Showing papers by "Georgia College & State University published in 1994"

Empathy as a cognitive inhibitor of interpersonal aggression

Abstract: The studies presented in this paper examined empathy, especially perspective taking, as a potential inhibitor of interpersonal aggression. The theoretical rationale for these investigations derived from Zillmann's [(1988): Aggressive Behavior 14: 51–64] cognitive excitation model. Study 1 revealed that dispositional empathy correlates negatively with self-reported aggression and with conflict responses that reflect little concern for the needs of the other party. Empathy also was positively related to constructive responses to interpersonal conflict (i. e., those that do involve concern for the needs of the other party). In Study 2, perspective taking was manipulated with instructions to subjects prior to participation in a reaction-time task designed to measure aggression. When threat was relatively low, subjects who were instructed to take the perspective of the target responded less aggressively than did those who had been instructed to focus on the task. Study 3 examined the effect of dispositional perspective taking on verbal aggression. Threat was manipulated in terms of the combination of provocation and gender of the interactants. As predicted, perspective taking related to aggression inhibition under conditions of moderate threat–for males under low provocation and females under high provocation. These effects were predicted and explained in the context of the cognitive-excitation model. © 1994 Wiley-Liss, Inc.

Attitudes and Recycling: Does the Measurement of Affect Enhance Behavioral Prediction?

Abstract: Recent attempts to improve the influence of social marketing have often focused on behavioral strategies, largely neglecting the concept of attitude. This is understandable given the weak performance of attitudinal variahles as a predictor in past studies of proenvironmental hehavior. However, we suggest that part of the reason for the poor association hetween attitudes and such hehavior is the possibility that many altruistic acts such as recycling are suhject to affective influences that may not he fully captured by commonly employed attitude measures. We also suggest that attitude strength might moderate the extent to which affective reactions account for additional variance in hehavior. Specifically, it is predicted that affect is more important for weak than for strong attitudes. Empirical results are presented to support these suggestions. © 1994 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Young Children's Private Speech as a Precursor to Metacognitive Strategy Use during Task Engagement.

Abstract: The overall purpose of these three investigations was to test the usefulness of private speech utterances as a means for understanding children's verbal self‐guidance during school task performance. A private speech coding system was derived from synthesizing the literature on private speech (e.g., Berk, 1986a), self‐regulated learning (e.g., Rohrkemper, 1989), and metacognition (Brown, 1987; Meichenbaum, 1977). Also, Vygotsky's theory of verbal self‐regulation (1934/1962, 1934/1987) served as the guiding theoretical perspective. To analyze verbal self‐guidance and to gather information about the importance of student characteristics (namely, autonomy, n = 118; academically advanced, n = 34; and creativity, n = 16), three separate studies using a different data source for each study, were conceptualized. Similar patterns of findings emerged; groups designated as more autonomous and more academically advanced used significantly less task‐irrelevant private speech; all groups used less nonfacilitative task‐...

Spatial learning following posterior parietal or hippocampal lesions.

Abstract: Rats with either posterior parietal (PPC) or dorsal hippocampal (HIP) lesions were tested for open-field activity, acquisition of a multiple T water maze habit, and presence of a 'cognitive map' of the water maze arena. The performances of control and PPC-lesioned rats were similar on all behavioral measures. However, the HIP-damaged rats demonstrated higher levels of general activity, severe deficits in both working and reference memory in the multiple T water maze task, and failed to develop a cognitive map of the water maze arena.

Relationships Among Private Speech and Creativity Measurements of Young Children

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to examine relationships among thought processes represented in young children's private speech and creativity assessments of the same children. A secondary purpose was to study the role of affective private speech and its association with creativity measures. The sample was 42 preschool and kindergarten children on whom creativity measures were obtained using the Torrance Thinking Creatively in Action and Movement (TCAM) assessment instrument. Private speech was collected from the same children. Each private speech utterance was coded into one of five levels: (a) task irrelevant speech (T-1); (b) nonfacilitative, task relevant speech (T-2); (c) task relevant speech (T-3); (d) coping/reinforcing speech (T-4); and (e) solving speech (T-5). Statistical analysis revealed significant positive relationships among creativity measures, solving speech, and coping/reinforcing speech. Furthermore, coping and reinforcing private speech were consistently linked with high creativity measu...

The Vietnam War : Vietnamese and American perspectives

Abstract: The conveners (the editors of this book) of the September 1989 Four Anniversaries China Conference in Annapolis, asked the contributors to look back from that point in time to consider four major events in modern Chinese history in the perspective of the rapid changes that were shaping the Chinese society, economy, polity, and sense of place in the world in the 1980s, a time when China was making rapid strides toward becoming more integrated with the outside world. With contributions by distinguished scholars in the field, the four anniversaries considered are the High Qing, the May Fourth Movement, forty years of communism in China, and ten years of the Deng era.

Relationships among Nontask Behaviors, Rated Performance, and Objective Performance Measures:

Abstract: Correlations among nontask behaviors, subjective evaluations of performance, and objective performance measures were investigated for a sample of 73 machine operators. Correlation and regression an...

Enforcing academic rules in higher education: A total quality management approach

Abstract: Two key principles of total quality management (TQM) are increasing customer satisfaction and driving out fear. Enforcing academic rules, however, frequently induces fears and lowers student satisfaction. This case study shows how TQM was used in an MBA program to prevent infractions rather than punish students. Prevention became possible only after TQM techniques revealed the causes of rule violation. Techniques included run charts, forecasting, cause and effect analysis, multiple regression, customer surveys, and breaking down barriers between departments. Follow-up shows no new rule infractions for several academic terms.

Large deviations for trajectories of sums of independent random variables

Abstract: Given a sequence of independent, but not necessarily identically distributed random variables,Yi, letSk denote thekth partial sum. Define a function\(\tilde S:[0,\infty ) \to \mathbb{R}\) by taking\(\tilde S(t)\) to be the piecewise linear interpolant of the points (k, Sk), evaluated att, whereS0=0, andk=0, 1, 2,... Fort∈[0, 1], let\(\tilde S_n (t)\mathop = \limits^{def} \tilde S(nt)\). The\(\tilde S_n \) are called trajectories. With regularity and moment conditions on theYi, a large deviation principle is proved for the\(\tilde S_n \).

The Textbooks-in-College-Libraries Mystery

Abstract: This article investigates whether textbooks are appropriate for a college library collection. Collection development policies and other professional commentary offer little clear direction since they do not define what a textbook is. Evidence and opinion suggest that it would be wise to eliminate the ''textbook'' label, treat these resources as ''books,'' and apply to them the standard collection development criteria.