Protestant ethic endorsement and the fairness of equity inputs

Two studies are reported which show how endorsement of the Protestant ethic is related to the perceived fairness of using various equity inputs. In Experiment 1, male undergraduates scoring high and low on the Protestant Ethic (PE) Scale made salary decisions for hypothetical workers who differed with respect to their performance quantity and duration. High PEs paid workers in proportion to their total productivity by taking into account both quantity and duration. However, low PEs ignored differences in quantity by paying workers the same amount, but did pay in proportion to duration. In the follow-up study, high PEs reported that it is fairer to base reward on performance when differences are attributable to internal causes than external causes, while the reverse was found for low PEs.     

Group vs individual equity judgments: Is there a polarization effect?

Two-hundred male undergraduates, individually and in groups of five, divided a fixed reward between two performers with unequal inputs under conditions in which they either expected or did not expect future interaction with recipients. Individuals who anticipated future interaction with recipients divided the reward equally, while groups divided the reward equitably. When interaction was not expected, individuals divided the reward equitably by discriminating between recipients, while groups made more extreme discriminations (the group polarization effect). Experiencing group discussions made individuals more confident in the fairness of their subsequent allocations. The results are discussed in terms of the social and informational influences of groups on allocation decisions.     

Is there a disposition to avoid the fundamental attribution error?

Two studies investigated the possibility that personality variables might relate to the magnitude of the cognitive attributional error. In the first, participants received either a pronuclear or anti-nuclear weapons essay, and were asked to rate the writer's personal beliefs (attitude attribution). As expected, certain Myers-Briggs Type Indicator indices of cognitive processing preferences did not predict variations in attribution in the Choice condition, but did so in the Constraint condition. In the Constraint condition, subjects expressing the Intuitive Thinking preference showed no significant attributional error (i.e., no tendency to rate in line with essay content). Other subjects in this condition showed the usual attributional error. These findings were generally replicated in the second study, which used the Constraint condition only. The Self-Monitoring scale was added as a predictor; it did not relate to the attributional error. It was suggested that measures of cognitive processing style may be more relevant to attribution than the various measures of sensitivity to environmental variation.     

The intermediate-hue transposition of children after same-different and seriation pretraining

The intermediate-hue transposition of first- and second-grade children was investigated in two experiments. In Expt. 1, it was found that seriation pretraining increased the amount of far transposition regardless of whether or not the same hues were used in pretraining and subsequent tasks. In Expt. 2, seriation pretraining produced more far transposition than did same-different pretaining and a no-pretraining control. The latter two conditions were not significantly different. Three assumptions about the effects of perceptual pretraining on subsequent transposition were described and related to the data.     

Free recall in boys of normal and poor reading levels as a function of task manipulations

Free recall of reading disabled boys, ages 9 to 11 years, was compared with that of boys showing no reading difficulty. During a baseline trial, poor readers recalled less items and tended to show less recall organization than normals. Recall and category clustering in a second trial were highest following a manipulation designed to produce semantic encoding of items and lowest when children were required to focus on items' physical features. In a condition requiring free sort prior to recall, reading disabled boys failed to organize or study as effectively as normals. Rather than lacking the ability to use semantic relations as a strategy for grouping items, the reading disabled had difficulty in spontaneously generating effective study techniques.     

The development of anticipatory hand orientation during infancy

The development of infants' prehensile adjustments regarding the orientation of objects was investigated. Five- and nine-month-olds (N = 16 per group) were presented with horizontally and vertically oriented dowels to determine at what point during the reach, hand orientation approximated that of the dowel. Nine-month-olds rotated their hands appropriately, early in the course of the reach, i.e., before tactual contact of the dowel, whereas five-month-olds did so mostly after tactual contact. Analyses of the effects of trials within the experimental session indicated that this age difference was not associated with practice or fatigue effects. The results are discussed in relation to the development of visual control of prehensile behavior.     

Effects of vicarious consequences on imitation and recall: Some developmental findings

Two experiments were conducted using a multiple-item list in which each item consisted of a pair of pictures. The model indicated which member of each pair she preferred and was either positively reinforced, negatively reinforced, or received neutral consequences. The S then indicated his preferences (imitation test). Following the imitation test, each S was asked to recall the model's choices. Age was an independent variable in both experiments. Imitation scores of the children, preschool to sixth-grade age range, were strongly influenced by differential vicarious reinforcement. Vicarious reward increased imitation and vicarious punishment decreased it. College students' imitation scores were only minimally influenced by differential vicarious reinforcement. Within- and between-subjects variations of vicarious reinforcement had similar effects. Recall scores were surprisingly high and were not significantly influenced by differential vicarious reinforcement. Interestingly, age and percentage of correct recall were negatively correlated.     

