Radiation-induced genomic instability: a paradigm-breaking phenomenon and its relevance to environmentally induced cancer

The existing paradigm governing radiobiology which is fundamental to the estimation of environmental radiation risk, cannot explain the phenomena of radiation induced genomic instability and the bystander effect. Both effects can, however, be understood in terms of the dynamical genome concept, qualitatively described herein. The dynamical genome concept may find further application in better understanding other aspects of biology, most notably the cancer process in general and the consequences of genetic modification.

Multilevel integrative analyses of human behavior: social neuroscience and the complementing nature of social and biological approaches

Social and biological explanations traditionally have been cast as incompatible, but advances in recent years have revealed a new view synthesized from these 2 very different levels of analysis. The authors review evidence underscoring the complementing nature of social and biological levels of analysis and how the 2 together can foster understanding of the mechanisms underlying complex behavior and the mind. Specifically, they review the utility of considering social influences on biological processes that are often viewed as outside the social domain including genetic constitution, gene expression, disease, and autonomic, neuroendocrine, and immune activity. This research underscores the unity of psychology and the importance of retaining multilevel integrative research that spans molar and molecular levels of analysis. Especially needed in the coming years is more research on the mechanisms linking social and biological events and processes.

The relationship context of human behavior and development

The influence of social relationships on human development and behavior is receiving increased attention from psychologists, who are central contributors to the rapidly developing multidisciplinary field of relationship science. In this article, the authors selectively review some of the significant strides that have been made toward understanding the effects of relationships on development and behavior and the processes by which relationships exert their influence on these, with the purpose of highlighting important questions that remain to be answered, controversial issues that need to be resolved, and potentially profitable paths for future inquiry. The authors' thesis is that important advances in psychological knowledge will be achieved from concerted investigation of the relationship context in which most important human behaviors are developed and displayed.

Das Setzen und Verwirklichen von Zielen

Zusammenfassung: Die historischen Wurzeln des Zielkonzepts werden im Behaviorismus, im Mentalismus sowie in der deutschen Willenspsycholgie gesucht. Es wird darauf hingewiesen, daß die Psychologie des Zielstrebens in den letzten 20 Jahren eine Wiederbelebung erfahren hat. Die moderne Zielpsychologie beschäftigt sich mit Phänomenen der Zielsetzung und der Zielverwirklichung. In Hinblick auf die Zielsetzung werden sowohl inhaltstheoretische Ansätze als auch selbstregulatorische Ansätze diskutiert. Die inhaltstheoretischen Ansätze versuchen, erfolgreiche Zielsetzung aufgrund von prägnanten Zielmerkmalen vorherzusagen (z. B. fremdgesetzte versus selbstgesetzte Ziele, konkrete versus abstrakte Ziele, Ideal- versus Sollziele, Leistungs- versus Lernziele). Die selbstregulatorischen Ansätze dagegen untersuchen Prozesse, die eine erfolgreiche Zielsetzung begünstigen (z. B. mentale Kontrastierung von Zukunft und Realität, Stärkung von Selbstwirksamkeitserwartungen). Schließlich kommt die Verwirklichung von Zielen zur Sprache. Auch hier werden inhaltliche oder strukturelle Zielmerkmale (z. B. materielle versus ideelle Ziele, proximale versus distale Ziele, Annäherungs- versus Vermeidungsziele) einerseits und selbstregulatorische Prozesse (z. B. planende Bewußtseinslage, Vorsatzbildung, Handlungskontrollstrategien, Anstrengungssteigerung, Diskrepanzreduktion) andererseits identifiziert. Abschließend werden zielpsychologische Phänomene diskutiert, die bislang in der Psychologie des Zielstrebens weitgehend unberücksichtigt geblieben sind (z. B. Zielkonflikte, das Aufgeben von unpassenden Zielen).

Five-factor model of personality and transformational leadership

This study linked traits from the 5-factor model of personality (the Big 5) to transformational leadership behavior. Neuroticism, Extraversion, Openness to Experience, and Agreeableness were hypothesized to predict transformational leadership. Results based on 14 samples of leaders from over 200 organizations revealed that Extraversion and Agreeableness positively predicted transformational leadership; Openness to Experience was positively correlated with transformational leadership, but its effect disappeared once the influence of the other traits was controlled. Neuroticism and Conscientiousness were unrelated to transformational leadership. Results further indicated that specific facets of the Big 5 traits predicted transformational leadership less well than the general constructs. Finally, transformational leadership behavior predicted a number of outcomes reflecting leader effectiveness, controlling for the effect of transactional leadership.

