Elkind on egocentrism

The purpose of this paper is to respond to D. Elkind's (1985, Developmental Review, 5, 218–226) reply to D. Lapsley and M. Murphy's (1985, Developmental Review, 5, 201–217) critique of the adolescent egocentrism theory. After a reprise of the issues in contention, we address the problem of theoretical consistency and self-other differentiation in Dr. Elkind's (1967, Child Development, 38, 1025–1034) theory. The role of formal operations in the Lapsley and Murphy (1985) account of the imaginary audience and personal fable is revised, and the empirical support for Elkind's theory is reviewed. We conclude that there are good conceptual and empirical grounds for doubting the major assumptions of the adolescent egocentrism theory, and that the Lapsley and Murphy (1985) framework has promise in suggesting theoretical integration with other approaches to the self.     

The effects of semantic integration training on memory for pictograph sentences

The effectiveness of training a semantic integration strategy for recall of pictograph sequences, and the generalization of the strategy to a related oral sentence task were examined in 60 kindergarten prereaders. Semantic integration training consisted of three individual sessions in which the child was instructed to treat the sequence as a sentence and to act out the pictograph sentences using toys in order to facilitate recall. Repetition and no-practice control groups were included. Pictograph sentence memory post-tests immediately following and 2 weeks after training indicated that semantic integration training substantially improved recall for pictograph sequences, an improvement that was unrelated to the child's initial memory performance or subsequent post-training awareness of the strategy. In addition, the training resulted in better performance on a generalization test of oral sentence synthesis. These findings support a strategy-based conceptualization of individual differences in the semantic processing of written materials.     

Children's metacognition: Exploring relations among knowledge,process, and motivational variables

Following a metamemory pretest, 60 first and third grade children (6 and 8 years of age, respectively) were divided into three treatment groups which received task-specific strategy instructions appropriate for three memory problems, general metacognitive information about subordinate and superordinate processing, or both strategy and metacognitive training. Maintenance and generalization versions of the memory tasks were given, followed by an attributional assessment of children's perceptions of the causes for specific success and failure outcomes. Post-training scores on the memory tasks showed that strategy training was highly successful. Metacognitive training appeared to have no effect on the metameory or strategy scores with one exception: metamemory and strategy use on the generalization task were significantly correlated only for children who received both metacognitive and strategy training. Apparently, children who were initially high in metamemory skills profited more from the comprehensive training package, using new metacognitive insights to aid the generalization of acquired strategies to the transfer tasks. Among strategy-trained children those who attributed success to effort were both more strategic and higher in metamemory than those who attributed task outcomes to noncontrollable factors such as ability or task characteristics. Results were discussed in terms of the interactive nature of knowledge, process, and motivational variables as determinants of strategy transfer.     

Racial differences in intelligence: The importance of the executive system

The race-IQ controversy arose at a time when psychometric views of intelligence dominated. Little attention was paid to more process-oriented models in spite of the fact they provide alternative perspectives on the causes of individual differences in problem-solving. We hypothesized that much of the IQ spread commonly observed between black and white children can be attributed to differences in components of their executive systems, including the knowledge base, control processes, and metacognitive states. To test this possibility, black and white children who differed significantly on fluid and crystallized intelligence were tested on multiple tasks reflecting components of the executive systems as well as on perceptual efficiency tasks. Striking group differences were observed in metamemory, stragegy use, and general knowledge, but few reliable differences were found in perceptual efficiency. Regression analyses showed that different factors predicted fluid and crystallized intelligence, with metamemory predicting the latter but not the former. An implication of these findings has potential educational significance: training directed at executive skills, introduce at an early age, might elevate learning and problem-solving skills in black children, thereby reducing racial differences in crystallized intelligence.     

On multiple determinants of racial differences in intelligence: A reply to Jensen

A belief in the multidimensional nature of intelligence prompted Borkowski and Krause (1983) to reexamine the race-IQ controversy from a new theoretical perspective. Jensen has subsequently forced us to look more carefully at data presented in the earlier paper. After we corrected all measures in the perceptual efficiency and executive systems for unreliability and rethought the earlier data, our original conclusions remain tenable: Control processes and metacognitive states are important factors in understanding the sources of race-related differences in intelligence. In accord with the earlier conclusion, we do not deny the association of “speediness” (perceptual efficiency) with race-IQ differences but rather argue for the necessity, and utility, of a broader, multidimensional conceptualization of the nature and growth of intelligence.     

