Witkin's concepts of field dependence-independence and restructing are discussed with reference to studies in Russia and in the Netherlands. These concepts are related to differences in style of perception and to success on both cognitive tasks and social tasks. It is suggested that restructing abilities may be trained and restructing ability may…

Factor analysis of correlations among the measures of recall clustering, free sorting, and recognition errors revealed significant convergent validity for consistent use of a semantic perceptual organization strategy in the three tasks. Ten-year-old, adult, and elderly adult subjects relied on a semantic strategy; four- and six-year-olds encoded…

Unrealistic personal optimism is the perception that undesirable events are less likely and desirable events are more likely to happen to oneself than they are to happen to other similar people. Three experiments were performed to study the relationships among personal optimism, perceived control, and selective activation of the cerebral…