Effects of evaluative (in-)consistency and perceived self-efficacy on attitude formation *This research was supported by Grant Jo 182/2 from the “Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)”. The present experiments were conducted in partial fullfilment of the first author's requirements for a doctoral degree at the University of Tübingen, under the direction of the other two authors. We would like to thank Jörg Conzelmann, Denis Fischer, Anja Rüther, Mechthild Weber, and Felix Weichholt for carrying out the experiments, Diana Raysz, and several anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier draft of this paper

In accordance with dual-process theories of attitude change, we predict that attitude judgments about unfamiliar objects are affected by the evaluative inconsistency of relevant attributes. Drawing upon self-efficacy theory, we further predict that individuals' perceived self-efficacy moderates the effect of inconsistency on attitude latencies: Individuals with high perceived self-efficacy in regard to systematic processing are expected to persist in their judgmental process and to show deliberative processing when information is inconsistent but not when it is consistently positive or consistently negative. Evaluatively consistent information should lead to an elimination of or even a reversal of this difference between high- and low-efficacy individuals. The results of two experiments are supportive of these hypotheses.

Gender-linked personality traits predict mental health and functional status following a first coronary event

Three gender-linked traits were examined with respect to adjustment to a coronary event: agency, a focus on the self; communion, a focus on others; and unmitigated communion, an extreme focus on others to the exclusion of the self. Participants (n = 65) were interviewed 1 week and 4 months after a 1st coronary event. Hypotheses were that agency should predict improved health, communion should be unrelated to health, and unmitigated communion should predict worse health over time. Outcomes included depression, anxiety, and well-being (as measured by the Profile of Mood States; D. McNair, M. Lorr, & L. Droppleman, 1971); mental and physical functioning (SF-36; J. E. Ware, K. K. Snow, M. Kosinski, & B. Gandek, 1993); and cardiac symptoms. Results confirmed hypotheses. In addition, unmitigated communion was linked with poor health behavior and negative social interactions, which partly explained the link of unmitigated communion with depression and cardiac symptoms.

Experienced Ambivalence as a Moderator of the Consistency Between Attitudes and Behaviors

Summary: Two studies were conducted to test the hypothesis that stronger degrees of ambivalence attenuate the attitude-behavior correspondence. We also tested the hypothesis that the weaker attitude-behavior correspondence at higher levels of ambivalence may be due to the lower temporal stability of highly ambivalent attitudes. To ensure that these hypotheses be adequately tested, both studies had a prospective design. After assessing their attitudes toward certain behaviors and ambivalence, participants recorded how often they performed these behaviors during the subsequent 14-day period. The investigated behaviors included everyday behaviors such as consuming fast food, preparing classes, and watching entertaining programs on TV. To assess attitudinal stability, attitudes were measured again after the 14-day period. As the results show, the expected moderating effect of experienced ambivalence on the attitude-behavior correspondence was obtained, however, only for a minority of the investigated behaviors. As predicted, experienced ambivalence was related to decreased attitudinal stability in each of these cases. A meta-analytic summary of the two studies revealed that, across different behaviors, a weak but reliable moderating effect of ambivalence on attitude stability and the correspondence between attitudes and behaviors exists.

Prosocial foundations of children's academic achievement

The present longitudinal research demonstrates robust contributions of early prosocial behavior to children's developmental trajectories in academic and social domains. Both prosocial and aggressive behaviors in early childhood were tested as predictors of academic achievement and peer relations in adolescence 5 years later. Prosocialness included cooperating, helping, sharing, and consoling, and the measure of antisocial aspects included proneness to verbal and physical aggression. Prosocialness had a strong positive impact on later academic achievement and social preferences, but early aggression had no significant effect on either outcome. The conceptual model accounted for 35% of variance in later academic achievement, and 37% of variance in social preferences. Additional analysis revealed that early academic achievement did not contribute to later academic achievement after controlling for effects of early prosocialness. Possible mediating processes by which prosocialness may affect academic achievement and other socially desirable developmental outcomes are proposed.

