Determinants of social perception in a naturalistic setting

Based upon the assumption that personality traits exist more in the eye of the observer than is actually reflected in the actions of the actor, Jones and Nisbett have proposed that a negative relationship exists between familiarity with an actor's behavioral history and the tendency to attribute traits to that individual. An alternative viewpoint is suggested by the present research. Members of a college fraternity attributed more personality traits to themselves than were attributed to them by their fellow members. In addition, the fraternity members tended to offer more dispositional attributions to other members with whom they were more familiar. Furthermore, evidence is presented that is suggestive of the validity of these attributions. It is concluded that the attribution of personality traits provides attributors with information that is both veridical and useful in guiding social interactions.     

Achievement orientation,attainment values,and women's employment

This study examines age variance in the relationship of women's achievement needs and values to their participation in paid employment. The study group is a cross-sectional, nonprobability sample of 1120 women, ages 22–64, who contacted the Center for Continuing Education of Women at a major midwestern university. Three findings predominate: (1) Compared to general achievement orientation, the specific values attached to attainment through career and family are stronger predictors of employment status. (2) Degree of participation in paid employment is related positively to career values, and negatively to family values. (3) Career values, alone, are the best predictors of employment status among women aged 45–64, while a combination of career and family values best predicts employment among women aged 22–34 and 35–44. The findings suggest that women's labor force participation is partially a function of the interaction between career and family task demands and values.     

Focus of attention and causal attributions of actors and observers

An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that actors' and observers' causal attributions are a function of their focus of attention. In the presence of observer-subjects, actor-subjects made a choice among several art works in a supposed decision-making study. The experiment was a 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design with the factors (1) source of attribution (actors, observers); (2) camera (actor videotaped, actor not videotaped); and (3) situational stability (stable, dynamic environment). As predicted by the focus of attention-causal attribution notion, it was found that actors attributed more causality to the situation than observers under normal circumstances, when the camera was not operative, but that videotaping the actor reversed the usual actor-observer pattern such that actors attributed less causality to the situation than did observers. Further, when the environment was stable, actors attributed more causality to the situation in the no camera condition than in the camera condition, while observers attributed less to the situation in the no camera conditions than in the camera conditions. Additionally, both actors and observers attributed more causality to the situation when the environment was dynamic than when the environment was stable.     

Defensive burying of aversive fluids in rats: The effects of peripheral anosmia

Three experiments were conducted in order to determine the role of olfactory stimulation in defensive burying of aversive fluids in rats. The results revealed that zinc sulfate-induced anosmia eliminated burying of fluids paired with lithium chloride as well as an inherently aversive solution. This occurred despite the fact that the rats avoided consuming them. These data indicate that defensive burying of aversive fluids is governed by olfactory stimuli and confirms an earlier report, which indicted that burying does not occur in response to aversive gustatory stimuli.     

The effects of uncontrollable failure and depression on memorial processes

Many investigators have argued that exposure to uncontrollable failure and depressed mood affect learning processes. However, little has been done to explore how information processing is affected by such events. Two experiments revealed that prior failure (Experiment 1) and depressed mood (Experiment 2) have similar effects on a simple free-recall task. These data are interpreted to suggest that the experience of uncontrollable failure and depression disrupt the transfer or retrieval of new information from a transient to a more permanent storage format. The implications of these data are discussed.     

Need for uniqueness,self-schemas,and thought as moderators of the false-consensus effect

L. Ross and his colleagues (L. Ross, D. Greene, & P. House, 1977, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 32, 880–892) have demonstrated the tendency for people to expect peer similarity in behavior, termed the “false-consensus” bias. The present study was concerned with factors that might affect the generality of this bias. Specifically, we looked at the impact of level of need for uniqueness (C. R. Snyder & H. L. Fromkin, 1977, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 5, 518–527), existence of a self-schema (H. Markus, 1977, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 63–78), and thought on expectations of peer similarity. It was predicted that thought would polarize the estimates of high and low N Uniq individuals in opposite directions, but only when the individual possessed a self-schema along the relevant behavioral dimension. The results for behaviors reflecting independence supported this prediction. Discussion centered around limits of the false-consensus bias, along with consideration of the complexities involved in the link between availability factors and interpersonal judgments.     