Comparisons of learning procedures: Effects of constant and random presentations

The retention interval hypothesis (Izawa 1972) was formulated on the basis of retention interval distributions given in random order to account for inconsistent performance differences between anticipation and study-test procedures, which have been regarded as a puzzle for nearly two decades. Under the anticipation procedure a presentation of the stimulus term of a paired-associate (a test event) is immediately followed by a presentation of both stimulus and response terms of the pair (a study event), whereas under the study-test procedure, study and test events are given on separate cycles. The retention interval hypothesis was specifically tested in a situation without any random distributions of the retention intervals i.e., under a constant item presentation order from cycle to cycle, in addition to random presentation orders, in a paired-associate learning experiment, using 80 college students. As predicted by the theory, significantly superior performances were obtained for the study-test method vis-à-vis the anticipation method also under a constant item presentation order. The constant presentation-order- arrangements significantly outperformed the random ones. Directions for further theoretical elaborations are suggested.     

Sensory modality and method of item information presentation in memory

Investigated were differences in paired-associate learning for auditory versus visual modalities and within each modality the anticipation and study test methods of item presentation were compared. Extant reports re these two sensory modalities and of the two learning methods had been inconsistent. In this study of 40 university students, the learning of CVC-CVC nonsense syllable pairs was significantly better with the visual than with the auditory modality. The study-test method was significantly superior to the anticipation method in the visual mode. With auditory presentations, however, acquisition levels for both methods were the same. Significant interactions were observed between sensory modalities and methods of presentation. At present the retention interval theory (Izawa 1972–1979b) appears to account best for the varied findings with respect to the two methods of presentation.     

The effect of cuing after backward conditioning trials

Rats were given backward pairings of a tone (CS) and shock (US) and were then tested for response to the CS in a lick suppression test. Animals given a cuing or reminder treatment prior to the test exhibited enhanced suppression in the presence of the tone relative to a variety of control conditions. The cue-induced suppression enhancement did not appear to result from sensitization or short-term motivational changes nor did it seem to depend on second-order conditioning of the test context. The effect appeared more robust as the number of backward conditioning trials preceding the cue increased. The results were discussed in terms of current explanations of backward conditioning effects.     

Heart rate conditioning in young infants using a visual conditional stimulus

Trace heart rate conditioning was evaluated in 16 infants having a mean age of 4.5 months. The Experimental Group received a 3-sec blinking light pattern as the CS, followed by a 3-sec interstimulus interval (ISI), and 3-sec tone as the UCS. The Control Group received an equal number of presentations of the CS and UCS at randomized intervals and in a randomized order. The acquisition of a conditioned deceleration during the period which included the visual CS and the ISI was demonstrated only in the Experimental males. Response differences were also found in the absence of the auditory UCS, with only Experimental females exhibiting a deceleration.     

The word-superiority effect under conditions that approximate reading

Observers detected a briefly flashed target letter embedded in word, pronounceable nonword, and unpronounceable nonword contexts. The word context facilitated perception under both holistic and analytical processing strategies; the facilitative effect was enhanced when processing was analytical.     

The effect of training procedures on the overlearning reversal effect in young children

The performance of 80 preschool children on a reversal problem was studied as a function of amount of training and type of training procedure used during acquisition and reversal. In the extinction phase of reversal learning, subjects given a correction procedure during the reversal problem made fewer perseverative errors than subjects given noncorrection. In the reversal midplateau phase of reversal learning, overtraining facilitated reversal learning for subjects receiving noncorrection during the acquistion problem, but not for subjects receiving correction. A shift in training procedure between acquisition and reversal increased the number of subjects who reached criterion immediately after perseveration. Since these results are difficult to explain in terms of traditional learning theories, an alternative response-switching strategy explanation was proposed.     

The reaction to frustration of middle- and lower-class children

Preschool age, white children from lower and middle socioeconomic backgrounds were exposed separately to the same operant analog of the Amsel “double alley” procedure. Two measures of responding, latency of press and pressing rate, were taken following frustration and reward of prior responding. The middle-class children responded slower, in both measures, on nonrewarded compared to rewarded trials, a reversal of the more frequently observed frustration effect (FE). The lower-class children, by contrast, showed the usual FE, shorter response latencies following frustrative nonreward. The FE was not observed with the rate measure. The obtained socioeconomic class difference in reaction to frustration was discussed in terms of the possible relationship to class differences in perceived locus of control of reinforcement. An alternative explanation relating the results to the maximizing vs response patterning behavior in three-choice probability learning tasks was also discussed.     

