Attributed reasons for support of the feminist movement as a function of attractiveness

Male and female subjects were shown photographs of attractive and unattractive women. They were asked to indicate, for each photograph, the main reason why they thought the woman in the photograph was a feminist. Subjects attributed more positive, flattering reasons to the attractive women than to the unattractive women. In addition, it was found that subjects who did this task after having done a filler task made a greater distinction between the attractive and unattractive women than did subjects who did this task first. Interpretations and limitations of the results are discussed.     

Effects of positive and negative moods on helping tasks having pleasant or unpleasant consequences

A field study investigated the effects of positive and negative moods on subjects' willingness to perform helping tasks having pleasant or unpleasant consequences. Results indicated that procedures designed to induce either positive or negative moods facilitate helping when the task has pleasant consequences, but tend to inhibit helping when the task is likely to be unpleasant. The findings are consistent with the notion that many everyday acts of kindness (altruism) are interpretable as a form of hedonism. The implications of these outcomes for an activation model of mood-induced altruism are discussed.     

A Novel Demonstration of Enhanced Memory Associated with Emotional Arousal

The relationship between emotional arousal and long-term memory is addressed in two experiments in which subjects viewed either a relatively emotionally neutral short story (presented as a brief slide show) or a closely matched but more emotionally arousing story and were tested for retention of the story 2 weeks later. Experiment 1 provides essential replication of the results of Heuer and Reisberg (1990) and illustrates the common interpretive problem posed by the use of different stimuli (slides) in the neutral versus emotional stories. In Experiment 2, identical slides (and sequence) were used in both the neutral and arousal stores. Two different stories were created by varying the narration that accompanied each slide. In both experiments, subjects who viewed the arousal story both experienced a greater emotional reaction to the story than did the subjects who viewed the neutral story, and subsequently exhibited enhanced memory for the story. Subjects in Experiment 2 who viewed the arousal story also recalled more slides than did the subjects who viewed the neutral story. This effect was greatest for story phase 2, the phase in which the emotional slide narration occurred. Because this enhanced retention of the story slides cannot be explained by any differences in the slides themselves, the results provide new evidence to support the contention that emotional arousal influences long-term memory in normal human subjects.     

Exposure to pornography,permissive and nonpermissive cues,and male aggression toward females

The present study examined the role of permissive and nonpermissive cues in mediating the relationship between exposure to erotica and aggression. Male subjects viewed either neutral slides with a silent female or erotic slides with a female who made permissive, nonpermissive, or no comments about the slides. The males rated the slides and subsequently rated the female confederate. Male subjects were then given an opportunity to administer their choice of several intensities of shock to the female in a competitive reaction-time task. Subjects in the permissive cues condition rated the erotic slides as more arousing, saw the female as more reasonable and accepting, and selected more intense shocks for the female than did subjects in the other conditions. One explanation of these results is that permissive cues in the presence of erotica led the male to believe that other normally inappropriate behaviors would be tolerated.     

The representation of emotions in groups: the relative impact of social norms,positive–negative asymmetry and familiarity on the perception of emotions

Research in several countries shows that people hold norms of emotion perception, so that socially desirable emotions are perceived as positive and moderate. Subjects also believe that positive and moderate emotions are dominant in their lives. Other research shows that increased familiarity with a social group allows a better differentiation among the members and the attributes of this group (e.g. wider variability of emotions). In the present study, we compare the relative impact of familiarity with pleasant and unpleasant groups and social norms on emotion perception. Subjects (N=150) were to rate imagined family groups, families that they did not know well, and families that they knew very well, on perceived differentiation and variability of emotional episodes, extremity of emotional events, and global family evaluations. Results indicated that familiarity is weakly associated with perceived emotional variability in target families, and that, regardless of their familiarity with the family, subjects viewed unpleasant families as more negative, as less familiar, and as having a larger range of emotions than pleasant families. Results are discussed in terms of the idea that perception of emotions in groups depends more strongly on social norms than either on positive–negative asymmetry or on direct experience with their members.     