The fantasy-reality distinction in televised violence: Modifying influences on children's aggression

Fifth-grade and kindergarten boys and girls were exposed to a violent televised episode that was introduced as a fictional portrayal (fantasy condition) or as a news broadcast (reality condition). Additional groups were given no information (no-instructional-set condition) about the violent stimulus or were not exposed to the violent episode (no-TV condition). Aggressive responses and helping responses were recorded immediately following exposure. Boys were most aggressive in the reality and no-TV conditions. They were less aggressive in the noinstructional-set condition and least aggressive in the fantasy condition. In almost direct contrast, girls were most aggressive in the fantasy and no-instructional-set conditions and least aggressive in the reality and no-TV conditions. A posteriori analyses of this interaction effect revealed that girls were less aggressive than boys in the no-TV condition and in the reality condition, but not in the fantasy condition nor the no-instructional-set condition. These effects held for both older and younger children.     

Defensive burying of aversive fluids in rats: The possible role of odor

Defensive burying of flavored fluids paired with lithium chloride injections was examined. Rats showed little inclination to bury conditioned saccharin or salt solutions (Experiments 1 and 2). However, they buried tabasco sauce or dilute milk solutions readily (Experiment 3). It was hypothesized that the amount of olfactory stimulation provided by a solution may determine whether a rat engages in burying. This hypothesis received support in a final experiment which demonstrated that rats readily buried an arbitrarily selected odorous solution which was previously paired with lithium chloride. Thus the present experiments begin the process of identifying the circumstances under which burying does and does not occur.     

On the nature of processes governing defensive burying of aversive flavors and odors in rats

Four experiments are reported which investigated the processes which contribute to the failure of rats to bury fluids that have acquired aversive properties through pairings with lithium chloride toxicosis. Fluids that failed to provide strong olfactory stimulation were avoided but not buried. These solutions, however, produced higher order conditioning of odor-bearing solutions which were buried readily. Various control experiments indicated that these effects depended upon the odorous qualities of the stimulus and not upon simple novelty effects or changes in gustatory stimulation. These data indicate that the inability of aversive gustatory cues to produce burying reflects a constraint on motivational or S-R learning processes.     

Causal attribution and dispositional inference: Evidence of inconsistent judgments

Two experiments examined whether individuals who ascribe the disparity in the performances of two actors to situational constraints adequately adjust their dispositional inferences to reflect their own perceptions of causality. Using the quiz-game format of L. D. Ross, T. M. Amabile, and J. L. Steinmetz (1977, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35, 485–494), the effects of the subjects' awareness of the role-determined, self-presentation advantage of the questioner on their dispositional inferences concerning the quiz-game participants are noted. It is hypothesized that subjects who indicated full awareness of the determining force of the situation would nevertheless draw more favorable dispositional inferences about the questioner than about the contestant. The prediction is confirmed. Although the situationally aware subjects rate the questioner and contestant more similarly than do the other subjects, they still rate the questioner higher in knowledge, memory, and education. The results of Experiment 2 indicate that increasing the salience of the subjects' assessment of the situational advantage of the questioner does not eliminate the disparity. It is proposed that the fudamental attribution error represents more a failure to adjust trait inferences for causal attributions than a misperception of causality. Implications concerning the relationship between knowledge of causality and social judgment and the utility of the distinction between “perceived causality” and “higher order causal inferences” are discussed.     

Academic achievement: An examination of Holland's congruency,consistency, and differentiation predictions

This investigation tested three predictions derived from Holland's (1973) theory of vocational development regarding academic achievement. Groups of 392 male and 424 female entering college freshmen were typed using the Strong-Campbell Interest Inventory and were categorized in terms of congruency, consistency, and differentiation. Freshmen with congruent college major choices or with definite majors but indefinite Holland orientations enjoyed greater academic success than students who specified incongruent choices or no definite major choice. Students with personality codes of high or low consistency outperformed students with moderately consistent codes. Freshmen males with differentiated personal orientations achieved higher grade point averages than males having nondifferentiated personality profiles. For females, differentiation was not significant. In all sex comparisons female trends paralleled male trends and females generally outperformed males. Implications for vocational development and counseling were discussed in the context of Holland's theory.     

