User:Ana L. Cortez/portfolio

Article #1: Emotional responsivity

 * The article I chose to edit was: emotional responsivity. I chose this article because I felt that it was in need of more information. Although the previous editor mentioned essential details about this topic in three sentences, I believe that it was not enough.
 * In order to prepare to edit this wikiarticle, I did a PsychInfo search. Since I noticed that this article only consisted of one source, I wanted to provide more (whether they are empirical article or literature reviews). Additionally, this article required more links to other Wikipedia articles, that is why it was given an "orphan" tag. To remove this tag, my plan was to find corresponding wikiarticles and also add more relevant information on emotional responsivity.
 * The text additions:

The text I plan to add is located here: emotional responsivity article draft


 * My Psychology appropriate citations include:

1. Carels, R. A., Blumenthal, J. A., & Sherwood, A. (2000). Emotional responsivity during daily life: relationship to psychosocial functioning and ambulatory blood pressure. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 36, 25-33.

The previous editor mentioned this one article as a source, therefore I decided to read it. This article at first, defined emotional responsivity as a variability of emotional states throughout a day. Authors also recognized that although emotional responsivity research may seem similar to emotional response research, the main difference is that emotional responsivity is measured by  self-reports and also measured throughout a couple of days.

2. Mathews, J.R. & Barch, D.M. (2010). Emotion responsivity, social cognition, and functional outcome in schizophrenia. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 119 (1): 50–59.

In this article, the authors created a section for emotional responsivity. They summarized previous experiments regarding emotional responsivity and how individuals with schizophrenia have difficulties responding to emotional stimuli. Examples of emotional stimuli can be: facial emotions, food, or even pictures of varying emotions. These authors also created an experiment of their own and tested emotional responsivity on individuals who best fit the criteria for schizophrenia. WIth the help of self-reports, participants had to sit in front of computers and view various images and then asked to rate their experience.

3. Scamblers, D.J., Hepburn, S.; Rutherford M.D., Wehner, E.A., & Rogers, S.J. (2006). Emotional responsivity in children with autism, children with other developmental disabilities, and children with typical development. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 553–563. doi: 10.1007/s10803-006-0186-y.

In this article, authors measured emotional responsivity in three tasks: surprise boxes, yummy yucky, and experimenter distress. What made this article unique was that participants children who either were autistic, had developmental delays, or were considered typically developed. Since these children could not perform self -reports, their facial expressions and overall behavior was recorded in each situation (using codes). This article was also useful because the authors described each task and summarized previous experiments that used it too.


 * Since I was interested in editing this article, I posted on it's talk page about my intentions. Unfortunately, I did not receive a response from anyone as of yet. Here is a link: emotional responsivity talk page


 * This article has went live.

Article #2: Fan effect

 * The article I chose to edit was: fan effect. I chose this article to edit because it was considered a stub article that needed expansion. I felt that one sentence in this article was not suffice information. I also noticed that the previous editor included one reliable source, nonetheless, there is room to include more.  Overall, the topic is interesting to cover because many believe that the more we associate a  fact to another fact, the faster we will be able to retrieve that information, however the fan effect explains the reverse.


 * One of the tags posted on this article was that it did not incorporate links to other articles. I plan on including wikilinks or external links that correspond to this phenomena as well as add more information, since this article is only a sentence long. For example, the cognitive psychologist named John R. Anderson is an important figure that is associate with the fan effect. The tags can be seen on the fan effect wikipage.


 * The specific text I am going to include is located here: fan effect article draft


 * The Psychology appropriate citations are as follows:

1. Anderson, John (October 1974). Retrieval of propositional information from long-term memory. Cognitive Psychology 6(4), 451–474. doi:10.1016/0010-0285(74)90021-8.

Since the previous editor incorporated this article as a reference, I decided to read it. This article is essential because it summarized one of the first experiments that demonstrated the fan effect. Furthermore, this experiment has been referenced in many articles concerning retrieval memory and long-term working memory.

2. Anderson, J.R.,& Reder, L.N.(1999). The fan effect: New results and new theories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 128, (2), 186–197.

Though this article is primary, these authors provided a summary about the fan effect as well as Anderson''s previous experiments regarding this topic.

3. Schneider, D.W., & Anderson, J.R.(2012).Modeling fan effects on the time course. Cognitive Psychology 64, 127–160. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2011.11.001.

This article is the most recent study produced by Anderson and his associate Shneider. Once again, this article is empirical but it provided a review of the literature of the the fan effect, the authors later introduced their experiment.

