Do participants with external attribution styles outperform participants with internal explanatory styles in pressure-filled situations? Explicit-monitoring theory suggests that performance becomes impaired when conscious attention is devoted to performing a task normally carried out by automatic processes. Attributing potential failure to an external source (e.g., blaming a sudden gust of wind for a poor golf shot) can decrease the negative effects of stereotype threat, a social-psychological predicament known to engender feelings of stress similar to those experienced in pressure-filled situations, by preventing explicit monitoring from taking place. The current study examined whether individual differences in attribution style, as measured by the Attributional Style Questionnaire, affects golf-putting performance under stereotype threat. The present author hypothesized that participants with external explanatory styles would perform better than participants with internal explanatory styles under stereotype threat, because external participants would be predisposed to create external sources to attribute the cause of poor performance.

Early-latency theories of emotional processing state that at least coarse monitoring of the emotional valence (a pleasure-displeasure continuum) of facial expressions should be both rapid and highly automated (LeDoux, 1995; Russell, 1980). Research has largely substantiated early-latency differential processing of emotional versus non-emotional facial expressions; however, the effect of valence on early-latency processing of emotional facial expression remains unclear. In an effort to delineate the effects of valence on early-latency emotional facial expression processing, the current investigation compared ERP responses to positive (happy and surprise), neutral, and negative (afraid and sad) basic facial expression photographs as well as to positive (happy-surprise), neutral (afraid-surprise, happy-afraid, happy-sad, sad-surprise), and negative (sad-afraid) morph facial expression photographs during a valence-rating task. Morphing manipulations have been shown to decrease the familiarity of facial patterns and thus preclude any overlearned responses to specific facial codes. Accordingly, it was proposed that morph stimuli would disrupt more detailed emotional identification to reveal a valence response independent of a specific identifiable emotion (Balconi & Lucchiari, 2005; Schweinberger, Burton & Kelly, 1999). ERP results revealed early-latency differentiation between positive, neutral, and negative morph facial expressions approximately 108 milliseconds post-stimulus (P1) within the right electrode cluster; negative morph facial expressions continued to elicit significantly smaller ERP amplitudes than other valence categories approximately 164 milliseconds post-stimulus (N170). Consistent with previous imaging research on emotional facial expression processing, source localization revealed substantial dipole activation within regions of the mesolimbic dopamine system. Thus, these findings confirm rapid valence processing of facial expressions and suggest that negative valence processing may continue to modulate subsequent structural facial processing.

Stereotype groups are interrelated. For example, in Australia, New Zealand, and the United States, racial minorities are referred to special education at a much higher rate than are majority racial groups (Tse, Lloyd, Petchkovsky, and Manaia, 2005; Harry, Arnaiz, Klingner, Sturges, 2008). The Stereotype Content Model describes stereotype relationships in terms of an interaction between competence and warmth. Warmth is the more consistent dimension. The nature of competence remains elusive (Fiske, Cuddy, and Glick, 2007; Fiske, Cuddy, Glick, and Xu, 2002). Knowledge of relationships between stereotype groups, which themselves may be effects of bias, could factor into observed competence effects. Disabilities are characterized by objective competence deficits. Disabilities stereotype research allow for more refined models of competence. While competence perception may vary between disabilities, with different domains of competence deficits, unifying disability schemas may also exist. In either case, different competence processes could be inferred. We compared ratings on the Fiske scale (FC, FW), a multimodal competence scale (MMC), a quality of life scale (QL-T), and an overt threat scale (OPT) for five disability groups (DS) and a set of established stereotype (ES) groups. Our MMC analysis indicates the competence dimension and stereotype group interaction was more significant for DS and ES together than for DS alone. This is surprising, because the multimodal competence scale was designed to target specific disability groups. Results indicate there may be some unifying disability schema. Marginally significant differences between disability groups on the QL-T indicate complex relationships between disabilities stereotypes may also exist.

