The Levels Hypothesis and the Study of Stimulus Value of Projective Test Items

Summary

Anagrams and semantic differential (S-D) test responses of Ss for whom words were “loaded” on a free association test were compared with those of Ss for whom the words were neutral. No differences in rate of word building or mean productivity of the two groups on the anagrams test were found. Mean S-D scale values similarly failed to differentiate between the two groups. However, when numbers of neutral (0) and extreme (+3 and ?3) responses were compared, “loaded” Ss were found on the whole to rate words more neutrally or more positively. The conclusion was that the stimulus value of the words in the associative condition could not be directly determined from responses in other conditions. The strategy of studying stimulus value of projective test items by using those items as stimuli on tests eliciting different levels of response was, therefore, questioned. Several other related experimental strategies which may mix response levels were also discussed and more appropriate techniques were suggested.     

Integrating Psychopathology and Personality Disorders Conceptualized by the MMPI–2–RF and the MCMI–III: A Structural Validity Study

Twenty Es administered Rorschachs expecting Ss to give high or low total numbers of responses, high or low animal in relation to human percentages, and one or another extreme of select personality characteristics. Additionally, each tested a control S expecting “nothing remarkable.” Results indicated tester-bias and suggested that within each comparison group, one expectancy condition contributed disproportionately more to the bias effect than did the other. Video tapes of 20 sessions were analyzed to see whether a Bandura modeling paradigm could account for the mediation of bias; i.e., whether Es modeled their expectancies for the benefit of their Ss and whether Ss consequently imitated their models. This was not supported.     

Further Observations on Group Judgments of Lifted Weights

With use of a sample of five kibbutzim and subjects from three cities in Israel, the hypothesis investigated was that the adults in the kibbutz would obtain higher scores than the other subjects in their perceptions of the past and present on the Self-Anchoring Striving Scale. These responses were compared to those of two groups from the United States, Jewish and non-Jewish. The total sample consisted of 160 Ss with 40 Ss in each of the four groups. It was also hypothesized that there would be less discrepancy in the perceptions of the future as compared to the past and present between Israeli and United States Ss. The hypotheses presented were supported by the data.

The kibbutz sample in expressing hopes and aspirations had a significantly higher number of Ss that desired world peace than the other three samples. The Israeli city sample in responding to aspirations had a significantly greater number of responses than the kibbutz for the following categories: having a good job, owning a house, and possessing wealth.

The Israeli city sample compared to the kibbutz had a significantly higher number of responses to a fear of a deterioration in the standard of living. The rank order correlation of the verbal responses indicated that the responses of the American Jewish group were more similar to both Israeli groups than the United States non-Jewish group.     

The Relationship between Two Measures of the Tendency to Give Socially Desirable Responses

Two measures of the tendency to endorse socially desirable (SD) responses were obtained for 137 Ss. The first was from Edwards' SD scale and the second from an experimental scale consisting of responses in the P-F Study for which ratings of SD were available. There was no significant correlation between these measures. A second group of 94 Ss then rated a sample of 10 items each from the 2 scales on six bipolar dimensions. It is concluded that there is agreement across Ss as to the connotations of a socially desirable response but that personality type statements differ from responses in social situations in respect to the measure each provides of a person's tendency to endorse SD responses.     

Note on the Psychopathology of Genius

Summary

Twenty male Ss earned money by pulling a knob. Ss also could avoid or escape an aversive tone by pressing a button (a nonaggressive response) or by hitting a padded cushion (aggressive response). Control group Ss worked alone during two 90-minute sessions of an extinction condition in which knob pulling was no longer rewarded after 20 had been earned. Experimental group Ss, who worked alone only during the first session of extinction, were paired with an aggressive model in the second session. Experimental group Ss showed higher magnitudes of punching when the aggressive model was present than when he was absent. Control group Ss showed a reduction in high-magnitude punches across extinction conditions. It was concluded that the mere presence of a nonrewarded aggressive model was sufficient to evoke imitative aggression.     

Psychometric latent response models

In this paper, some psychometric models will be presented that belong to the larger class oflatent response models (LRMs). First, LRMs are introduced by means of an application in the field ofcomponential item response theory (Embretson, 1980, 1984). Second, a general definition of LRMs (not specific for the psychometric subclass) is given. Third, some more psychometric LRMs, and examples of how they can be applied, are presented. Fourth, a method for obtaining maximum likelihood (ML) and some maximum a posteriori (MAP) estimates of the parameters of LRMs is presented. This method is then applied to theconjunctive Rasch model. Fifth and last, an application of the conjunctive Rasch model is presented. This model was applied to responses to typical verbal ability items (open synonym items).This paper presents theoretical and empirical results of a research project supported by the Research Council [Onderzoeksraad] of the University of Leuven (grant number 89-9) to Paul De Boeck and Luc Delbeke.     

