Dispositional Attribution: Multiple Inferences About Motive-Related Traits.

This research views dispositional inference as a process whereby perceivers integrate multiple inferences about a target person's motives and traits. The findings suggest that although perceived motives may stimulate extra attributional processing (S. Fein, 1996), the content of the inferred motive is important as well. Perceivers learned about situational forces implying that a target person had free choice, no choice, or an ulterior motive for helpful behavior. Inferences about the target's helpfulness differed depending on whether the target's behavior was attributed to an obedience motive (no-choice condition) or to a selfish motive (ulterior-motive condition). In general, inferences about motives were more predictive of dispositional inferences than were global causal attributions (to situational vs. dispositional forces) or base rate assumptions. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Uncertainty Calculation for Spectral-Responsivity Measurements

This paper discusses a procedure for measuring the absolute spectral responsivity of optical-fiber power meters and computation of the calibration uncertainty. The procedure reconciles measurement results associated with a monochromator-based measurement system with those obtained with laser sources coupled with optical fiber. Relative expanded uncertainties based on the methods from the Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement and from Supplement 1 to the “Guide to the Expression of Uncertainty in Measurement”-Propagation of Distributions using a Monte Carlo Method are derived and compared.An example is used to illustrate the procedures and calculation of uncertainties.     

When perception is more than reality: The effects of perceived versus actual resource depletion on self-regulatory behavior.

Considerable research demonstrates that the depletion of self-regulatory resources impairs performance on subsequent tasks that demand these resources. The current research sought to assess the impact of perceived resource depletion on subsequent task performance at both high and low levels of actual depletion. The authors manipulated perceived resource depletion by having participants 1st complete a depleting or nondepleting task before being presented with feedback that did or did not provide a situational attribution for their internal state. Participants then persisted at a problem-solving task (Experiments 1–2), completed an attention-regulation task (Experiment 3), or responded to a persuasive message (Experiment 4). The findings consistently demonstrated that individuals who perceived themselves as less (vs. more) depleted, whether high or low in actual depletion, were more successful at subsequent self-regulation. Thus, perceived regulatory depletion can impact subsequent task performance—and this impact can be independent of one’s actual state of depletion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)