Children's Conception About Their Lives' Future Events as a Measure of Executive Function
Annie Louise Metcalf, Arizona State University
First Place Erlbaum Winner (Graduate)
Faculty Sponsor: David Wodrich, PhD

It is hypothesized that attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) comprises a deficit in future planning. This study involves measuring children's degree of future thought and its association with teacher and parent rated ADHD symptomology for hyperactivity-impulsivity using Future Thought indices. These indices were designed to tap children's tendency to think about the future based on reflection about and contemplation of various events in their lives and to assist in testing Barkley's 1997 theoretical model of ADHD and executive neuropsychology functions. Results based on ADHD rating scales and future planning questionnaires of 100 school-age children in Southwest Phoenix, AZ indicated no statistically significant associations were made between Future Thought indices and teacher and parent ADHD ratings. Despite its limitations, this study adds to a growing literature that demonstrates how sense of time, future planning, and contemplation of the future can or cannot be measured in children.

Effect of Goals on Control Over Spontaneous Trait Inferences
Jonathan Gorman, New York University
First Place Erlbaum Winner (Undergraduate)
Faculty Sponsor: Jim Uleman, PhD

People spontaneously infer dispositional qualities of actors when they encounter behaviors performed by those actors (Uleman, Newman & Moskowitz, 1996). The present study examined how goal instructions affect one's ability to control STIs' effects. In particular, participants saw pairs of actors and trait-implying behaviors along with instructions to either memorize each pair, to form an impression about each actor, or to familiarize themselves with the information provided. An adaptation of the false recognition paradigm (Todorov & Uleman, 2002) along with the process dissociation procedure (PDP; Jacoby, 1991) were used to estimate the amount of control participants have over subsequent judgments of actors. Expanding upon research by Hamilton, Katz, and Leirer (1980), we predicted that if an impression formation goal led to better recall of behavioral information, then participants in this condition would have more control over STIs' effects than participants who memorized the information, but if impression formation led to a better overall integration of the behavioral information, control would be reduced for participants in this condition relative to those who memorized. Results support the former hypothesis, showing that participants have greatest control under impression formation instructions; control under memorization and familiarization instructions did not differ from one another.