Five-month-old infant recall and utilization of temporal organization

The ability of 5-month-old infants to recall temporal information and utilize temporal organization was investigated in two experiments. Infants were trained to fixate a hierarchically structured or an unstructured sequence of stimuli which appeared in four spatial positions. In the first study, the number of infants who demonstrated correct recall through the third serial position of a sequence was significantly better then would occur by chance. In the second study, infants given structured sequences showed a significant increase in the number of correct fixations across trials, and they recalled across serial positions better in structured sequences. Also, accuracy of recall in both studies for the middle serial positions was related to hierarchical organization following 8-unit structured sequence training but was at chance level following unstructured sequence training. Results of both studies were interpreted within a temporal organizational framework: Infants appear to utilize organization within sequences of information.     

Configural-like effects observed in the course of second-order conditioning in rats

After receiving first-order CER (conditioned emotional response) conditioning, four groups of rats were exposed to the first-order conditioned stimulus (CS₁) and a new stimulus (CS₂) according to one of three paradigms. For different groups, CS₂ preceded CS₁, was simultaneously compounded with it, or was explicitly unpaired with it. There was evidence of second-order conditioning (SOC) only when CS₂ preceded CS₁, with the effect diminishing when SOC training was continued for a long time. Though suppression to CS₁ extinguished in the course of SOC training, animals which had experienced CS₂ preceding CS₁ suppressed almost completely when later tested with CS₁ alone. This “protection-from-extinction” is formally similar to an analogous effect observed in the simultaneous compound group. Animals appear to “configure” elements of both simultaneous and successive compounds.     

Learned helplessness as a schedule-shift effect

The essentials of learned helplessness theory are described and supporting evidence surveyed. It is shown that two main empirical phenomena are associated with learned helplessness: a low rate of responding in laboratory animals following numerous discrete trials with continuous free relief and in human subjects following continuous nonrelief/reward or traditional extinction. The explanation Seligman and Maier give for these findings is critically analyzed and found to be unsupported at several critical points. The “patchwork” nature of the theory and observations is considered and it is contended that what is new in learned helplessness research is a schedule-shift effect like that observed when extinction follows partial reinforcement. A schedule-shift discrimination theory of “learned helplessness” effects is offered which is closely parallel to a widely accepted explanation of other schedule-shift effects, notably the partial reinforcement extinction effect. Although the behavioral effects of some schedule shifts resemble clinical depression, the latter is a more complex behavioral phenomena than the former which in turn has broader relevance to human behavior than just depression.     

The effect of self- vs. external-monitoring and locus of control upon the pacing and general adjustment of psychiatric inpatients

Ninety-six psychiatric inpatients with a history of problematic pacing were identified as internal or external (Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale) and assigned to one of four monitoring categories: (1) self-monitoring, in which participants recorded their pacing on wrist counters, (2) external-monitoring, in which ward staff informed participants of their pacing, (3) social demand, in which participants were pressured not to pace, but without specific feedback concerning their pacing and (4) no treatment. Dependent measures included the number of cycles paced, distance paced, and staff rated general social adjustment (MACC scale). As hypothesized, internals showed greater reductions in pacing and increases in general adjustment scores in the self-monitoring condition and externals reducing pacing and improved general adjustment on the external monitoring condition. Both of the treatment conditions created greater positive change than the social demand condition.     

Generality of persistence: The role of stimulus and response factors in persistence to punishment

Previous research has shown that intermittent punishment of a response increases its persistence to continuous punishment and that intermittent punishment training in one situation produces persistence to continuous punishment in other situations. Experiment 1 showed that as long as the instrumental response and punishing stimulus were held constant from intermittent to continuous punishment marked differences between these situations had no decremental effect on persistence. Experiment 2 showed that intermittent punishment training of one response resulted in substantial persistence to continuous punishment of a different and apparently incompatible response and that such response change had no more than a marginal effect on persistence. The results were seen as requiring some revision to the traditional conditioning-model interpretation of persistence to punishment.     

The development of children's mental tracking strategies on a rotation task

In two experiments, 5- to 13-year-old children were required to mentally track the rotation of a pointer around a circular backdrop, and to indicate the pointer's imagined position on the backdrop at the sound of a signal. In Experiment 1, children imagined the pointer rotate around its end point. In Experiment 2, children imagined the pointer rotate around its midpoint, and indicated the position of one of its two ends at the time of the signal. The end to be indicated was not specified by the experimenter until the time of the signal. Thus, children were required to use an imaging strategy that could keep track of the changing positions of both ends of the pointer. In both experiments, children older than 8 years of age generated linear distance × time functions indicating mental tracking, but younger children did not. In Experiment 2, the proportions of children at each grade level using holistic or part-to-part strategies to mentally track the pointer were comparable, as were mental tracking rates. The results were discussed in relation to both recent research on children's counting, and Piagetian and information-processing views of metal imagery development.