Adjustment for the Total Number of Responses in Calculating the Rorschach Apperception Type

In order to adjust for total responses (R) on the Rorschach, apperception (location) scores arc expressed as percentages of R. An alternative procedure is recommended in which adjustments are the differences between obtained scores and those predicted from the regression of the scores on R. Standardization Ss were 200 male and female normals, ages 20 to 40. Percentages of these Ss falling within certain ranges of adjusted scores are given. Caution is recommended in making inferences about apperception types obtained by extrapolating beyond the range of R in the standardization group. Preliminary results obtained by applying these adjustments to disturbed adult and children's groups suggest that the distributions of adjusted scores tend to approximate the score distribution of the standardization group.     

Group interpersonal skills training in a natural setting: an experimental study.

This study assessed effectiveness of group interpersonal skills training conducted in a natural setting with nonanalogue clients. Subjects (Ss) in a behavioral-training condition received 4 hr of instruction consisting of modeling, behavioral rehearsal, coaching, feedback and reinforcement. Training focused on positive and negative social responses and on initiating interactions, as well as reacting to interactions initiated by others. Subjects in a discussion-control condition engaged in focused discussion of interpersonal concerns but received no experiential practice. Within a pre-test-post-test control group design, subjective and objective measures were used to assess training effects. When compared to Ss involved in group discussion. Ss participating in group behavioral training revealed greater pre- to post-test changes on selfreported probability of engaging in selected interpersonal responses and on objective measures of eye contact, speech duration, positive affective responses, use of no-statements, compliance, refusals and requests for new behavior. Support for generalization of training is presented and methodological issues are discussed.     

Stimulus Presentation Ratios And The Outcomes For Correct Responses In Signal-detection Procedures

Three pigeons were trained to discriminate between two line orientations (S₁ and S₂). A left-key peck was correct when S₁ was presented, and a right key-peck was correct when S₂ was presented. In all procedures, correct responses were occasionally reinforced with food paired with the presentation of the magazine light. Incorrect responses produced a blackout. Six detection procedures were used. In the first, the signal presentation ratio was varied across conditions and the reinforcer ratio was allowed to covary. In the second, the signal presentation ratio was held constant at 1:1 and the reinforcer ratio varied across conditions. In the third, the signal presentation ratio was varied across conditions and the reinforcer ratio was held constant at 1:1. In these three procedures, correct responses that were not scheduled for reinforcement were followed by blackout. The remaining three procedures repeated those described above with one procedural change: Nonreinforced but correct trials were followed by the presentation of the magazine light. Birds showed systematic preferences for the key associated with the stimulus presented or reinforced most often. There was no change in the birds' performance over changes in the feedback for nonreinforced but correct responses.     

A Multiphasic Personality Schedule (Minnesota): III. the Measurement of Symptomatic Depression

La Fave's habit lag construct, which specifies conditions under which previously automatized motor responses become disruptive of subsequent performance, was tested. Performance under stress was also examined as a possible factor in the occurrence of habit lag. Following a visual discrimination task, 48 women performed motor responses simultaneously: (a) repeating an invariant lever movement and (b) pushing one of two keys. The habit lag construct was supported, as Ss who had automatized responses produced more errors than nonautomatized Ss. Performance under stress, by calling attention to the risk of habit lag, reduced errors. Habit lag accounts for an intrusive type of error often found in motor performance where negative transfer fails to do so.     

The Measurement of Retinal Fatigue to Achromatic Stimulation–I

Experiment I was conducted to investigate memory in a concept identification (CI) problem as a function of the number of trials that precede the recall task. It was found that the recall performance on the initial trials of CI problems was quite good, but declined rapidly when the recall test was given on later trials. It was pointed out that the bulk of the solutions to CI problems are obtained by Ss during the initial trials where an S has good recall for past stimuli. In Experiment II, recall by Ss in a normal CI problem was compared to the recall by Ss in an incidental learning control group. As the performance of Ss in a normal CI problem was significantly better, it was concluded that Ss actively try to store and retain information during their search for a solution.     