Emotional State,Physical Well-Being,and Performance in the Presence of Feigned Ambient Odor1

Measures of emotional state, physical well-being, performance, and room odor were obtained from subjects given the suggestion of a pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral ambient odor (n= 30 per condition). The hedonic quality of the feigned odor altered self-reports of pleasure, but not dominance or arousal. Subjects given the pleasant suggestion reported a more positive mood. The number of reported physical health symptoms differed as a function of the hedonic quality of the feigned odor. The category corresponding to the fewest number of physical symptoms was predominated by subjects in the pleasant condition, while subjects in the unpleasant condition predominated the category with the greatest number of symptoms. Subjects predicted higher task performance in the unpleasant condition, but no differences were found among conditions in actual performance. Room odor ratings differed in directions consistent with the hedonic quality of the feigned odor. The effects of olfactory suggestion may be relevant to the psychosomatic component of sick building syndrome and to the perception and marketing of fragrance.     

Memory for traumatic events

This research compares memory for traumatic events with memory for non-traumatic versions of the same event. In Experiment 1, subjects watched an event depicted in slides while focusing and rehearsing the central detail of each slide. They were tested after a short or a longer retention interval (20 min or 2 weeks). Subjects who watched the traumatic version were better able to recall the central details that they had rehearsed, but were less well able to recognize the specific slides that they saw. Better recall for the traumatic group did not occur because the words used to describe the recalled details were inherently more memorable, as shown in Experiment 2. In Experiment 3, subjects watched either a traumatic or non-traumatic version of a filmed event and about 6 months later they were asked to remember the essence of the film. Subjects who saw the traumatic version were better able to recall the essence of the film. A similar finding was obtained with a group of subjects from Experiment 1 who were also contacted about 6 months after their initial participation. These results suggest that some information (the essence, the theme) of a traumatic event might be relatively well retained in memory, while memory is impaired for many of the specific, and especially peripheral, details.     

Perceptions of rape victims and assailants: Effects of physical attractiveness,acquaintance, and subject gender

Subjects read different versions of a rape case in which the victim was walking alone at night and the defendant was obviously guilty. Female subjects saw the crime as more debilitating for the victim and were more punitive than male subjects. Female subjects considered the victim less responsible when the defendant was unattractive than when the defendant was attractive. Presence or absence of prior casual acquaintance between the victim and assailant interacted with other factors. With prior acquaintance, male subjects considered the victim more responsible than female subjects, unattractive victims were considered more responsible than attractive victims, and unattractive defendants were considered more likely to engage in future antisocial behavior than attractive defendants. Although biased by other factors, level of victim blame was low overall. Yet subjects seemed reluctant to believe the rapist and his victim were unacquainted and seemed to consider the rape as sexually, rather than aggressively, motivated.The authors gratefully acknowledge the helpful comments of Andrea R. Halpern and T. Joel Wade. Portions of this paper were presented at the meetings of the Eastern Psychological Association, Buffalo, New York, April 1988.     

Predispositions to approach and avoid are contextually sensitive and goal dependent

The authors show that predispositions to approach and avoid do not consist simply of specific motor patterns but are more abstract functions that produce a desired environmental effect. It has been claimed that evaluating a visual stimulus as positive or negative evokes a specific motor response, extending the arm to negative stimuli, and contracting to positive stimuli. The authors showed that a large congruency effect (participants were faster to approach pleasant and avoid unpleasant stimuli, than to approach unpleasant and avoid pleasant stimuli) could be produced on a novel touchscreen paradigm (Experiment 1), and that the congruency effect could be reversed by spatial (Experiment 2) and nonspatial (Experiment 3) response effects. Thus, involuntary approach and avoid response activations are not fixed, but sensitive to context, and are specifically based on the desired goal.     

Self-directed attention, awareness of bodily states, and suggestibility.