Functional similarity and interpersonal attraction

A pair of related experiments examined the relationship of functional similarity (i.e., the degree of similarity between two interactants in assessing mutually known others on personal construct dimensions) to interpersonal attraction. In Experiment I, 10 previously unacquainted college students of both sexes participated in 10 hours of dyadic disclosure exercises over a 5-week period. As predicted, members of high functional similarity dyads evidenced greater attraction to one another than did members of low functional similarity dyads. Experiment II investigated the relationship of functional similarity to level of acquaintance (i.e., friends, nominals) and type of assessment (i.e., physical, interactional, psychological) in a 2 × 3 factorial design. As hypothesized, “friendship” pairs of male undergraduates displayed greater functional similarity than did “nominal” pairs from the same population, particularly at the deeper level of “psychological” assessment. Results are discussed in relation to classical conditioning (D. Byrne, In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology, Vol. 4. New York. Academic Press, 1969), affect-reinforcement (G. L. Clore, In S. W. Duck (Ed.), Theory and practice in interpersonal attraction. New York/London: Academic Press, 1977) and information processing ( I. Ajzen, In S. Duck (Ed.), Theory and practice in interpersonal attraction, New York/London: Academic Press, 1977) models of interpersonal attraction, and are interpreted as supporting and extending (S. Duck's Theory and practice in interpersonal attraction, New York/London: Academic Press, 1977) filtering theory of friendship formation.     

Metamemory and the transfer of an interrogative strategy by EMR children

EMR children were taught to produce an interrogative strategy as an aid to paired-associate learning. Interrogative training was spread over four sessions with experimenter guidance gradually faded; training was followed by tests of long-term retention for the trained items, strategy maintenance, and generalization. Metamemory was assessed prior to training and following generalization. Analysis of recall demonstrated successful maintenance and generalization of the interrogative strategy; the quality of elaborations produced by the trained children predicted recall accuracy. Importantly, metamemory pretest measures for the interrogative trained children were related to strategy use at generalization. Metamemory posttest reliably predicted recall during training, maintenance, and generalization sessions and strategy use at maintenance. Interrogative training did not noticeably improve general aspects of metamemorial knowledge.     

Maintenance of children's rehearsal strategies: Effects of amount of training and strategy form

Fifty third- and fourth-grade children, assigned to groups varying in Amount (1 or 2 sessions) and Type (cumulative-cluster or cluster) of strategy training or to a control condition, participated in three free recall sessions, two training sessions with blocked lists of common words and a maintenance session with a 50-states list blocked by geographical regions. During strategy training and maintenance, the cumulative-cluster groups recalled more than the cluster and control groups. Amount of training significantly influenced degree of strategy maintenance, but only in the cumulative-cluster strategy. Strategy form was highly correlated with recall in the cumulative-cluster condition, while total study time (effort) was related to recall only in conditions where strategy instructions were not given. The form of the strategy during training predicted transfer form and recall. 100% of the children who received extended training and demonstrated good strategy form during acquisition sessions successfully transferred the strategy to the geography task.     

The influence of information redundancy upon the use of traits and persons as organizing categories

The following question is addressed: How do multiple, simultaneously present cognitive structures influence the representation and recall of social information? In an empirical study examining both free and cued recall, we found the variable information redundancy to influence both the organization and accuracy of subjects' recollections of trait-related behaviors. Redundancy was defined in terms of the degree of person/trait overlap in a social information ensemble. Some evidence indicated that this effect is attributable to an increase in the discriminability of the organizational structures during encoding. The implications of these findings for understanding the formation of integrated cognitive representations of individuals and the spontaneous use of traits in social information processing are discussed.     

Immediate and delayed effects of victim suffering on the attacker's aggression

On the first day of a two-day experiment, male undergraduates were either angered or not, and they were given either high, low, or no metered pain feedback after each shock they supposedly delivered to their previous evaluator for his errors on a learning task. After the learning task the subjects made a number of ratings, including how much they had enjoyed this first session. On the second day, all subjects were simply required to administer shocks to a different person for his mistakes on the same learning task. The angered subjects were more punitive on both days toward both learners than the nonangered men. On the first day the angered men also increased the intensity of the shocks they delivered over trial blocks. Most interestingly, the angered men showed more enjoyment of the first session of the experiment as their victim's pain increased, and this enjoyment rating was related to the angered subjects' level of aggression on the second day of the experiment when they punished an “innocent” victim. The results were interpreted as consistent with the hypothesized reinforcement process which essentially states that signs and/or knowledge of the victim's suffering can reinforce impulsive or angry aggressive behavior.     

Child judgments of sentences varying in grammatical complexity

This study is another contribution to the development of a satisfactory child version of the linguistic task of judging grammaticality. With a nondifferentially reinforced forced-choice procedure, it was found that responses of 24 5- and 24 7-yr-old children did vary as a function of the grammatical complexity of stimulus sentences. The children judged sentence stimuli of two types (negatives and wh-word questions) each having three levels of grammatical complexity (two primitive and one well-formed). After each stimulus presentation, the subject pointed to the adult or the child in a photograph, depending on who was judged to have produced that utterance. Performance of the two age groups did not differ for the question stimuli, for which subjects pointed to the adult more frequently as the grammatical complexity of wh-word questions increased. In response to the negative sentences, the older group attributed more well-formed stimuli to the adult than primitive ones. While the younger group pointed to the adult more frequently for well-formed negatives than for the middle level negatives, they made more adult responses than expected to the least complex negatives. It was concluded that, with this procedure, 5- and 7-yr-olds demonstrate ability to distinguish grammatically well-formed from primitive sentences. Procedural improvements for future research may allow children this age and younger to demonstrate more adult-like discrimination between a variety of primitive and well-formed sentences.     

