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Biomedical subjects

Steven J Sherman

Publications and source records attributed to Steven J Sherman.

14 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2006

What is addiction? Age-related differences in the meaning of addiction.

In a sample of families from a midwestern community study of cigarette smoking, we examined adolescents' and adults' definitions of "addiction", and related these definitions to their perceived addictiveness of cigarette smoking. Both adolescents and adults viewed addiction as multi-faceted, including both appetitive aspects and compulsive aspects. However, for adolescents, the two dimensions were equally important to the overall meaning of addiction, whereas for adults, the compulsive dimension was more important than was the appetitive dimension. The two dimensions of addiction were related to the perceived addictiveness of smoking, but differently for adolescents and adults. For adolescents, the appetitive dimension was a significant predictor whereas, for adults, the compulsive dimension was significant (and appetitive scores were predictive only at high levels of endorsement of the compulsive factor). These findings have potential implications for prevention programs for adolescents. Adolescents may perceive messages about "addiction" as communicating that the behavior in question has appetitive value in addition to a potential for inducing loss of control, and this may weaken the effectiveness of these messages.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Automatic and controlled components of judgment and decision making.

The categorization of inductive reasoning into largely automatic processes (heuristic reasoning) and controlled analytical processes (rule-based reasoning) put forward by dual-process approaches of judgment under uncertainty (e.g., K. E. Stanovich & R. F. West, 2000) has been primarily a matter of assumption with a scarcity of direct empirical findings supporting it. The present authors use the process dissociation procedure (L. L. Jacoby, 1991) to provide convergent evidence validating a dual-process perspective to judgment under uncertainty based on the independent contributions of heuristic and rule-based reasoning. Process dissociations based on experimental manipulation of variables were derived from the most relevant theoretical properties typically used to contrast the two forms of reasoning. These include processing goals (Experiment 1), cognitive resources (Experiment 2), priming (Experiment 3), and formal training (Experiment 4); the results consistently support the author's perspective. They conclude that judgment under uncertainty is neither an automatic nor a controlled process but that it reflects both processes, with each making independent contributions.

Analysis of Variance↗
PubMed2006

Tradeoffs and theory: the double-mediation model.

Most theories of decision making suggest that, when options imply tradeoffs between their attributes, conflict increases as tradeoff size increases, because greater sacrifices are to be incurred in choosing one option instead of another. An alternative view is that conflict decreases as tradeoff size increases, because stronger arguments can be made for any decision. The authors propose a unified model, the double-mediation model, which combines the mediating effects of sacrifice and argumentation. Our model generally predicts an inverse U-shaped relation between tradeoff size and conflict. Results support this prediction. Also, when the decision situation increases the mediating effect of sacrifice relative to that of argumentation, the relation between tradeoff size and conflict changes in an upward direction; conversely, when the decision situation increases the mediating effect of argumentation relative to that of sacrifice, the relation changes in a downward direction. Results support these predictions as well. Commonalities and differences between our model and other formulations are discussed.

Choice Behavior↗
PubMed2005

Parenting style and smoking-specific parenting practices as predictors of adolescent smoking onset.

OBJECTIVE: To test whether parenting style and smoking-specific parenting practices prospectively predicted adolescent smoking. METHODS: Three hundred eighty-two adolescents (age 10-17 years, initial nonsmokers, 98% non-Hispanic whites) and their parents were interviewed, with smoking also assessed 1-2 years later. RESULTS: Adolescents from disengaged families (low acceptance and low behavioral control) were most likely to initiate smoking. Adolescents' reports of parents' smoking-related discussion was related to lowered smoking risk for adolescents with nonsmoking parents, but unrelated to smoking onset for adolescents with smoking parents. Smoking-specific parenting practices did not account for the effects of general parenting styles. CONCLUSIONS: Both parenting style and smoking-specific parenting practices have unique effects on adolescent smoking, although effects were largely confined to adolescents' reports; and for smoking-specific parenting practices, effects were confined to families with nonsmoking parents. Interventions that focus only on smoking-specific parenting practices may be insufficient to deter adolescent smoking.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Type-based bigram frequencies for five-letter words.

Researchers often require subjects to make judgments that call upon their knowledge of the orthographic structure of English words. Such knowledge is relevant in experiments on, for example, reading, lexical decision, and anagram solution. One common measure of orthographic structure is the sum of the frequencies of consecutive bigrams in the word. Traditionally, researchers have relied on token-based norms of bigram frequencies. These norms confound bigram frequency with word frequency because each instance (i.e., token) of a particular word in a corpus of running text increments the frequencies of the bigrams that it contains. In this article, the authors report a set of type-based bigram frequencies in which each word (i.e., type) contributes only once, thereby unconfounding bigram frequency from word frequency. The authors show that type-based bigram frequency is a better predictor of the difficulty of anagram solution than is token-based frequency. These norms can be downloaded from www.psychonomic.org/archive/.

Cognition↗
PubMed2003

Historical changes in cigarette smoking and smoking-related beliefs after 2 decades in a midwestern community.