Two studies tested the hypothesis that self-directed attention would cause increased awareness of internal states and would thus reduce suggestibility effects. Experiment 1 applied this reasoning to the experience of an emotion. Males viewed moderately arousing slides of female nudes after being led to expect the slides to be either highly arousing or nonarousing. As predicted, ratings of the slides corresponded less with these experimentally-manipulated anticipations when self-focus was heightened by the presence of a mirror than when it was not. Experiment 2 examined a different internal experience: the perception of taste. Some subjects were led to expect a strong flavor as part of a test series, and other subjects were led to expect a weak flavor. Subjects high in private self-consciousness were less affected by this expectancy manipulation and more accurate in reporting their actual internal state than were subjects low in private self-consciousness. Discussion centers on the theoretical implications of the findings.     

How high school students view women: The relationship between perceived attractiveness,occupation, and education

The proportion of women seeking advanced degrees in the sciences and engineering was no greater in the 1970s than it was in the 1920s. This study seeks to determine if the stereotype of an unattractive professional woman is a factor in dissuading young women from pursuing careers in these fields. Twenty slides of women were rated by 301 male and female high school students for attractiveness, occupation, and educational background. There was a positive correlation, significant at the .001 level, between women perceived to have taken traditionally masculine courses, those perceived to have careers in professions generally viewed as masculine, and those perceived to be more physically attractive. The formerly held stereotype of the studious, career-oriented girl who is unattractive appears to be changing and should not discourage high school girls from seeking academic excellence.     

Physical Attractiveness,Mood, and the Decision to Card for the Purchase of Alcohol: Evidence for a Mood-Management Hypothesis1

Research has shown that physical attractiveness is associated with a decrease in being carded for the purchase of alcohol. Two studies examine whether this relationship might be moderated by the mood of the decision maker. Participants were randomly assigned to a 2 × 2 (Mood: Positive or Neutral × Attraction: High or Low) factorial design in which they first described a series of positive (or negative) life events, and then viewed a video of a female college student. Males were less likely to card an attractive target than an unattractive target; negative mood increased the tendency for an unattractive target to be carded, and decreased the tendency for an attractive target to be carded. Study 2 considered whether this influence may have been a result of the participant's interest in dating the target. Female subjects rated a female target in terms of their willingness to have the target date their brother or a close friend. Data revealed an interesting mood by attractiveness interaction, indicating that an attractive target was less likely to be carded, and a positive mood state appeared to enhance this general tendency. Results from both studies are interpreted within a mood-management conceptual framework.     

The interactive effects of affective demeanor, cognitive processes, and perspective-taking focus on helping behavior

The author manipulated affective demeanor (positive or negative) and cognitive processes (positive or negative) displayed by a target person, along with the perspective-taking focus (affect or cognitions) of participants, to assess the unique and interactive effects of those variables on the participants' helping behavior, operationalized as time volunteered to help other students. An ethnically diverse sample (N = 109) of U.S. working adults (mean age = 31.56 years, SD = 8.21) viewed a videotape of a female target talking about returning to college. Participants adopting an affective perspective-taking focus volunteered more time than did those who adopted a cognitive perspective-taking focus. Also, a significant interaction between participants' perspective-taking focus and target's affective demeanor revealed that participants who focused on the target's feelings and who viewed a warm, cheerful target volunteered more time than did the other groups. Moreover, a significant interaction between participants' perspective-taking focus and target's cognitive processes revealed that the participants who focused on the target's feelings and who viewed a confused and unfocused target volunteered more time than did the other groups. The author also discusses the relationship between empathy, personal distress, and helping.     

Emotional Responses to Disfigured Faces: The Influences of Perceived Anonymity,Empathy, and Disgust Sensitivity

Two experiments investigated self-reported emotional reactions to photographs of people with attractive, unattractive, or structurally disfigured faces. In Experiment 1, participants viewing disfigured faces reported raised levels of sorrow and curiosity but not raised levels of negative emotions. In Experiment 2, there was more negative emotion and less positive emotion reported under conditions of relatively high anonymity, compared to low anonymity, specific to disfigured faces, suggesting that self-reports are influenced by social desirability. Trait empathy was associated with sorrow and negative emotions when viewing disfigured faces. Disgust sensitivity was associated with negative emotions and inversely associated with positive emotions.     

The Attractiveness Stereotype: Goodness or Glamour?