Sexual offenders' implicit planning: a conceptual model

In recent years empirical research, clinical observation, and theoretical models about sexual offending have emphasized the importance of problem solving and decision making throughout different phases in the offense chain. This work suggests that sometimes offense planning is explicit, systematic, and analytical, while at other times it appears to be implicit and intuitive. The latter style of decision making has been called seemingly unimportant decisions. We attempt to provide an explanation of offenders' implicit decision making and suggest two social cognitive mechanisms capable of generating these types of decisions. We believe that implicit decision making in offenders has the appearance of automaticity, that is, decision making that is implicit, fast, relatively autonomous, frequently associated with a lack of control, effortless, and occurring without conscious awareness. Drawing from diverse theoretical sources, we hypothesize that these types of decisions are generated by underlying automatic goal dependent action plans. More specifically, we suggest that there are at least two types of automatic goal dependent plans evident in offenders' decision making: offense scripts and mental simulations. We draw implications for generating future hypotheses and provide suggestions for future research.

EPA2000: a multilingual, programmable computer assessment of off-line metacognition in children with mathematical-learning disabilities

EPA2000 is a program for the assessment of off-line measured metacognitive skills and arithmetical performances in primary school children with mathematical-learning disabilities. The program is designed as a script engine. The concept makes it possible to modify and translate the test into different languages without reprogramming. A user-friendly script editor is built-in, with which all of the parameters of the test can be modified and translated in different languages.

Action-state orientation: construct validity of a revised measure and its relationship to work-related variables

Data from 6 studies (N = 945) were combined to examine the factor structure and construct validity of J. Kuhl's (1994a) measure of action-state orientation, the Action Control Scale (ACS). Initial confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) of 4 models showed poor fit with the data. Items that did not perform well were dropped, and the 4 CFA models were retested, resulting in support for a 3-factor solution corresponding to the Preoccupation, Hesitation, and Volatility subscales. Regression analyses demonstrated that the revised ACS subscales measure a construct distinct from cognitive ability and personality. The revised subscales showed differential statistically significant relationships with (a) self-regulatory and self-focus variables and (b) job attitudes and ratings of job performance. The authors conclude that action-state orientation is a construct relevant to applied settings and that future research should further examine this construct.

Einstellungsbildung: Erlebte Ambivalenz, subjektive Schwierigkeit und Antwortlatenz bei evaluativ inkonsistenten, konsistenten und neutralen Informationen

Zusammenfassung. Ambivalenz gegenüber Einstellungsobjekten resultiert aus simultan positiven und negativen Bewertungstendenzen (z. B. Thompson, Zanna & Griffin, 1995 ). Demnach entstehen ambivalente Einstellung zu unvertrauten Objekten, wenn relevante Informationen evaluativ inkonsistent sind ( Jonas, Diehl & Brömer, 1997 ). In der hier vorgestellten Untersuchung soll gezeigt werden, daß bei evaluativer Inkonsistenz mehr Zeit für die Bildung neuer Einstellungen benötigt wird als bei positiver, negativer oder neutraler Information und daß dieser Effekt der Ambivalenz durch die subjektive Schwierigkeit der Einstellungsbildung vermittelt wird. Ferner sollte Need to Evaluate ( Jarvis & Petty, 1996 ), d. h. die Tendenz, spontan Einstellungen zu bilden, die Höhe der Ambivalenz, die subjektive Schwierigkeit und die Antwortlatenzen moderieren. Die Hypothesen werden in einem 6-stufigen Within-Design überprüft (N = 30), in dem ein unvertrautes Objekt entweder durch stark, moderat oder schwach evaluativ inkonsistente Informationen oder durch positive, negative oder neutrale Informationen charakterisiert wird. Es werden Unterschiede und Bezüge zur Eindrucksbildung diskutiert.

Illusory Correlations: A Simple Associative Algorithm Provides a Convergent Account of Seemingly Divergent Paradigms

Subjective correlations that exaggerate objectively presented contingencies are usually referred to as illusory correlations. An empirical review reveals 3 major paradigms of illusory correlations, drawing on 2 prominent but conflicting gestalt principles, congruency and distinctiveness. Congruency accounts for expectancy-based illusory correlations, whereas distinctiveness is relevant to illusions resulting from the asymmetry of positive and negative attributes and from infrequency. The congruency principle implies a processing advantage for expected stimuli, whereas distinctiveness assumes enhanced processing of unexpected events. This apparent conflict is resolved, and an integrative account is offered within a simple connectionist framework (BIAS) of correlation assessment. The basic algorithm is outlined, empirical findings are simulated, new theoretical distinctions are introduced, and analogies to related paradigms are explained.

