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University of Nebraska - Lincoln

Series

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

1991

Articles 1 - 7 of 7

Full-Text Articles in Medicine and Health Sciences

Cognitive Processes And Prosocial Behaviors Among Children: The Role Of Affective Attributions And Reconciliations, Gustavo Carlo, George Knight, Nancy Eisenberg, Ken J. Rotenberg Oct 1991

Cognitive Processes And Prosocial Behaviors Among Children: The Role Of Affective Attributions And Reconciliations, Gustavo Carlo, George Knight, Nancy Eisenberg, Ken J. Rotenberg

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Although attributions about others’ sad emotions have been shown to be positively related to helping behavior, there have been considerable inconsistencies in the findings. This study was designed to investigate the relations of affective attributions, affective reconciliations, and cognitive perspective-taking measures to prosocial behavior. Eighty-nine preschool through second grade children were administered various social cognition indices (two affective and one cognitive); the children were then given an opportunity to help a same-sex confederate child obtain toys. Helping that required a specific form of affective attribution and reconciliation was signifi cantly related to the affective attribution and reconciliation measures when the …


The Altruistic Personality: In What Contexts Is It Apparent?, Gustavo Carlo, Nancy Eisenberg, Debra Troyer, Galen Switzer, Anna L. Speer Mar 1991

The Altruistic Personality: In What Contexts Is It Apparent?, Gustavo Carlo, Nancy Eisenberg, Debra Troyer, Galen Switzer, Anna L. Speer

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Hypotheses concerning the specific contexts in which an altruistic personality might be most apparent were investigated, College students completed questionnaires tapping components of an altruistic personality, emotionality, and social desirability. At a 2nd session, the emotional evocativeness and ease of escape from the helping situation were experimentally manipulated. Ss were exposed to a distressed woman, completed state sympathy and personal distress indexes, and were given an opportunity to assist the woman. High scorers on dispositional altruism were expected to assist most when escape was easy, particularly when the distress cues were obvious. Altruistic and emotionally reactive persons were also expected …


Personality And Socialization Correlates Of Vicarious Emotional Responding, Nancy Eisenberg, Richard Fabes, Mark Schaller, Paul Miller, Gustavo Carlo, Rick Poulin, Cindy Shea, Rita Shell Mar 1991

Personality And Socialization Correlates Of Vicarious Emotional Responding, Nancy Eisenberg, Richard Fabes, Mark Schaller, Paul Miller, Gustavo Carlo, Rick Poulin, Cindy Shea, Rita Shell

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

The relations of personality and family characteristics to adults’ negative vicarious emotional responses to sympathy and distress films were examined. Ss reported more sympathy and less personal distress and exhibited less skin conductance as well as heart rate deceleration when viewing a sympathy-evoking film. Dispositional emotional intensity and fantasy empathy were associated with greater self-reported emotional responding and higher skin conductance. Dispositional perspective taking and personal distress were positively and negatively correlated, respectively, with reported vicarious responding to the sympathy film when Ss were administered instructions to imagine the emotions of those in the films. Family cohesiveness was associated with …


Patterns Of Appraisal And Coping Across Different Stressor Conditions Among Former Prisoners Of War With And Without Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, John A. Fairbank, David J. Hansen, James M. Fitterling Jan 1991

Patterns Of Appraisal And Coping Across Different Stressor Conditions Among Former Prisoners Of War With And Without Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, John A. Fairbank, David J. Hansen, James M. Fitterling

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Little is known about how survivors of extreme events cope with traumatic memories and subsequent negative life experiences. The present study compared (a) repatriated prisoners of war (RPWs) from World War II (WWII) with chronic posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), (b) RPWs without PTSD, and (c) noncombat veterans on measures of general psychological functioning, appraisal, and coping. Appraisal and coping were assessed under 2 stressor conditions: memories of war/captivity and recent negative life events. RPWs with PTSD reported poorer general psychological functioning; significantly less control over memories of WW II; and more frequent use of self-isolation, wishful thinking, self-blame, and social …


Introduction Of Psychology And Aging: Nebraska Symposium On Motivation 1991, Theo Sonderegger Jan 1991

Introduction Of Psychology And Aging: Nebraska Symposium On Motivation 1991, Theo Sonderegger

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Through the years, the Nebraska Symposium on Motivation has reflected topics of current interest to psychologists. This year is no exception: "psychology and aging" is a subject of concern to all readers no matter what their particular psychological specialties happen to be. All of us-if we are lucky, hope that we will experience the aging process and will join (or continue our membership in) the ever increasing population of the elderly. The quantity of research in the area is growing rapidly; new ideas and theories about the aging process are far from complete and are still emerging-as will be seen …


Trait Psychology Comes Of Age, Paul T. Costa Jr., Robert Mccrae Jan 1991

Trait Psychology Comes Of Age, Paul T. Costa Jr., Robert Mccrae

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

It is sometimes thought that the relation between research on aging and the basic sciences is one-sided: gerontologists take the methods and theories of their specialty and apply them to aging populations, but they rarely initiate theories or report findings that could reshape the basic disciplines themselves. Whatever the truth of this perception in general, it is completely false with regard to the psychology of personality. When Eichorn, Clausen, Haan, Honzik, and Mussen (1981) published their summary of the Berkeley longitudinal studies, Sears and Sears (1982) heralded it as "probably the most important unified research contribution to adult social and …


Priming By “Predictive” Context Stimuli In Visual Classification, John H. Flowers, Dorie Reed, Thomas D. Green Jan 1991

Priming By “Predictive” Context Stimuli In Visual Classification, John H. Flowers, Dorie Reed, Thomas D. Green

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Subjects participated in visual character- and word-classification-tasks-for-which-spatially contiguous context stimuli were exposed 100 or 1,000 msec prior to target onset. These context stimuli were physically identical to the target on 75% of the trials. Substantial facilitation of RT occurred for “valid” trials at both SOA levels. When the target differed from the context stimuli, evidence for priming the response category, as well as the semantic category of the target (letters vs. digits; metal names vs. furniture names), was obtained at the 100-msec SOA, but these effects were attenuated with the 1,000-msec SOA. With a full second to process a stimulus-predictive …