Mobile electronic devices such as smartphones are playing an increasingly pervasive role in our daily activities. A growing body of literature is beginning to investigate how mobile technology habits might relate to individual differences in cognitive traits. The present study is an investigation into how individual differences in intertemporal…

Why do people change their strategies for solving problems? In this research, we tested whether negative feedback and the context in which learners encounter a strategy influence their likelihood of adopting that strategy. In particular, we examined whether strategy adoption varied when learners were exposed to a target strategy in isolation, in…

In our everyday life, we often need to anticipate the potential occurrence of events and their consequences. In this context, the way we represent contingencies can determine our ability to adapt to the environment. However, it is not clear how agents encode and organize available knowledge about the future to react to possible states of the…

The implementation of higher-order conditional motor behavior was investigated in the present fMRI study with the objective of answering three questions: (a) what happens in situations where one stimulus dimension alone does not sufficiently determine the correct response?; (b) does the implementation of second-order stimulus-response (S-R) rules…

We examined whether self-restraint in early childhood predicted individual differences in 3 executive functions (EFs; inhibiting prepotent responses, updating working memory, and shifting task sets) in late adolescence in a sample of approximately 950 twins. At ages 14, 20, 24, and 36 months, the children were shown an attractive toy and told not…

An enduring enterprise of experimental psychology has been to account for individual differences in human performance. Recent advances in neuroimaging have permitted testing of hypotheses regarding the neural bases of individual differences but this burgeoning literature has been characterized by inconsistent results. We argue that careful design…

Three experiments examined the effects of interactive visualizations and spatial abilities on a task requiring participants to infer and draw cross sections of a three-dimensional (3D) object. The experiments manipulated whether participants could interactively control a virtual 3D visualization of the object while performing the task, and…

Previous research has indicated that Type A's have a higher need to control their environments, and respond more reactively to control loss than Type B's. To clarify the role of information processing in the control relinquishment decisions of Type A's and B's, 147 male and female college students took part in a problem solving experiment. Pairs…

Vocational Preference Inventory (VPI) and other instruments administered to 365 students, both undecided and in various interest fields, revealed several differences in cognitive style. No differences regarding cognitive style variations and VPI high-point codes or ease of vocational selection were observed. (Author/CJ)

A theory of personality is proposed to reconcile paradoxical findings on the invariance of personality and the variability of behavior across situations. Individuals are assumed to differ in the accessibility of cognitive-affective mediating units and the organizations of the interactions of these units and situations. (SLD)

Compared physically abused male preschoolers (N=11) with nonabused matched controls on the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities and the Wide Range Achievement Test. Significant differences were found on the Verbal and Memory Scales and the General Cognitive Index of the McCarthy. No behavioral differences were noted. (Author/JAC)

Functional neuroimaging may provide insights into the achievement gap in reading skill commonly observed across socioeconomic status (SES). Brain activation during reading tasks is known to be associated with individual differences in children's phonological language skills. By selecting children of equivalent phonological skill, yet diverse…

Research on self-disclosure has suggested that in dyadic social interactions, self-disclosure by one member of the dyad tends to be reciprocated by the other. Little is known, however, about the parameters of self-disclosure and reciprocity. Investigators have sought to relate self-disclosure to various personality constructs, such as…