Acquisition of the algorithms of social life: a domain-based approach

Proposing that the algorithms of social life are acquired as a domain-based process, the author offers distinctions between social domains preparing the individual for proximity-maintenance within a protective relationship (attachment domain), use and recognition of social dominance (hierarchical power domain), identification and maintenance of the lines dividing "us" and "them" (coalitional group domain), negotiation of matched benefits with functional equals (reciprocity domain), and selection and protection of access to sexual partners (mating domain). Flexibility in the implementation of domains occurs at 3 different levels: versatility at a bioecological level, variations in the cognitive representation of individual experience, and cultural and individual variations in the explicit management of social life. Empirical evidence for domain specificity was strongest for the attachment domain; supportive evidence was also found for the distinctiveness of the 4 other domains. Implications are considered at theoretical and applied levels.

Affordances in social judgment: Experimental proof of why it is a mistake to ignore how others behave towards a target and look solely at how the target behaves

In this article, we propose a comprehensive conception of what personality traits are and what they mean in lay personology. Our conception is a pragmatic one that relies on the ecological concept of affordance and the theory of dual knowledge. It is not based on the same knowledge-building process as other pragmatic conceptions in that it distinguishes evaluative knowledge, produced by the generalization of affordances, from descriptive knowledge, deemed to be of limited importance in trait usage. It posits that an essential component of the meaning of traits is how others act towards the persons who possess these traits. We present a compilation of ten experimental studies in various areas of interest (statistical studies of trait/behavior associations, semantic decision-making, person memory, judgments at zero acquaintance) to prove the importance of the evaluative component composed of others' behaviors (OBs). These experiments show that the evaluative component 1. includes a repertoire of behaviors that is just as reliable for encoding traits as the repertoire of behaviors ascribed to the target; 2. can be just as accessible as the descriptive component for highly evaluative traits; 3. is very powerful in structuring mental representations of persons; 4. is more highly activated in social contexts, especially in workevaluation situations, and 5. is more discriminative than the descriptive component in immediate appraisals of persons.

Inter- vs. independentes Selbstwissen als Determinante von Assimilation und Kontrast bei kontextuellem Priming

Zusammenfassung: Wenn eine Person bei der Beurteilung eines sozialen Stimulus einen verzerrenden Kontexteinfluß vermutet, kann sie ihr Urteil in der dem angenommenen Einfluß entgegengesetzten Richtung an die Kontextinformation assimilieren bzw. von dieser kontrastieren. Im vorliegenden Papier wird diese Annahme auf den speziellen Fall selbstbezogener Urteile angewendet. Hier sollte die Wahrscheinlichkeit, mit der eine Person zu korrigieren versucht, von ihrer Selbstdefinition abhängig sein. Personen mit independenter Selbstdefinition sollten Kontexteinflüsse auf selbstbezogene Urteile für verzerrend halten und ihnen entgegensteuern. Personen mit interdependenter Selbstdefinition sollten hingegen Kontextinformationen für eine angemessene Grundlage zur Bildung selbstbezogener Urteile halten und entsprechend Assimilationseffekte produzieren. In den beiden berichteten Studien zeigte sich erwartungsgemäß, daß Personen mit interdependenter Selbstdefinition sich in selbstbezogenen Urteilen von einem Priming selbstbezogenen Wissens leiten ließen, während Personen mit independenter Selbstdefinition keine Primingeffekte oder Kontrasteffekte produzierten.

Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being

Human beings can be proactive and engaged or, alternatively, passive and alienated, largely as a function of the social conditions in which they develop and function. Accordingly, research guided by self-determination theory has focused on the social-contextual conditions that facilitate versus forestall the natural processes of self-motivation and healthy psychological development. Specifically, factors have been examined that enhance versus undermine intrinsic motivation, self-regulation, and well-being. The findings have led to the postulate of three innate psychological needs--competence, autonomy, and relatedness--which when satisfied yield enhanced self-motivation and mental health and when thwarted lead to diminished motivation and well-being. Also considered is the significance of these psychological needs and processes within domains such as health care, education, work, sport, religion, and psychotherapy.

Neural correlates of theory-of-mind reasoning: an event-related potential study

Everyday understanding of human behavior rests on having a theory of mind--the ability to relate people's actions to underlying mental states such as beliefs and desires. It has been suggested that an impaired theory of mind may lie at the heart of psychological disorders that are characterized by deficits in social understanding, such as autism. In this study, we employed the event-related potential methodology to index the activity of neural systems that are engaged during theory-of-mind reasoning in adults. Specifically, neural activity elicited by tasks that required thinking about mental as compared with nonmental representations (i.e., beliefs vs. photographs) was characterized by a focally enhanced positivity over left frontal areas, which was diminished over left parietal areas. These findings provide an important perspective on both children's theory-of-mind development and the neurobiology of disorders in which theory of mind seems to be impaired.