Socioeconomic Status and the Diagnostic Significance of Healthy and Unhealthy Group Rorschach Content

Three hypotheses were put to test, using group Rorschach protocols and a content scoring approach: (a) when neutral content is disregarded, upper social class subjects (Ss) will report predominantly “healthy” group Rorschach content while lower social class Ss will report predominantly “unhealthy” content; (b) perceiving “unhealthy” content will prove an abnormal diagnostic indicant only among upper social class Ss; (c) these findings will hold across racial identity. Rorschach content data and independent measures of personality were obtained from five samples of adolescent Ss differing in race and social class. The experimental hypotheses were supported. A theoretical interpretation making use of social class values is presented to explain the findings.     

Relation of Economic and Social Conditions to Voting Behavior in Iowa, 1924–1936

Summary

Using a three-variable design, this study investigated conformity to male and female group pressures among Chinese and American male college students. Methodologically, it departed from traditional group pressure studies in a number of ways: (a) the study was conducted outside the psychological laboratory where demand characteristics of the situation were believed to resemble college life conditions more closely, (b) it utilized changes in personal opinions about beliefs rather than perceptual judgments, (c) it employed unobtrusive, as well as conventional, means of measuring conformity. Another major difference was that S presented his opinion prior to those of the confederates who expressed contradictory opinions to those of S. Five confederates, all male or all female were used. S and confederate opinions and degree of strength of opinions were assessed on six controversial issues. Latency between hearing the controversial statement and S's announcing his opinion was recorded. When S and all confederates had made their statements, S and confederates were permitted to alter their earlier stated opinions or the degree of strength of their opinions. It was found that Chinese Ss increased their hesitancy to respond, from the first to sixth issue, to a greater degree than did Americans. Hesitation for all Ss was longer in the presence of male confederates than in the presence of females. Americans made greater shifts of opinion after the group pressure experience, but Chinese made a greater number of shifts. Americans showed a far greater tendency toward anticonformity than did Chinese.     

Effect of Injected Adrenalin on an Avoidance Response in the Rat

It was hypothesized that slight modifications in word association test (WAT) instructions would have no discernable effect on the responses of college students, but would produce significantly different response hierarchies generated by young children. Seventy-five adults and 375 children gave WAT responses to 32 stimulus words. One-third of the Ss, at each of six grade levels, was given standard WAT instructions; one-third was given a practice session with 10 additional words; and the remainder were instructed to respond to stimulus words with the “first thing” that came to mind. Although the different instructional sets had no discernable effect on the adult Ss, they had a significant effect (ps < .05) upon the number of (a) multiple-word and nonword responses, (b) paradigmatic responses, and (c) idiosyncratic responses produced by the children. These differences suggest that caution be used in the interpretation of WAT responses provided by young Ss.     

Storage and later recognition of exemplars of concepts

This paper concerns the problem of abstraction: whether when we encounter several exemplars of a concept, we retain only the abstracted concept, only the exemplars, or both. Although many studies concur that both are stored, a recent article argued strongly that only the abstracted concept is stored. The present study, aimed at replication of this recent finding, follows the earlier procedural details but adds appropriate controls and uses simpler material. A set of 24 exemplars of four concepts, in the form of four-tuples of letters and numbers, was presented to Ss who, after presentation, rated a larger set of exemplars for recognition. One group of Ss experienced the conceptual exemplars; control group Ss experienced items that were similar in composition but not exemplars of a concept. Two major results appeared: Unlike the study on which this was based, all Ss were able to distinguish those items that were originally experienced from those that were not. And, the more completely an exemplar fit the concept (the longer the item), the more confident the S was that it had been presented. In contrast, in the control condition, the longer the item, the more confident the S was that it had not been presented earlier. Two models are described to account for these results. One is based on the S's initial storage of the exemplars in a concept-plus-correction format; the other is based on a procedure whereby the S can make recognition judgments without having previously abstracted and retained the concepts.     

Value Hierarchies of French Catholics Committed to the Fight Against AIDS

Summary

An attempt was made to create the social satiation effect via vicarious learning. Second-grade boys and girls from middle class homes in a Jerusalem school observed other children being administered a short treatment in which the stimulus word Yafeh (“Good”) was presented by E twice (low-satiation) or 20 times (high-satiation). Immediately thereafter, E administered to the observers a 75-trial binary discrimination task, to test the efficacy of the word Yafeh as a reinforcer. The control groups consisted of Ss treated and tested by the same E. A typical satiation effect (i.e., decreased performance of the group presented with 20 stimuli) was observed for the control groups, but no difference was found between groups of Ss observing the high- and low-satiation treatments. It was thus concluded that social satiation had not been learned vicariously. The post-treatment inquiry on the Ss who were observed by the experimental Ss revealed that these children were aware of the frequency of stimuli presented in the treatment. However, the cognitive mechanism hypothesized to mediate the social satiation effect—perceived lack of contingency—was not confirmed by their verbal reports.     