4. Cantor, Judy; Engle, Randall W. (1993). Working-memory capacity as long-term memory activation: An individual-differences approach. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition 19, (5),1101–1114.

Although this is considered an empirical article, the authors provided a summary of older experiments that were associated with the the fan effect, specifically Anderson's 1974 study. The authors also described the ACT model that was used in Anderson's 1974 experiment.

5. Radvansky, G.A. (1999). The fan effect: A tale of two theories. Journal of Experimental Psychology 128, 198-206.

Although the above article is primary, it provides essential information on the fan effect. Based on this article, the fan effect is mostly associated with John R. Anderson, a cognitive psychologist. The fan effect is a phenomenon that illustrates that the more an individual studies a concept, the longer it will take to retrieve this concept from their memory. Additionally, the word "fan" is equivalent to the amount of information or facts linked to a certain idea.

6. Buntinga,M.F.,Conwayb,A., & Heitzc, R.P. (2004). Individual differences in the fan effect and working memory capacity. Journal of Memory and Language 51, 604–621. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2004.07.007.

In this article, authors summarized Cantor and Randall's 1993 experiment and Anderson's 1974 experiment regarding the fan effect. The authors of this article created their own study that also consisted of participants studying series sentences that consisted of a person and a location, which would later be tested through a recognition task.

7. Strube, G.& Wender, K.F. The Cognitive Psychology of Knowledge. Netherlands: Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. ISBN 0080867553.

In Chapter 5 of this book, the authors of this specific chapter Glowalla and Rinck, provide a review of research regarding retrieval memory and mention the fan effect. They also noted that the fan effect was also called "the paradox of interference."


 * I have posted on this article's talk page, here is a link.


 * To my surprise someone already edited this article, therefore I decided to post only one section on it. It still needs references, so I will be looking for ways to incorporate the sources I found into this recently edited article.

Article #3: Exposure hierarchy

 * The article I chose to edit was: Exposure hierarchy. I came across this article because it was fairly short and needed more information.


 * I noticed that this wikiarticle was missing references. Although the previous editor incorporated a "further readings" section, a tag was posted on this article for the reason there were no sources included.


 * The text I plan to include is located here: exposure hierarchy article draft


 * The Psychology appropriate citations include:

1. Katerelos et al. (2008). The exposure hierarchy as a measure of progress and efficacy in the treatment of social anxiety disorder. Behavior Modification. doi:10.1177/0145445507309302.

Based on this article, exposure hierarchy is a method of cognitive behavioral therapy for individuals with anxiety disorders/ phobias. In specific, this method is used in exposure therapy. Exposure hierarchy is based on a self-report system and with the help of a clinician, the client would create an individualized list, rating their distress from the event that causes the most anxiety to the event that causes the least (usually goes by a rating scale. Exposure hierarchy is useful for both the clinician and client because it would give them an idea on the area that needs the most attention.

This article is primary but I believe it would be useful because it includes a summary of exposure hierarchy and even provided a sample exposure hierarchy which I think would be interesting for Wiki users to read.The authors of this article also provided a brief summary of Norton and Hope's (2005)and McCabe, Rowa, Antony, Swinson, and Ladak's (2001) studies.

Example of an Exposure hierarchy worksheet


 * In specific, exposure therapy that consists of creating an exposure hierarchy can be considered as a" graded hierarchy." The clinician would begin with the least difficult an work their way up to the most fearful event with their client.

This PDF can be included in a "Further Reading" section.


 * I have not asked an editor to review my article yet.


 * This article has not gone live yet.

Article #4: Production blocking

 * The article I chose to edit was: production blocking. I chose to cover this topic because I was intrigued by the article I read when I did a PscyhInfo search. It is interesting how the production blocking issue can occur in brainstorming groups in experiments as well as real life situations.


 * Surprisingly, this article did not provide any references! Since it is considered a stub article, I plan to include more general information about production blocking as well as include reliable sources. Take a look.
 * The text I plan to include: production blocking article draft. Generally, I would like to include why this issue occurs, how to prevent this from happening, and also incorporate a well known experiment regarding the production blocking problem. Additionally, I posted on The WikiProject Psychology talk page and asked editors to review my contributions to this article. Hopefully I would hear back from someone soon.


 * The Psychology appropriate citations I plan to include are as follows:

1. Henningsen, D.D., & Henningsen, M.L.M. (2013). Generating ideas about the uses of brainstorming: Reconsidering the losses and gains of brainstorming groups relative to nominal groups. Southern Communication Journal 73 (1): 42–55.