Three experiments that investigate the physical attractiveness stereotype are presented. The principal focus is on the domain of attributes which distinguish physically attractive from unattractive individuals. The first two experiments demonstrate that within the set of socially desirable attributes traditionally thought to be part of the stereotype, only a core having to do with social vitality is responsive to target attractiveness. It is hypothesized that when the core of positive attributes is considered in combination with the negative attributes of vanity, materialism and sexual permissiveness that have been found associated with attractiveness in other research, the stereotype corresponds more to a syndrome of glamour than one of goodness. Experiment 3 confirms this hypothesis by demonstrating that ratings of physically attractive and unattractive targets differ more on a dimension of glamour than one of goodness.     

Sustained and transient modulation of performance induced by emotional picture viewing

We investigated how viewing task-irrelevant emotional pictures affects the performance of a subsequent nonemotional visual detection task. Subjects performed target-detection trials following the offset of individual unpleasant, pleasant, and neutral pictures. Sustained interference occurred when subjects viewed unpleasant pictures (mutilated bodies) in a sequential, "blocked" fashion. Such slowing down of reaction time appeared to build up with time, consistent with the instatement of a defensive emotional state. With a randomized picture presentation, only a transient interference effect was observed, consistent with increased attentional demands during the processing of unpleasant pictures. During blocked presentation of affiliative pleasant pictures, reaction times were faster, suggesting the activation of appetitive motivational systems. Ultimately, both attentional and motivational systems are intricately tied in the brain and, together, determine behavior.     

Visual stimuli in distraction strategies for increasing pain tolerance

Recent experimental studies in pain control have questioned the value of pleasant affect in strategies employing distraction. It appears that pleasant affect may have been systematically confounded with task complexity or novelty in past research that found pleasant imagery or slides effective in increasing pain tolerance with the cold pressor test. The present study was a follow-up to a study conducted by this author (Greenstein, 1984) in which unpleasant slides had significantly increased pain tolerance above pleasant slide level. In the present study, 69 college students (35 females, 34 males) rated either the pleasant or unpleasant slides used in the original study on their perceived pleasantness, complexity, and uniqueness (novelty). Results indicated that the unpleasant slides were rated significantly more complex (P<0.001) and unique (P<0.001) than the pleasant slides. Additionally, as in the earlier study, ratings of the unpleasant slides on pleasantness deviated significantly farther from neutrality than did ratings of the pleasant slides (t=5.04,P<0.001). Thus the unpleasant slides were also perceived as being more significant (i.e., pertinent) than were the pleasant slides. The results indicate that affect was confounded with other stimulus characteristics in the Greenstein (1984) pain control study and probably in a significant number of other studies as well. Researchers are cautioned to control for the stimulus characteristics of visual distraction strategies used in pain control studies. The assumption that pleasantness,per se, contributes to strategy effectiveness is no longer tenable; future research must demonstrate an independent effect. Further, the implication that stimulus significance may increase the effectiveness of distraction strategies opens up a potentially fruitful avenue of research in pain control.     

Affective responses to hyperventilation: a test of the cognitive model of panic

A cognitive explanation of the association between acute hyperventilation and panic attacks has been proposed: the extent to which sensations produced by hyperventilation are interpreted in a negative and catastrophic way is said to be a major determinant of panic. Non-clinical subjects were provided with a negative or a positive interpretation of the sensations produced by equivalent amounts of voluntary hyperventilation. As predicted, there was a significant difference between positive and negative interpretation conditions on ratings of positive and negative affect. Subjects in the positive interpretation condition experienced hyperventilation as pleasant, and subjects in the negative interpretation condition experienced hyperventilation as unpleasant, even though both groups experienced similar bodily sensations and did not differ in their prior expectations of the affective consequences of hyperventilation. When the subjects were given a positive interpretation, the number of their sensations correlated with positive affect; when a negative interpretation was given, the number of bodily sensations correlated with negative affect. The results provide support for a cognitive model of panic and are inconsistent with the view that panic is simply a symptom of hyperventilation syndrome.