The expectancy model in the analysis of occupational preference and occupational choice

The differences between the factors related to occupational preference and occupational choice were explored for upper-division college students from business and psychology classes. The results strongly supported a valance-instrumentality-expectancy model in the context of occupational choice. Occupational preference was primarily a function of occupational valence, the multiplicative relation between the outcome valences and the instrumentalities of the occupations for these outcomes. Occupational choice was primarily a function of the force to choose an occupation, the multiplicative relaitonship between occupational valence and the expectancy of attaining an occupation and the expected costs of attaining an occupation.     

Actors' and observers' attributions for success and failure: A comparative test of predictions from Kelley's cube,self-serving bias,and positivity bias formulations

An experiment was conducted to test implications of Kelley's cube, self-serving bias, and positivity bias formulations for attributions associated with success and failure on a test of “abstract reasoning.” Subjects either experienced or observed outcomes on three tasks. They then made attributions for only the third outcome, which was either a success or a failure. The first task was of the same type and had the same outcome as the third task, thus providing the information that the outcome being attributed was high in consistency. The second task was of a different type than the first and third tasks, and its outcome either did or did not differ from their outcomes, thus varying information about the distinctiveness of the outcome being attributed. Consensus was manipulated by presenting false norms, ostensibly from a previous experiment. In contrast to previous research, the present study included thorough checks on all of these informational manipulations. Regardless of attributor role (actor or observer), subjects attributed success more to internal than to external factors and attributed failure more to external than to internal factors. These findings indicate a general bias toward positive evaluations. Discussion centers on possible alternative interpretations of these findings, restrictions on their generality, and the limitations that they seem to impose on the applicability of the other two formulations.     

The development of orientation categories between 2 and 4 months of age

Recent research has indicated that infants are capable of responding to stimuli in a manner indicating that they categorize them. Infant perception of orientation was examined within a framework of categorization. In one experiment, it was shown that 4-month-old infants generalized habituation from one range of oblique grating stimuli to another, consistent with the interpretation that any two oblique stimuli were perceived as more similar than a vertical and an oblique. Four-month-old infants' generalization was not due to a simple inability to discriminate between obliques (Experiment 2) so the results of Experiment 1 reflect in large part true categorization behavior and not categorical perception. Results for 2- and 3-month old infants suggest that "vertical" serves as a reference stimulus in infant orientation perception such that gross distinctions between vertical and nonvertical precede the development of the "oblique" category. The category boundary between oblique and vertical did not successfully predict better between-than within-category discrimination in 4-month-old infants (Experiment 3) under the conditions of these experiments.     

Conditioned enhancement of human's liking for flavor by pairing with sweetness

This paper reports a procedure, like classical conditioning, that produces enhancement of liking for flavors by humans. The procedure is “pairing” of a relatively neutral flavor with sugar (a hedonically positive taste). Specifically, subjects drank 24 small samples of flavor A sweetened and 24 small samples of flavor B unsweetened. They were then tested for their liking for flavors A and B, both sweetened and unsweetened. In three different studies, varying in a number of aspects of stimulus presentations and context, a relative enhancement in liking for flavor A appeared both on the day of exposure and 1 week later. An absolute enhancement in liking of flavor B (a “mere exposure” effect) also occurred in two of the three experiments.     