AGAINST LEWIS's NEW THEORY OF CAUSATION: A STORY WITH THREE MORALS

Abstract: A recent paper by David Lewis, “Causation as Influence”, provides a new theory of causation. This paper presents an argument against the theory, using a series of counterexamples that are, I think, of independent interest to philosophers of causation. I argue that (a) the relation asserted by a claim of the form “C was a cause of E” is distinct from the relation of causal influence, (b) the former relation depends very much, contra Lewis, on the individuation conditions for the event E, and (c) Lewis's account is unsatisfactory as an analysis of either kind of relation. The counterexamples presented in this paper provide, I suggest, some insight into the reasons for the failure of counterfactual accounts of causal relations.     

Personality, event-related potential (ERP) and heart rate (HR): An investigation of Gray's theory

Following Gray's theory of personality, the aim of the study was to examine the role of the personality dimensions, behavioural inhibition and activation, in mediating event-related potentials (ERPs) and the level of anticipatory heart rate (HR) deceleration response during two visual-stimulus recognition tasks. In the first task ERPs and anticipatory HR changes were elicited by feedback words informing the subjects about the quality of their response (‘correct’, ‘incorrect’). In the second task ERPs and HR responses were elicited from 62 women by feedback words (‘losing’, ‘winning’) indicating losing or winning, of amounts of money. The Gray-Wilson Personality Questionnaire (GWPQ), the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) and the I₇ questionnaire were used to measure variables which refer to the function of the activation and inhibition system. The N200, P300, N400, P650 and N800 peak amplitudes of the ERPs and the level of anticipatory HR deceleration response to the feedback signals were measured. Personality and physiological responses were first analysed by using a split-plot ANOVA design and second by examining multiple relationships with factor analysis. Separate ANOVAs were performed across Ss selected from the total group (n = 62) on the basis of extreme scores (high or low) on Approach (APPR), Passive Avoidance (PASS.AV), Extinction (EXTI), Extraversion (E), Neuroticism (N) and Impulsiveness (I). In line with Gray's prediction, high APPR Ss exhibited larger P600 peak amplitudes to signals indicating winning and low APPR Ss exhibited larger P600 amplitudes to signals indicating losing. Neurotic Ss produced larger N800 peak amplitudes to stimuli indicating losing as compared with stimuli indicating winning. Stable Ss, in contrast, did not display differences between feedback stimuli. Heart-rate deceleration response to feedback signals was successful in distinguishing high and low N Ss as well as Introverts and Extraverts. Neurotic Ss, compared with Stable ones, showed a more pronounced anticipatory HR slowing for both of the feedback signals. Introverts displayed more pronounced HR decelerations for punishment compared with reward signals. Extraverts, in contrast, showed greater HR decelerations for reward compared with punishment signals. These results were all in line with predictions that can be derived from Gray's theory. However, in the opposite direction was the relationship between PASS.AV and N200 peak: High PASS.AV Ss displayed greater N200 peak amplitudes to winning signals compared with signals indicating a correct response. Results from factor analysis gave rise to a three-factor solution wherein personality dimensions sensitive to signals of reward and that sensitive to signals of punishment were loading together with different physiological factors.     

Projection,Play and Poetry

Ninety-two elderly Ss ranging in age from 57 to 92 were examined in an effort to find a battery of psychological tests which would effectively measure their level of intactness or deterioration of function. Five tests were used: the Rorschach, Gesell Incomplete Man Test, Bender Gestalt, Monroe's Visual Three, and the Color Tree Test. Ss were identified as normal adult, intact presenile, medium presenile and deteriorated on the basis of their Rorschach response. To check on the adequacy of this sorting, responses of each group were averaged for each of the other four tests. Differences between the several groups, on every test, were significant at the .001 level as measured by the median test.     

The Constancy of the Stanford-Binet IQ from Three to Five Years

Kindergarten and first-grade children giving nonintentional moral judgments were divided into three equated groups (Ns = 6), in each of two studies. Two groups performed with models (adult or peer) giving intentionality responses, with the third a control. During training, three Ss and three models in a group performing alternately were given social reinforcement for intentionality responses to Piaget-type stories. On an immediate posttest, both training groups in each study showed significant intentionality response gains from pretest and significantly exceeded their control group (ps < .05), while not differing significantly from each other. In study #2, a delayed posttest showed similar training durability for both training groups; both increased nonsignificantly in intentionality responses, continuing to exceed the controls (ps < .05).