This study investigated age differences in generalization of causal value employing similarity as a cue to causality. Exemplars from six food categories (A+, B-, C+, D-. E+, F-) were presented to both young and older adults in two contiguous training phases. Training Phase 1 included exemplars from categories A+, B-, C+, D-. Training Phase 2 included exemplars from A+, B-, E+, F-. Foods in the “+” categories were paired with an outcome of sickness and foods in the “-” categories were not paired with sickness. Tests of causal judgment and exemplar recognition were conducted. For causal judgment, individual exemplars experienced during training and novel exemplars from all six categories were presented. For categories A+ and B-, the categories experienced in both training phases, young and older groups generalized the causal value to the category label and to all exemplars regardless of whether they were experienced in training or were novel. For categories experienced only once in training (C+, D-, E+, F-), both groups were better able to successfully judge causal value for experienced exemplars than novel exemplars. For young and older adults, experience made a difference in the ability to generalize causal value. Experienced and novel exemplars were also presented for recognition. Participants in both age groups showed a false memory effect for individual exemplars from the more experienced categories (A+, B-) suggesting that the process that allowed them to generalize causal value also interfered with their memory for individual exemplars. There was a difference between the younger and older groups for the categories that were only experienced once in training (C+, D-, E+, F-). In this case, younger participants showed better recognition than older adults for the individual exemplars. Older adults showed the same false memory effects for these categories as they showed for categories A+ and B-. These findings suggest that older adults generalize causal value as well as younger adults, but they are less able to distinguish individual exemplars. This discrepancy may be explained by differences in ability to use verbatim and gist. Older adults’ reduced verbatim processing leads to default gist encoding that enables them to focus on category level features but not process detailed exemplar identity (Brainerd & Reyna, 1990). Younger adults appear to have a flexibility that enables them to encode and retrieve both category-level gist and verbatim individualexemplar features when the task calls for it.

Previous research has consistently shown associative deficits in older adults learning and memory (Chalfonte & Johnson 1996; Naveh-Benjamin, 2000; Naveh-Benjamin, Hussain, & Bar-On 2003) that are related to decreases in hippocampal function (Driscoll et al., 2003; Mitchell, Johnson, Raye, & D’Esposito, 2000). However, older adults learn certain simple predictive relationships between events (Mutter & Williams, 2004) that involve basal ganglia dependent error-driven learning. The goal of the current study was to determine whether error-driven learning could reduce the age-related associative deficits that are associated with hippocampal decline. The results did not support the idea that error-driven learning enhanced older adults’ associative memory, although our study supported normal error-driven processing in older adults. Our study confirms prior findings showing that age differences in associative memory are greater following an error-driven learning task than following an observation learning task (Schmitt-Eliassen, Ferstl, Wiesner, Deuschl, & Witt, 2007; Shohamy et al., 2004). Therefore, the results of the study did not support enhanced associative memory for older adults due to errordriven processing.

A 12-month longitudinal study assessed the emotional reactions of an intercollegiate athletic team to a near fatal bus incident. PANAS-X and the Brief COPE, administered on five occasions, indicated NA declined over time. Most coping strategies showed significant changes in trajectory. Acceptance and Positive Reframing were high across waves. In October 2010, an intercollegiate athletic team and coaching staff were traveling by sleeper bus to an out-of-state match. The team members and coaches were in the back of the bus when they felt the bus swaying and heard the tires hit the rumble strips. The head coach went forward to find the bus driver unconscious and slumped over the steering wheel. Although the bus swerved into the oncoming lane of interstate traffic and back onto the other shoulder, the coach was able to steer the bus and stop it safely on the side of the road. The bus driver had suffered a fatal heart attack; fortunately, the coaches and players survived with only minor injuries. This study is a longitudinal follow up assessing the emotional reactions of the coaches and team to the bus incident across a twelve-month time frame. The Positive and Negative Affect Schedule - Expanded (PANAS-X; Watson & Clark, 1994) and the Brief COPE (Carver, 1997) were administered on five occasions. Negative affect declined over time, with a larger drop in waves more proximal to the incident. Positive affect demonstrated a curvilinear pattern showing increases on the second and third wave but dropped off at the end of the spring semester 2011 and the beginning of the fall semester 2011. There were significant changes in the coping trajectories for 10 of the 14 coping strategies from the Brief COPE. These data are of particular interest as we could locate no other studies in the published literature of individual athlete or team reactions to traumatic travel incidents, although ESPN (Lavigne, 2010) noted that bus safety should be a concern for team travel.

