Strategies of influence in close relationships

In this study, we examined how close relationship partners spontaneously influence each other while they discussed an existing problem in their relationship. According to theories of social influence, people in important, self-defining relationships should experience the relationship itself as a potent source of influence. Thus, they are likely to rely on the relationship as a source of power and to use influence strategies that reference relationship norms and values. Consistent with this reasoning, dating partners who were subjectively closer to their partners/relationships were more likely to reference the relationship in their influence attempts than those who were less subjectively close. Furthermore, referencing the relationship was an effective influence strategy. Greater referencing was associated with opinion shifts during discussions for both agents and targets of influence, with each compromising toward the other's position. In contrast, greater use of negative coercion as an influence strategy (e.g., derogation of the partner or punishment) was associated with less compromise.     

The effects of feedback format on dynamic decision making

The tendency for people to perform poorly on dynamic decision-making tasks has been attributed to their inability to form adequate mental models of dynamic systems (Sterman, 1994). An alternative explanation is that the tabular feedback formats used in previous studies do not facilitate mental representations of the dynamic task and lead to processing overload. Drawing on research in the human factors area, this study examined the impact of graphical versus tabular feedback formats on performance, response times, and learning on a dynamic inventory control task under differing levels of complexity. The graphical feedback group performed better but the tabular group showed stronger evidence of learning. The two groups did not differ in response times. Records of decision rationales showed that participants were aware of complexity factors but were unable to cope with them effectively under either feedback format. The proximity compatibility principle ( Wickens & Carswell, 1995) from human factors, which argues that feedback must be matched to the processing requirements of the task, provides a useful theoretical framework for the design and testing of feedback formats for organizational tasks and criteria.     

Are Women Perceived as Engaging in More Maladaptive Worry Than Men? A Status Interpretation

Studies 1 and 2 addressed people's perceptions of women's and men's overall maladaptive worry. In Study 1, participants rated how they perceive women's and men's worry in general. In Study 2, participants rated the worry of either a woman or a man whom they know well. As expected in both studies, participants perceived women as experiencing more maladaptive worry than men. A second objective was to compare people's perceptions of women's and men's worry to their perceptions of low- and high-status individuals' worry to determine if a status model can account for the perception that women worry more than men. In Study 3, participants were presented a minimal instantiation of status (Conway, Pizzamiglio, & Mount, 1996). As expected, participants perceived low-status individuals as experiencing more maladaptive worry than high-status individuals. Findings are discussed in terms of gender stereotypes and theoretical models of gender.     

Temporal Contiguity and Contingency Judgments: A Pavlovian Analogue

The two experiments reported examine the role of temporal contiguity on judgments of contingency in a human analogue of the Pavlovian task. The data show that the effect of the actual delay on contingency judgment depends on the observer's expectation regarding the delay. For a fixed contingency between the cue and the outcome, ratings of the contingency are higher when the actual delay is congruent with the observer's expectation than when it is incongruent. We argue that our data can be understood within the context of the temporal coding hypothesis.     

Configural Frequency Analysis in Applied Psychological Research

L'Analyse de Fréquence des Configurations (AFC) est une méthode de recherche des classes et anticlasses dans les classifications croisées de catégories de variables. Les classes sont des modèles de catégories de variables qui apparaissent plus souvent que le hasard ne le laisse supposes. Les anticlasses sont des modèles de catégorie de variables qui apparaissent moins souvent que le hasard ne le laisse supposes. On présente quatre applications d'AFC: l'AFC de premier ordre, l'AFC prédictive, l'AFC de symétrie axiale, et un modèle d'AFC longitudinale. On examine les caractéristiques de l'AFC en insistant sur les contraintes et l'applicabilité. On compare aussi l'AFC avec d'autres méthodes permettant l'analyse multivariée de catégories de données, en particulier la modèlisation log-linéaire. Des sorties informatiques sont traitées.
Configural Frequency Analysis (CFA) is a method for the search for types and antitypes in cross-classifications of categorical variables. Types are patterns of variable categories that occur more often than expected from chance. Antitypes are patterns of variable categories that occur less often than expected from chance. Four applications of CFA are reviewed: the First Order CFA, the Prediction CFA, Axial Symmetry CFA, and one model of Longitudinal CFA. Characteristics of CFA are discussed, focusing on constraints posed and applicability. Comparisons are made of CFA with other methods for multivariate analysis of categorical data, in particular, log-linear modelling. Computational issues are discussed.     

Approximate entropy and point correlation dimension of heart rate variability in healthy subjects

The contribution of nonlinear dynamics to heart rate variability in healthy humans was examined using surrogate data analysis. Several measures of heart rate variability were used and compared. Heart rates were recorded for three hours and original data sets of 8192 R-R intervals created. For each original data set (n=34), three surrogate data sets were made by shuffling the order of the R-R intervals while retaining their linear correlations. The difference in heart rate variability between the original and surrogate data sets reflects the amount of nonlinear structure in the original data set. Heart rate variability was analyzed by two different nonlinear methods, point correlation dimension and approximate entropy. Nonlinearity, though under 10 percent, could be detected with both types of heart rate variability measures. More importantly, not only were the correlations between these measures and the standard deviation of the R-R intervals weak, the correlation among the nonlinear measures themselves was also weak (generally less than 0.6). This suggests that in addition to standard linear measures of heart rate variability, the use of multiple nonlinear measures of heart rate variability might be useful in monitoring heart rate dynamics.     

Ratio requirement and reinforcer effects in concurrent fixed-interval fixed-ratio schedules

The fixed-ratio requirement was varied in concurrent fixed-interval fixed-ratio schedules. Fixed-interval responding was reinforced by food. In different phases, fixed-ratio responding was reinforced by food or water. There was a direct relation between the ratio requirement and interval response rates when both responses were reinforced with food, but essentially no relation when the reinforcers were different. The role of reinforcers in concurrent schedules merits detailed study.