Occupational prestige: Exploration of a theoretical basis

Drawing on the theory and research of psychophysics, a nonlinear model is hypothesized to explain the connection between education and income and occupational prestige. To achieve this, Weber's (R. L. Gregory, 1981, Mind in Science, Cambridge, Cambridge Univ. Press, pp. 501–503) and Stevens' (S. S. Stevens, 1970, Science170, 1043–1050) laws are brought together in an intrinsically nonlinear model. Guided by the earlier work of R. L. Hamblin (1971, Sociometry, 34, 423–452) and others, the work of O. D. Duncan (1961, in A. J. Reiss, Jr., O. D. Duncan, P. K. Hatt, & C. C. North (Eds.), Occupations and Social Status, New York, Free Press) is reanalyzed testing the possibility that work on the socioeconomic index can be understood as a prestige allocation process which follows psychophysical principles. That is, prestige is assigned to occupations, given specifiable levels of educational and income attainment, in a manner parallel to the way in which individuals respond to changes in the intensity of other stimuli. Using first the data developed by Duncan (1961) to test the model and the 1963 NORC data (R. W. Hodge, P. M. Siegel, & P. H. Rossi, 1964, American Journal of Sociology, 70, 286–302) to replicate it, a measurement model consistent with the theoretical model is evaluated. Comparing the results of the nonlinear model to that of the linear, it is concluded that a model is obtained yielding theoretical confirmation with no loss in predictive accuracy. The resultant nonlinear model yields alternative substantive implications concerning the relative influence of income and education on occupational prestige to those to be inferred from linear models. Perhaps most important, however, is the candidacy given by these results to psychophysics as the explanatory mechanism in the prestige allocation process.     

Encoding and incidental memory in children

First, third, and fifth graders (7.1, 8.8, 11.1 years old) performed semantic, acoustic, and orthographic orienting activities to different words in a list. Without forewarning, their free recall of the words was tested after the orienting activity. The semantic task yielded better recall than the acoustic or orthographic tasks, but the latter two did not differ. Age differences in recall were absent, and the effect of the three orienting tasks did not vary as a function of the child's age. The results support a direct extension of levels of processing theory (Craik, F. I. M., & Lockhart, R. S. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1972, 11, 671–684) to children's memory. An obligatory-optional encoding distinction was suggested as a developmentally relevant addition to the levels of processing framework.     

Decrements in children's responses to big and tall: A reconsideration of the potential Cognitive and Semantic causes

The potential causes of decrements in children's understanding of big and tall (Maratsos, 1973, Maratsos, 1974, 10, 367–375) are reconsidered. On the basis of data from English-speaking children, two of these hypotheses, the Strong Cognitive Hypothesis and the Strong Semantic Hypothesis, offer equally plausible explanations for those decrements. However, data from Arabic-speaking children between 2;9 and 6;3, who do not show a similar decrement in their understanding of kabiir, support the Strong Semantic Hypothesis that decrements in English-speaking children's understanding of big and tall are due to their positing semantic features such as [+ Vertical] for one word and overgeneralizing them to related words. This, in turn, supports Carey's (M. Halle, J. Bresnan, & G. Miller (Eds.), Linguistic theory and psychological reality. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1978. Pp. 264–293) theory that features are abstracted out for words after children are able to use those words correctly on the basis of stored haphazard examples. Further, the results support the view that children at least sometimes posit features for a word on the basis of its individual privileges of occurrence, rather than on the basis of what that word contrasts with.     

Children's preference for novelty in selective learning: Developmental stability or change?

Data relating novelty preference to age for normal children are inconsistent, although a current theory predicts a developmental shift from novelty to familiarity preference in selective learning (D. Zeaman, 1976, in T. J. Tighe & R. N. Leaton (Eds.), Habituation: Perspectives from child development, animal behavior, and neurophysiology (pp. 297–320), Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum). Support for this theory, however, has been derived primarily from studies of retardate learning. Normal children's novelty preference was examined within a modified Moss-Harlow (E. Moss & H. F. Harlow, 1947, Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 40, 333–342) design to compare Zeaman's model with that of S. L. Witryol and W. Wanich (1983, The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 143, 3–8). Each of 16 problems, consisting of three single-stimulus demonstration trials and one two-choice test, was administered to 180 children (mean CA 4, 5.5, and 7 years) in three reward conditions. Novelty was manipulated by varying stimulus familiarization in the demonstration trials. Experiment 1 showed strong preferences for novel over familiar (demonstrated) stimuli at each age. Experiment 2 revealed novelty preference across age levels, two levels of reward contrast, and two levels of task difficulty. It was reasoned that Moss-Harlow tasks designed for normal children typically present a much higher level of difficulty than that intended by researchers. Furthermore, developmental decreases in novelty preference by retardates may derive from (a) transfer of training from prior experiments and (b) specific, repetitive instructions which may have directed attention away from stimulus novelty.     

How a thing is called—A study of mothers' and children's naming

Mothers' selections of category names in object-naming tasks were examined using the levels of categorization defined by Eleanor Rosch (E. Rosch. In T. Moore (Ed.), Cognitive development and the acquisition of language, New York: Academic Press, 1973. E. Rosch. In E. Rosch & B. Lloyd (Eds.), Cognition and categorization. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum, 1978. E. Rosch, C. Mervis, W. Gray, D. Johnson, & P. Boyes-Braem. Cognitive Psychology, 1976, 8, 382–439). The effect of three variables—Presentation Context, Taxonomy, and Age (of person for whom mother was naming the items)—on mothers' choice of category names, was also investigated. The stimuli were 36 photographs of common concrete objects representative of four taxonomies. Forty mothers named the stimulus items for their 2-year-olds (N = 20), for their 4-year-olds (N = 20), and for the Experimenter. The category labels that children of both ages used when naming the same items, and mothers' independent predictions of the names their children would use in the naming task, were recorded. Contextual factors were found to have a primary role in determining mothers' selections of category names and the three independent variables had a complex and dynamic effect on mothers' naming practices.     