Teleological reasoning reflects the general tendency to view objects, behaviors and events in terms of their “purpose.” Although healthy educated adults tend to refrain from committing errors in teleological reasoning about objects, our knowledge regarding how adults reason about events is limited. It has been suggested that teleological reasoning biases our interpretations of emotionally significant and unexpected life events of which a physical or social cause is absent or unsatisfactory. The current investigation seeks to better understand the types of events that evoke a teleological perspective and the conditions and individual difference factors that facilitate it. The results revealed that participants high in religiosity and low in ACT science reasoning are more likely to commit teleological errors (i.e., imbuing purpose upon events with non-intentional causal forces). Additionally, participants of low religiosity were more likely to commit teleological errors when placed under cognitive load. It appears that two routes to teleological reasoning exist: one that represents an explicit belief system such as religion, and one that reflects implicit intuitions about how the world works. These findings shed light on how, when confronted with certain life events, both our belief systems and situational pressures lead us to rely on intuitive assumptions rather than engage in careful consideration of more scientifically sound alternatives.

Decrements in selective attention are a commonly experienced phenomenon that has practical implications for many industries. Two causes of such deficits are mental fatigue and alcohol intoxication, which impair selective attention by decreasing the efficiency of inhibitory processes. The present research examined the effects of these two factors on the selective attention subtest of the Useful Field of View test in both a baseline and an experimental session. Participants in the mental fatigue condition (n = 14) were tested while performing a divided attention task for two hours to induce mental fatigue. Those in the alcohol condition (n = 10) were tested while achieving a peak blood alcohol content of 0.05%. No differences between the two groups were observed, nor was a significant decline in selective attention observed as a result of either manipulation. The results indicate three possible explanations for this lack of a difference including a floor effect on the selective attention task, a pop-out effect in switching from the divided to the selective attention task, and an increase in attentional effort regulation due to the contrast in difficulty of the divided and selective attention tasks.

Young children’s attention to a variety of object features has been studied. However, very few studies have examined young children’s understanding of object weight. In order to investigate developmental changes in perception and categorization of weight, three tasks were given to 59 18-month-old to 3-year-old children. Three age groups (20; 27 and 34 months old) were analyzed for the final results. The first two tasks used a familiarization and novelty preference paradigm in which attention was assessed by measuring each child’s looking time. The first task’s goal was to evaluate young children’s ability to discriminate objects on the basis of weight. Children were familiarized with an object of one weight and then tested with an identical looking object that had a novel weight. Half of the subjects were familiarized to a heavy weight and half to a light weight object. Results showed a decrease in looking time over the familiarization trials (p = .0001) and an increase in attention to the novel weight (p = .0001). Thus, all children in the first task were able to discriminate object weight. Additional analyses for the first task assessed physical discrimination of object weight by examining the amount of arm movement each child exhibited within 250 milliseconds after taking an object. A significant difference in arm movement was found between the last familiarization and novel weight trials of the heavy (p = .0097) and light (p = .0001) conditions. The second task’s goal was to evaluate children’s ability to attend to object weight when appearance varies. Children were familiarized to four objects that had the same weight but differed in appearance. Half of the subjects were familiarized to heavy objects and half to light objects. After familiarization, the children were tested with one object that had the same weight but a different appearance and another object that had the same appearance but a different weight. Results revealed that the children’s looking time decreased over the familiarization trials (p = .0001). Analyses of test trials revealed that only the two older age groups had significant novelty preference scores for both the new weight and new appearance trials. The third task used a balance scale to measure understanding of weight by observing a child’s ability to pick a heavy object to make a balance scale tip. Children were given a light and heavy object with the same appearance and asked to choose which one would tip the balance scale. Results showed that only 34 month olds had significantly more correct trials (p < 0.05). In conclusion, the study’s results indicated that all young children are capable of discriminating object weight when familiarized to one object but that only the two older age groups were significantly capable of doing this when familiarized to more than one object. Results also indicated that only 34 month olds were capable of using weight differences in a more functional way, namely to tip a balance scale.

Perceptions of justice involving disciplinary decisions for a star player in an intercollegiate team sport setting were investigated. Male and female intercollegiate athletes (N = 142) at a midsized southeastern university responded to one of sixteen scenarios and reported perceptions of fairness for the punished athlete and teammates, perceptions of procedural fairness for the punished athlete and teammates, and whether the punishment was likely to deter future misconduct by the punished athlete and teammates. The results indicated that athletes perceived consistently applied punishment as more fair to all team members than they did conditional punishment; consistently applied punishment was perceived as more likely to deter future misconduct for all team members than was conditional punishment; severe punishment was perceived as more likely to deter future misconduct to the punished athlete than was moderate punishment; and punishment that appropriately matches the severity of the violation was perceived as more fair than punishment that was overly for the violation severity.