceived trait and behavior relationships among prototype-relevant stimuli should be strengthened when the relevant prototype was salient. In Exp I, 45 undergraduates rated the extent to which introverted or extraverted traits and behaviors implied one another under conditions in which the stimulus person was identified as an extravert, an introvert, or was not identified. As expected, perceived extraverted trait relationships were stronger when the extraverted prototype was salient, and introverted trait and behavior relationships were perceived as higher when the introverted prototype was salient. However, neither pattern of results differed strongly from the no-salience control conditions. In Exp II (96 Ss), the salience of mature and immature prototypes was manipulated by having Ss work on unrelated tasks involving these variables before they worked on a behavior implication task. Results strongly support the prototype salience model. It is suggested that implicit personality theories play an active role in information processing. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Focus theory of normative conduct and terror-management theory: The interactive impact of mortality salience and norm salience on social judgment.

Research on terror-management theory has shown that after mortality salience (MS) people attempt to live up to cultural values. But cultures often value very different and sometimes even contradictory standards, leading to difficulties in predicting behavior as a consequence of terror-management needs. The authors report 4 studies to demonstrate that the effect of MS on people's social judgments depends on the salience of norms. In Study 1, making salient opposite norms (prosocial vs. proself) led to reactions consistent with the activated norms following MS compared with the control condition. Study 2 showed that, in combination with a pacifism prime, MS increased pacifistic attitudes. In Study 3, making salient a conservatism/security prime led people to recommend harsher bonds for an illegal prostitute when they were reminded of death, whereas a benevolence prime counteracted this effect. In Study 4 a help prime, combined with MS, increased people's helpfulness. Discussion focuses briefly on how these findings inform both terror-management theory and the focus theory of normative conduct. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Classical conditioning in infancy: Development and constraints.

Describes and evaluates the current status of infant classical conditioning research, focusing on those variables thought to be generally influential in CR formation and those which constrain conditionability. These variables include the nature of the CS, CS-CR interaction, UCS, interstimulus interval, orienting response, stimulus patterning, CA, and state or level of arousal. The most general conclusions to be drawn are that infant conditionability (a) is a function of CS-CR specificity, (b) is more easily demonstrated with simple conditioning proccedures than complex procedures, (c) is not apparently related to CA except for interstimulus interval value, (d) is related both to orienting and (e) to state, and (f) can be used to study individual differences when complex conditioning procedures are used. It is suggested that infant classicial conditioning research has much to contribute to the main body of classical conditioning literature and should become more firmly integrated with it. (97 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences in problem-solving style: The role of emotional salience.

Qualitative differences in problem-solving style for situations varying in emotional salience were examined among adolescents, young, middle-aged, and older adults. Participants wrote essays on how each of 15 problem situations should be resolved. There were minimal age differences for problem-focused strategies, with all age groups using this strategy the most. Age differences for problem-solving strategy were highly dependent on the degree to which the situation was emotionally salient. All individuals were more likely to use an avoidant-denial strategy in low emotionally salient situations and passive-dependent and cognitive-analysis strategies in high emotionally salient situations. However, older adults used both passive-dependent and avoidant-denial strategies more than younger age groups. Problem-focused strategies were used least in high emotionally salient situations. Implications of findings are discussed from an adult developmental perspective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Determinants of consensus estimates: Attribution, salience, and representativeness.

Five experiments examined the effects of attribution, salience, and representativeness of a target person's behavior on consensus bias—the tendency to generalize from the target's behavior to the behavior of the group. Ss were 762 undergraduates. Exp I showed that actors and observers induced to make a situational attribution for a behavior perceived this behavior as more common than did those induced to make a dispositional attribution. Exps II and III showed that observers perceived salient behavior as more common in the group than nonsalient behavior. Exps IV and V showed that observers were more likely to generalize from the behavior of a representative target than from the behavior of a nonrepresentative target. It is concluded that attributes of the target's behavior exercise strong influence on consensus estimates. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The nature of social influence in groupthink: Compliance and internalization.

I. L. Janis's (1982b) discussion of groupthink is examined to clarify the nature of social influence leading to poor decision making. Beginning from Janis's definition of groupthink as premature consensus seeking, the question raised here is whether compliance (public without private agreement) may be as important as internalization (private acceptance of group consensus) in this phenomenon. Analysis of the conditions hypothesized by Janis to be conducive to groupthink suggests that, contrary to some of Janis's discussion, these conditions conduce to compliance as well as internalization. Consistent with this suggestion, a review of the historical examples cited by Janis indicates that compliance was an important part of poor decision making in at least two of these cases. The review also indicates that structural conditions, notably promotional leadership and group insulation, predict occurrence or nonoccurrence of groupthink in Janis's examples, but that neither cohesion nor any situational condition is predictive. Experimental studies of groupthink are reviewed in light of this analysis, and suggestions are offered for future research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Metaphorical interpretation: An investigation of the salience imbalance hypothesis.

Investigated the validity of one aspect of the similarity theory of metaphorical processing, the salience imbalance hypothesis. This hypothesis states that metaphorical interpretation is related to the relative salience of attributes shared within and across the domains of the topic and vehicle. Exp I, with 54 6th graders and 22 university students, established that salience imbalance was directly related to metaphorical interpretation. Exp II, with 24 undergraduates, sought to determine whether salience imbalance was critical to metaphorical interpretation. Data indicate that salience imbalance generally enhanced metaphorical interpretation but was not a necessity. Examples of such instances are provided. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Enhanced discrimination between flavor stimuli: Roles of salience modulation and inhibition.

Rats were given intermixed preexposure to the compound flavors AX and BX and to the compound CX in a separate block of trials (4 presentations of each compound). In Experiment 1, rats showed less generalization of conditioned aversion from AX to BX than from CX to BX, a perceptual learning effect. Experiment 2 showed that the formation of an excitatory association proceeded more readily between A and B than between C and B, suggesting that intermixed preexposure maintains the effective salience of A and B and does not establish inhibition between them, a process that would require prolonged preexposure. According to this analysis, salience modulation and associative inhibition may contribute to perceptual learning at different stages of preexposure. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)