Rates of cigarette smoking and smoking-related beliefs in 1980 and 2001 among 7th-11th graders in a midwestern community were compared. Smoking was less prevalent in 2001 than in 1980, with the greatest declines in experimental smoking and a smaller drop in regular smoking. Beliefs about smoking generally became more negative. Adolescents (particularly nonsmokers) viewed smoking as more addictive and as having more negative social consequences in 2001 than in 1980 and had more negative attitudes toward smoking in 2001. These results were replicated among parent-child pairs in which parents were measured when they were adolescents between 1980 and 1983 and their children were measured in 2001. These beliefs and attitudes partially mediated the effects of time on smoking.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

On the nature of insight solutions: evidence from skill differences in anagram solution.

According to the Gestalt psychologists, problem solutions that pop into mind suddenly with no awareness of the process by which they were generated are objectively as well as subjectively sudden. Thus, such pop-out solutions are qualitatively different from search solutions, which are constructed incrementally. The authors tested this claim in the domain of anagram solution. Experiment 1 documented that anagrams yield pop-out solutions, especially among highly skilled solvers. The results of Experiment 2 indicated that both pop-out and search solutions depended on the gradual accumulation of partial information, contrary to the Gestalt view of problem solving. Nevertheless, some aspects of the Experiment 2 results, as well as new analyses of an anagram study reported elsewhere, suggest that there may in fact be a qualitative difference between pop-out and search solutions. In particular, pop-out solutions may result from parallel processing of the constraints on the rearranged order of the anagram letters, whereas search solutions may result from a serial hypothesis-testing procedure. Like dynamite, the insightful solution explodes on the solver's cognitive landscape with breathtaking suddenness, but if one looks closely, a long fuse warns of the impending reorganization. (Durso, Rea, & Dayton, 1994, p. 98)

Aptitude↗
PubMed2002

Perceived entitativity, stereotype formation, and the interchangeability of group members.

The authors investigated the effects of perceived entitativity of a group on the processing of behavioral information about individual group members and the extent to which such information was transferred to other group members. The results of 3 experiments using a savings-in-relearning paradigm showed that trait inferences about a group member, based on that member's behavior, were stronger for low entitative groups and for collections of individuals. However, the transference of traits from 1 group member to other members of the group was stronger for high entitative groups. These results provide strong evidence that the perception of high entitativity involves the abstraction of a stereotype of the group and the transfer of that stereotype across all group members. Implications for group impression formation and stereotyping are discussed.

Concept Formation↗
PubMed2002

Psychosocial antecedents of tobacco chipping.

The authors examined adolescent antecedents and adult correlates of tobacco "chipping" compared with heavy smoking, experimental smoking, and nonsmoking in a representative community sample. As adolescents, future "chippers" had some smoking risk factors (attitudes, health beliefs, smoking intentions, and tolerance for deviance) and several protective factors (high values for academic success, internal locus of control, supportive relationships, and little smoking among peers and parents). As adults, risk factors included lessened belief in nicotine's addictiveness, lower conscientiousness, higher extraversion, and lower positive affect and life satisfaction; protective factors included high levels of educational attainment and employment and low levels of negative affect and stress (men only). Thus, chippers experience a complex mixture of risk and protective factors for smoking.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Long-term psychological sequelae of smoking cessation and relapse.

The authors examined whether smoking cessation and relapse were associated with changes in stress, negative affect, and smoking-related beliefs. Quitters showed decreasing stress, increasing negative health beliefs about smoking, and decreasing beliefs in smoking's psychological benefits. Quitters became indistinguishable from stable nonsmokers in stress and personalized health beliefs, but quitters maintained stronger beliefs in the psychological benefits of smoking than stable nonsmokers. Relapse was not associated with increases in stress or negative affect However, relapsers increased their positive beliefs about smoking and became indistinguishable from smokers in their beliefs. For quitters, decreased stress and negative beliefs about smoking may help maintain successful cessation. However, for relapsers, declining health risk perceptions may undermine future quit attempts.

Adult↗
PubMed2002

Parental smoking cessation and adolescent smoking.

OBJECTIVE: To examine the relation of parent smoking cessation to adolescent smoking and test its potential mediators. METHOD: Participants were 446 adolescents and their parents who completed a computerized measure of implicit attitudes toward smoking and questionnaires assessing smoking, parenting, and explicit attitudes. RESULTS: Parental smoking cessation was associated with less adolescent smoking, except when the other parent currently smoked. In general, ex-smoking parents showed more antismoking socialization than did smoking parents. However, in children's reports, these effects were negated if the other parent (particularly the mother) smoked. Children's reports of parents' antismoking behavior partially mediated the relation between parental smoking and adolescent smoking. Although children's implicit and explicit attitudes were unrelated to parental smoking, mothers' implicit attitudes were related to both their own smoking and their child's smoking. CONCLUSIONS: Parental smoking cessation may help lower risk for adolescent smoking. However, this benefit may be realized only if the other parent does not currently smoke. Antismoking parenting might be a useful focus in cessation interventions.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2002

The spontaneous use of a group typology as an organizing principle in memory.

Five studies investigated the spontaneous use of group typology in encoding information about various social groups. Participants saw faces or behaviors along with a label indicating the group membership of the face or the behavior. Labels corresponded to 2 groups each of 3 group types (i.e., 2 intimacy groups, 2 task-oriented groups, and 2 social categories). Recognition results showed more within-group-type errors than between-group-types errors. A free-recall task replicated these results, as the sequence of remembering items showed that memory organization reflected the group typology. A final study investigated the effects of group typology on the speed and accuracy of category membership verification. Results demonstrate the spontaneous use of an implicit group typology and its influence on the cognitive organization of information about groups.

Adult↗