Fredda Blanchard-Fields

Role of Implicit and Explicit Processes in Learning From Examples: A Synergistic Effect

ness of Implicit Knowledge Reber (1969, 1976) claims that implicit knowledge is abstract and readily generalizes to different symbol sets when

Everyday Problem Solving and Emotion An Adult Developmental Perspective

Despite cognitive declines that occur with aging, older adults solve emotionally salient and interpersonal problems in more effective ways than young adults do. I review evidence suggesting that older adults (a) tailor their strategies to the contextual features of the problem and (b) effectively use a combination of instrumental and emotion-regulation strategies. I identify factors of problem-solving contexts that affect what types of problem-solving strategies will be effective. Finally, I discuss how this identification of factors affects what we know about developmental differences in everyday problem-solving competence.

Age differences in problem-solving style: the role of emotional salience.

Qualitative differences in problem-solving style for situations varying in emotional salience were examined among adolescents, young, middle-aged, and older adults. Participants wrote essays on how each of 15 problem situations should be resolved. There were minimal age differences for problem-focused strategies, with all age groups using this strategy the most. Age differences for problem-solving strategy were highly dependent on the degree to which the situation was emotionally salient. All individuals were more likely to use an avoidant-denial strategy in low emotionally salient situations and passive-dependent and cognitive-analysis strategies in high emotionally salient situations. However, older adults used both passive-dependent and avoidant-denial strategies more than younger age groups. Problem-focused strategies were used least in high emotionally salient situations. Implications of findings are discussed from an adult developmental perspective.

Everyday problem solving across the adult life span: influence of domain specificity and cognitive appraisal.

Differences in problem-solving strategies for situations varying in three domains, consumer, home management, and conflict with friends, were examined among younger, middle-aged, and older adults. In addition, this study examined the influence of perceived ability to resolve the problem, controllability, and causal attributions on strategy selection. In the 2 instrumental domains, older adults were more problem focused in their approach than adolescents and younger adults, whereas adolescents and younger adults selected more passive-dependent strategies. In the more interpersonal domain, conflict with friends, older adults tended to select avoidant-denial strategies more so than younger adults. Finally, across domains, the greater the perceived ability to resolve a problem the less the avoidant-denial strategy was selected. The importance of distinguishing between social and instrumental problem solving and of examining the cognitive appraisal of a problem situation are discussed.

Reasoning on social dilemmas varying in emotional saliency: an adult developmental perspective.

The purpose of this study was to provide age-comparative evidence of social cognitive reasoning in adulthood, as mediated by the emotional saliency of tasks tapping postformal reasoning. Specifically, the tasks focused on the ability to resolve discrepant accounts of the same event sequence. It was assumed that less mature thinking may be more evident in reasoning contexts in which emotional factors play a major role. A postformal coding scheme was used to assess levels of reasoning in an interpersonal context. Tasks were administered to 60 subjects--adolescents and young and middle-aged adults. Measures of formal operations, ego level, and verbal ability were also administered. An interaction was found between age and degree of emotional saliency of the task for reasoning level. Specifically, adolescents performed less well on tasks higher in degree of emotional saliency. In addition, developmental differences in postformal reasoning as a function of age and ego level were found.

The Experience of Anger and Sadness in Everyday Problems Impacts Age Differences in Emotion Regulation.

The authors examined regulation of the discrete emotions anger and sadness in adolescents through older adults in the context of describing everyday problem situations. The results support previous work; in comparison to younger age groups, older adults reported that they experienced less anger and reported that they used more passive and fewer proactive emotion-regulation strategies in interpersonal situations. The experience of anger partially mediated age differences in the use of proactive emotion regulation. This suggests that at least part of the reason why older adults use fewer proactive emotion-regulation strategies is their decreased experience of anger. Results are discussed in the context of lifespan theories of emotional development.

A confirmatory factor analysis of the Bem Sex Role Inventory: Old questions, new answers

LISREL analyses of data from a sample of 671 adults (90% Caucasian, 10% Black) evaluated (a) item factor structure of the Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI), (b) second-order factor model for the item factors, and (c) structural equation models estimating age and gender differences in these factors. Seven first-order item factors were extracted and found to have equivalent factor loadings for males and females. Item factors were related to two second-order factors: Masculinity and Femininity. There were relatively small age and gender differences in the first- and second-order factors. There was a differential relationship between self-rated masculinity and femininity and the first-order BSRI item factors for males and females. Results suggest that the BSRI best assesses gender-related personality traits and represents only one component of the complex multidimensional construct of gender roles.

The relation between locus of control and coping in two contexts: Age as a moderator variable.

We examined the relation between locus of control and coping as moderated by age and context. A total of 96 adolescents, young adults, middle-aged adults, and older adults were administered Lazaruss Ways of Coping questionnaire, a situation-specific controllability measure, a defensive coping questionnaire, and Levensons Internality, Powerfulness of Others, and Chance global locus of control scales for challenging and threatening contexts. Age moderated the relation between locus of control and coping. Internality was positively related to escape-avoidance, hostile reaction, and self-blame for younger individuals and negatively related for older adults. A belief in powerfulness of others was positively related to planful problem-solving and self-controlling in older adults and negatively related for younger individuals. Finally, a belief in chance was positively related to distancing and self-controlling for older adults and negatively related for younger individuals. The implication that dimensions of control vary with age is discussed.

Thinking with your head and your heart: age differences in everyday problem-solving strategy preferences.

Age and gender differences in perceived effectiveness of problem-focused and emotion-regulatory problem-solving strategies were examined. Using the Q-sort methodology, young, middle-aged, and older participants were asked to rank order, on a continuum from least to most effective, a wide range of possible strategies for dealing with 4 hypothetical, interpersonal problem situations. In addition to global problem-focused and emotion-focused strategies, analyses were conducted on an expanded 10-category system, including 3 problem-focused and 7 emotion-focused categories. In general, participants preferred problem-focused over emotion-focused strategies. However, older adults preferred a combination of problem-focused and emotion-focused strategies, whereas middle-aged and younger age groups preferred problem-focused strategies only, as their top choices. Qualitative age and gender differences were also found in the types of strategies endorsed, particularly for the emotion-focused strategies.

Unwanted thought: Age differences in the correction of social judgments.

This study use a false information paradigm to study age differences in the correction of social judgments. Younger and older adults read 2 criminal reports, with true information printed in black and false information in red. Following the reports, all participants were asked to recommend prison terms among other ratings. Age differences in baseline measures were also assessed by corresponding control groups who read only true information. Compared with younger adults under full attention, older adults under full attention and younger adults under divided attention were reliably influenced by the nature of the false statements (either extenuating or exacerbating the severity of the crimes). When contrasted with their relevant control groups, older adults under full attention and younger adults under divided attention failed to correct their social judgments. This study lends support to a processing resource explanation for age differences in the correction process for social judgments.