Psychology Commons^™

Cognitive Effort Avoidance In Veterans With Suicide Attempt Histories, James M. Bjork, Chelsea S. Rooney, Lisa K. Straub, David M. N. Garavito, Andrew Westbrook

Articles

Suicide attempts (SA) are increasing in the United States, especially in veterans. Discovering individual cognitive features of the subset of suicide ideators who attempt suicide is critical. Cognitive theories attribute SA to facile schema-based negative interpretations of environmental events. Over-general autobiographical memory and facile solutions in problem solving tasks in SA survivors suggest that aversion to expending cognitive effort may be a neurobehavioral marker of SA risk. In veterans receiving care for mood disorder, we compared cognitive effort discounting and evidence-gathering in a beads task between veterans with (SAHx+; n = 26) versus without (SAHx-; n = 22) a history …

Automaticity Of Lexical Access In Deaf And Hearing Bilinguals: Cross-Linguistic Evidence From The Color Stroop Task Across Five Languages, Rain G. Bosworth, Sarah C. Tyler, Eli M. Binder, Jill P. Morford

Articles

The well-known Stroop interference effect has been instrumental in revealing the highly automated nature of lexical processing as well as providing new insights to the underlying lexical organization of first and second languages within proficient bilinguals. The present cross-linguistic study had two goals: 1) to examine Stroop interference for dynamic signs and printed words in deaf ASL-English bilinguals who report no reliance on speech or audiological aids; 2) to compare Stroop interference effects in several groups of bilinguals whose two languages range from very distinct to very similar in their shared orthographic patterns: ASL-English bilinguals (very distinct), Chinese-English bilinguals (low …

An Investigation Of The Role Of Spatial Ability In Representing And Solving Word Problems Among Engineering Students, Gavin Duffy, Sheryl A. Sorby, Brian Bowe

Articles

Background

Spatial ability is significantly related to performance in engineering education. Problem solving, an activity that is highly relevant to engineering education, has been linked to spatial ability.

Purpose/Hypothesis

To what extent is spatial ability related to problem solving among engineering students and how do approaches to problem representation and solution vary with spatial ability level?

Design/Method

Three instruments – a spatial ability test, word math problems and accompanying core math competency questions – were administered to two samples of first year engineering students in two different countries. Data were analyzed at the test level to evaluate the relationship of …

Doctrinal Reasoning As A Disruptive Practice, Jessie Allen

Articles

Legal doctrine is generally thought to contribute to legal decision making only to the extent it determines substantive results. Yet in many cases, the available authorities are indeterminate. I propose a different model for how doctrinal reasoning might contribute to judicial decisions. Drawing on performance theory and psychological studies of readers, I argue that judges’ engagement with formal legal doctrine might have self-disrupting effects like those performers experience when they adopt uncharacteristic behaviors. Such disruptive effects would not explain how judges ultimately select, or should select, legal results. But they might help legal decision makers to set aside subjective biases.

Parenting Children With Down Syndrome: An Analysis Of Parenting Styles, Parenting Dimensions, And Parental Stress, B. Allyson Phillips

Articles

Effective parenting is vital for a child’s development. Although much work has been conducted on parenting typically developing children, little work has examined parenting children with Down syndrome.

The purpose of the current study was to compare the parenting styles and dimensions in mothers of children with DS and mothers of TD children.

Thirty-five mothers of children with DS and 47 mothers of TD children completed questionnaires about parenting, parental stress, child behavior problems, and child executive function.

We found that mothers of children with DS use an authoritative parenting style less and a permissive parenting style more than mothers …

Feeling At Home: Learning, Law, Cognitive Science, And Narrative, Lea B. Vaughn

Articles

What is the "how and why" of law's affinity for narrative? In order to explain why the use of stories is such an effective teaching and presentation strategy in the law, this paper will consider theories and accounts from cognitive as well as evolutionary psychology, neuroscience, and, briefly, cultural anthropology. This account seeks to address "how" narrative helps us learn and use the law as well as "why" we are so compelled to use stories in teaching and in practice.

Brain science, simplified here, suggests that the first task is to grab someone's attention. Emotionally charged events are more likely …

Implicit Theories Of Ability Of Grade 6 Science Students: Relation To Epistemological Beliefs And Academic Motivation And Achievement In Science, Jason Chen, Frank Pajares

Articles

We investigated (a) the associations of implicit theories and epistemological beliefs and their effects on the academic motivation and achievement of students in Grade 6 science and (b) the mean differences of implicit theories, epistemological beliefs, and academic motivation and achievement as a function of gender and race/ethnicity (N = 508). Path analysis revealed that an incremental view of ability had direct and indirect effects on adaptive motivational factors, whereas fixed entity views had direct and indirect effects on maladaptive factors. Epistemological beliefs mediated the influence of implicit theories of ability on achievement goal orientations, self-efficacy, and science achievement. Results …

The Pavlov-Yerkes Connection: What Was Its Origin?, Randall D. Wight

Articles

Historians of psychology traditionally acknowledge Robert Mearns Yerkes as responsible for introducing the work of Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov to American psychologists. The introduction occurred in a 1909 Psychological Bulletin paper coauthored with Harvard graduate student, Sergius Morgulls. Yet how Yerkes, who did not read Russian and who never personally used Pavlov's conditioning paradigm, came to know and appreciate Pavlov's endeavors is unclear. This paper examines how Yerkes became acquainted with salivary conditioning studies and suggests a reason why the 1909 paper was actually written.