This article included relevant information about traditional brainstorming groups, in specific the problems that occur in them. The authors not only defined what the production blocking problem was, but also mentioned nominal groups. The authors suggested that nominal groups are much more efficient in generating ideas than brainstorming groups mainly because group members do not have to wait to speak. They also mentioned that more ideas are produced in a shorter period of time in nominal groups compared to brainstorming groups.

2. Nijstad, B.A., Stroebe, W., Lodewijkx, H.F.M (2003). Production blocking and idea generation: Does blocking interfere with cognitive processes?. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 39, 531-548. doi:10.1016/S0022-1031(03)00040-4.

Although this article is empirical, it provides a section that discusses production blocking and also summarizes past experiments that dealt with this phenomena. The authors of this article also addressed brainstorming online and compared it to traditional brain storming. Additionally they also confirmed that production blocking may arise because individuals must wait their turn to express their thoughts.

3. Diehl, M. & Stroebe, W. (1991). Productivity loss in idea-generating groups: Tracking down the blocking effect. Interpersonal Relations and Group Processes, 392– 403.

The authors, two very important figures in problem solving studies, wrote that a reason production blocking may occur is because individuals are forced to listen to the opinions of others, which can be distracting from one's own thought processes. The four experiments that Diehl and Stoebe conducted were used to evaluate the impact that production blocking has on traditional brainstorming groups. They also addressed the time limits in brain storming groups, as well as the note-taking method.

4. Brown, V., & Paulus, P.B. (1996). The simple dynamic model of social factors in group brainstorming. Small Group Research 21 (1): 91–114. doi:10.1177/1046496496271005.

This article is also very much empirical/ primary source but I think it would be useful because the authors defined production blocking and cited Diehl and Stroebe's 1987/1991 article. The authors of this article also described a few methods that have been used to descrease the production blocking issue.


 * I have posted on the article's talk page. Hopefully someone would be nice enough to answer me.


 * I have edited this article. I noticed that someone made an edit, but I cannot tell exactly what they have done. Here is a link. (take a look at the revision history, a person named "Jeraphine Gryphon" made this edit.

Article #5: Vertical thinking

 * The article I chose to edit is called vertical thinking. This article is stub article that is relatively short, nevertheless, there is room for improvement. I also noticed that there was only one reference that was incorporated into this article, I think that more should be included.


 * There are no tags on this article, however, I think it needs much more general information. When I took a look at the talk page, an editor suggested that the article should differentiate vertical and non-vertical thinking as well as incorporate more sources into this article. Take a look.


 * Since an editor suggested incorporating more general text, that is what I plan on doing. The text I intend to integrate into this article is located at the bottom of the page.


 * My Psychology appropriate citations:

1. Groves, K., Vance, C., Choi, D. (2011). Examining entrepreneurial cognition: An occupational analysis of balanced linear and nonlinear thinking and entrepreneurship success. Journal of Small Business Management 49 (3), 438–466.

This article is going to be useful because the authors described linear thinking in depth and how it can be compared to nonlinear thinking. For the reason that this article is found a in a businness journal, the authors described that a balance of these two thinking styles would be ideal for entrepreneurs.

2. Groves, K.S., & Vance, C.M. (2009). Examining managerial thinking style, eq, and organizational commitment. Journal of Managerial Issues 21 (3): 344-366.

This article included the same authors as the previous article I mentioned. Although this article is an empirical article, the authors mentioned a good amount of information about this topic which I believe would be essential to include into the wikiarticle.


 * I have posted on the article's talk page. Here is a link.


 * This article went live. I have yet to see any edits made to it.

New Article: Self-system

 * The article I chose to develop on Wikipedia is based on one of Harry S. Sullivan's personality constructs: the self-system. As I was browsing through Wikipedia to decide what topic I wanted to write about, I came across a wiki-article on Harry Sullivan. I noticed that there were many terms from this article that were not not wiki-articles, therefore I chose to develop the self-system page. I was also interested in writing about this concept because it reminded me of the Freudian ego.


 * The Wikipedia appropriate citations I used came from mostly books that were based on the lectures that Sullivan gave in the William Alanson White Institute. Since Sullivan did not write these books himself, these can be considered reliable sources to use. In addition to these books, I also found some information about the self-system in two of my textbooks that I used for a Personality class. Lastly, I also found an article that summarized Sullivan's work as a whole that mentioned the self-system; this came from the American Journal of Psychoanalysis.


 * Here is the link to the self-system sandbox page.


 * I asked someone to review my draft through the Teahouse. Here is a link.


 * Also, take a look at my talk page.


 * The self-system article went live!