Freezing as an avoidance response: Another look at the operant-respondent distinction

Groups of rats were trained with shock either contingent on freezing (punishment procedure) or contingent on not freezing (avoidance procedure). Although the different contingencies produced different levels of freezing behavior, these levels were attained immediately rather than over a number of trials. This result, together with the results of control rats, suggest that while freezing can be controlled by both punishment and avoidance procedures, in both cases the effects on freezing are due to elicitation rather than learning.     

Acquisition and transfer of conceptual learning by normals and retardates: the effects of modeling, verbal cues, and reinforcement

The present study compared the effects of modeling, verbal cues, and reinforcement on conceptual learning of normals and retardates. Performance on both original learning tasks and a transfer task was examined. The results indicated that, relative to a control group, modeling alone, modeling plus verbal cues, and exposure to the completed task plus verbal cues facilitated original conceptual learning. Furthermore, modeling plus verbal cues was more effective in reducing errors than modeling alone. Original learning was not affected by tangible reinforcement, social reinforcement, or IQ level. No significant effects were found for a transfer task.     

The role of attribution in the experience of crowding

The theory that the subjective experience of crowding results from an attribution of arousal process was examined. Specifically, it was predicted that subjects who were aroused by having their personal space violated would experience less crowding if they were led to believe that some other environmental factor was responsible for the arousal. Groups of subjects were placed in a room in which their personal space was either violated or not violated. Some subjects were told that either an arousing or a relaxing subliminal noise would be played into the room. (Actually there was no noise.) Other subjects were told nothing about subliminal noise. The subjects worked on a number of tasks and were then asked to report how crowded they felt. The noise manipulation had no effect on subjects' performance nor on feelings of crowdedness when their personal space was not being violated. However, when there was a violation of personal space, subjects who felt the noise would arouse them reported being less crowded and performed better than subjects in the relaxing noise or no explanation conditions. It was suggested that subjects attributed their arousal to the “arousing noise” and hence felt less crowded.     

Levels of experienced dimensionality in children and adults

This work presents a new conceptualization of the contrast between holistic and differentiated perception of multidimensional stimuli. Specifically, two hypotheses about the experiential status of dimensions within holistic perception are proposed and tested as explanations of young children's general perceptual mode and adults' integral mode. The major result is that three levels of dimensional status are realized: (1) the hypothesis of nonprimary axes characterizes adult “integral” perception of saturation and brightness relations, (2) the hypothesis of primary but not mandatory axes characterizes kindergarteners' “integral” perception of size and shade relations, and (3) the notion of mandatory axes characterizes adults' separable perception of size and shade relations. These results indicate a new interpretation of the integrality-separability distinction and the derivative developmental hypothesis. It is specifically hypothesized that the developmental history of most dimensional combinations includes these three levels.     

Contextual control of the extinction of conditioned fear

Rats received 15 pairings of a CS and shock in one context, and then a series of CS-alone trials in a second context. Even though this extinction procedure produced a complete loss of conditioned suppression, when the animals were returned to the site of original conditioning, suppression was renewed to a level comparable to that of animals that had not undergone extinction. Controls indicated that the renewed suppression was not due solely to pseudoconditioning, suggesting that the CS-US association had survived extinction. Renewed suppression was also demonstrated in a third context that was never associated with shock. Loss of suppression did not necessarily depend upon inhibitory conditioning of the extinction context. The data suggest that extinction of conditioned fear is specific to the context in which it occurs. They also suggest the possibility that animals might discriminate episodes in which a CS is reinforced and nonreinforced independently of the excitatory or inhibitory status of cues, like contextual stimuli, that are coincidentally present during those episodes.     

Transfer of effort across behaviors

A series of experiments investigated the effects of required force and number of responses per reinforcer upon the subsequent performance of a second behavior. In the first experiment, a group of rats required to complete five round trips in an alley per food pellet subsequently bar-pressed for food at a greater rate than a group rewarded for each round trip or a control group that did not receive the alley experience. In the second experiment, a group required to apply a 70-g bar-press force subsequently shuttled for food at a greater rate than a group required merely to touch the lever or a control group that did not undergo the lever-press manipulation. The third experiment found that the force effect persisted across all five test sessions and was attributable to differences both in response speed and interresponse time. The fourth experiment found that both the necessary bar-press force and number of bar presses per reward affected subsequent shuttling in extinction. Two alternative interpretations of these results were compared: (a) the degree of accustomed effort per reinforcer becomes a generalized component of instrumental behavior or (b) high effort increases the habituation frustration-produced disruptive responses.