The role of plausibility in influencing environmental attributions

The aim of the study was to examine how plausibility influences attributions about the cause of perceived arousal. Subjects watched one of three arousing (humorous, sexual, aggressive) or a nonarousing televised program under conditions of appropriate or inappropriate interpersonal spacing. The subjects then completed a questionnaire indicating how crowded they felt and rating the movie on a number of dimensions. The results indicated that under close interpersonal distances, subjects felt less crowded while watching the arousing movies than while viewing the nonarousing movie. There were no differences in the experience of crowding between the movie conditions under the far interpersonal distance conditions. In addition, subjects rated the arousing movies as more arousing under close as opposed to far interpersonal distance conditions. Further, the humorous movie was viewed as more funny, and the violent movie was rated more violent under the close as opposed to the far conditions. Finally, there was a tendency to enjoy the arousing movies more under the close conditions, while the reverse effect was found for the nonarousing movie. It was argued that the arousing movies reduced the experience of crowding under close interpersonal conditions because subjects attributed their arousal to the movies rather than to the spatial restrictions. It was further suggested that the results showed that individuals will attribute their arousal to salient stimuli in their environment that could plausibly be sources of arousal. The results not only offer support for an attribution model of crowding, but they also show that depending on the individual's attribution, spatial conditions that can give rise to crowding may increase enjoyment of events in the environment.     

Children's binary prediction of partially learnable sequences followed by an all-correct procedure

Six groups of 20 subjects each were run individually in a binary prediction situation with each alternative occurring equally often. Two age groups were employed; subjects were either in second or sixth grades. For one-third of the subjects at each age level, the events occurred in runs of either two or six; another third observed events which occurred in runs of either five or six; the other subjects received a random sequence of events. All subjects then received an additional 50 trials in which every prediction was correct. The results indicated some sensitivity to run length characteristics. Fewer errors of all types were made in the prediction of 5–6 sequences. The verbal reports and all-correct trial protocols revealed that at least the sixth graders employed some simple run length structure rules, although many instances of runs other than those presented in training occurred, showing much processing error. The results were discussed in terms of a general limited-capacity model of information-processing.     

Effects of spacing repetitions on children's memory

Two experiments examined the effect of spacing repetitions within a word list on the free recall performance of elementary school children. In the first experiment, spacing repetitions facilitated recall, and the function relating recall of repeated items to the spacing between repetitions was the same throughout the age range investigated (first, third, and sixth graders). But, the function for these elementary school children reached asymptote at a much shorter spacing than the function typically reported for adults. The second experiment was designed to test an encoding variability explanation of spaced-repetition effects in elementary school children. Results for both third- and sixth-grade children were consistent with the hypothesis that differential encoding of repetitions facilitates performance and that spaced repetitions are remembered better because they are more likely to be differentially encoded. A theoretical framework was discussed that may be able to encompass both these results and another finding in the literature which indicates that differential encoding can sometimes impair rather than facilitate children's memory performance.     

Processing the information contained in another's behavior

This study investigates attributions based on behavior congruent with situational demands (in-role) and those based on behavior incongruent with situational demands (out-of-role). By analyzing these processes in terms of a Bayesian inference model, it was possible to determine (a) the diagnostic values observers intially assign to behaviors, (b) the actual informational impact of these behaviors, and (c) the degree of optimality in processing information contained therein. The main results can be summarized as follows: (1) The diagnostic value and actual informational impact of out-of-role behaviors were much higher than those of inrole behaviors. (2) Information about out-of-role behaviors was less optimally processed than information about in-role behaviors. (3) Observers assigned smaller diagnostic values to behaviors which were described in great detail than to behaviors which were described in summary statements. (4) Observers' attitudes influenced their initial beliefs about the actors but not the processing of new information about the actor. (5) The Bayesian inference model predicted observers' inferences reasonably well.     

Predicting social behavior from personality traits

The classic view of traits as dispositions was examined and a number of ambiguities noted. When clarified, implications for predicting social behaviors from personality variables were derived. Two types of behavioral criterion were delineated, and it was argued that personality measures should be systematically related to multiple act criteria, but not necessarily to single act criteria. It was suggested that behaviors could be treated as items on a behavioral measure of personality and that standard scaling criteria be applied in identifying behaviors that should be related to a given trait dimension. In attempting to identify behaviors which are linearly related to a personality trait, the application of Bayes theorem was shown to be of theoretical interest. Two indices, a validity index and a linearity index, were derived from Bayes theorem and it was shown that validity is a necessary but not sufficient condition for linearity.