Evaluating a sex-related ability: Comparison with same-, opposite-, and combined-sex norms

A study was conducted to replicate and extend Zanna, Goethals, and Hill's (Zanna, M. P., Goethals, G. R., & Hill, J. F. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1975, 11, 86–93) experiment investigating social comparison choices for evaluating a sex-related ability. In a 2 × 3 design male and female undergraduates received ambiguous feedback about their performance on a test. The test was described as one in which either males typically excel or females typically excel, or no sex differences for performance were mentioned. Subjects were then given the opportunity to select normative comparison information in order to evaluate their performance. Information about same-sex, opposite-sex, and combined (male and female) norms was available. The results showed that interest in same-sex and combined information was high on both first and second choices. Opposite-sex comparisons were of low priority. Same-sex comparisons were of high priority even when sex differences were not made salient. Males and females differed to some extent in their comparison choices. The results suggest that while persons prefer to compare with similar (same-sex) others, they are also interested in making broader kinds of comparisons (with combined-sex norms). The results are discussed in terms of Wilson's (Wilson, S. R. Sociometry, 1973, 36, 600–607) two-process analysis of ability comparison and Goethals and Darley's (Goethals, G., & Darley, J. In J. M. Suls & R. L. Miller (Eds.), Social comparison processes; Theoretical and empirical perspectives. Washington, D. C.: Hemisphere/Halsted/Wiley, 1977) related attribute hypothesis.     

Intervention and sleeper effects: A reply to Victoria Seitz

Victoria Seitz (Developmental Review, 1981, 1, 361–373) has misperceived and misunderstood our position (A. D. B. Clarke & A. M. Clarke, Developmental Review, 1981, 344–360). For example, our argument endorsed a transactional and not a main-effect model, nor was our aim to argue that early intervention has no important later consequences, nor did we dispute Consortium findings (I. Lazar & R. Darlington, Lasting effects after preschool, Washington, D.C.: DHEW Publication No. (OHDS) 79-30178, 1978). In fact, agreements with Seitz greatly exceed disagreements. Our skepticism about whether a behavioral treatment can have long-range effects without also having earlier ones remains. Long-term changes appear to result from ongoing long-term processes.     

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.     

Traits,processes, and the purpose of templates

The template method proposed by D. J. Bem and D. C. Funder 1978, Psychological Review, 85, 485–501) can have two separate purposes. First, template-behavior pairs can be used as a type of explanation in which situational influences are incorporated within a trait theory. Second, template matching can be used as a method for evaluating process theories. Recent discussion (D. J. Bem, 1983; Psychological Review, 90, 390–393; D. C. Funder, 1983; Psychological Review, 90, 283–289; W. Mischel & P. K. Peake, 1982, Psychological Review, 89, 730–755) confuses these two purposes. If used as a type of explanation, then templates can be criticized on the grounds of blunt empiricism; but if templates are used as a method for evaluating process theories, then process theorists should welcome this new technique.     

Children's understanding of conversational principles

Sixteen preschool, first-, and third-grade children were presented with short stories ending with a verbal statement by a story character. Two alternative ending statements were provided. One alternative violated a postulate (H. P. Grice, 1975, in P. Cole & J. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics (Vol. 3), New York: Academic Press) or a reasonable request condition (D. Gordon & G. Lakoff, 1971, Conversational postulates, papers from the seventh regional meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, University of Chicago, Department of Linguistics), while the other alternative did not. The child's task was to choose the “funny or silly“ ending, i.e., the violation. Data analysis showed that 100% of the third-graders, 83% of the first-graders, and 19% of the preschoolers performed with significant (P < .02) accuracy. These results suggest that children's understanding of conversational principles improves considerably between preschool and first grade. There were no significant differences among four types of conversational principles examined.     

Congruency,consistency, and differentiation of vocational interests as predictors of vocational satisfaction and preference stability

The Ramak interest inventory (Meir, E. I. Manual for the Ramak and Courses interest inventories, 1975; Barak, A. & Meir, E. I. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 1974, 4, 377–387), together with an occupational choice satisfaction (OCS) inventory, was administered to 158 males and 202 females who had responded to the Ramak 7 years before. The results of the study show: (a) congruence (Holland, J. L. Making vocational choices, 1973) correlated positively with males' and females' OCS (p < .01), while consistency and differentiation correlated with males' OCS when vocational interests were congruent with occupational field; (b) congruency, consistency, and differentiation all had a positive effect on OCS of males (p < .05); (c) when there was incongruency, no negative correlations between consistency and differentiation on the one hand and OCS on the other were found; (d) for males and females, positive correlations (p < .05) were found between congruency, consistency, differentiation, and stability of occupational interests; and (e) differentiation measured in percentages was found valid twice. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings 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.     

Why Reading? Because it's there

Three papers (V. A. Mann, Reading skill and language skill. Developmental Review, 1984, 4, 1–15; G. Wolford & C. A. Fowler, Differential use of partial information by good and poor readers. Developmental Review, 1984, 4, 16–35; F. J. Morrison, Reading disability: A problem in rule learning and word decoding. Developmental Review, 1984, 4, 36–47) are critiqued from the standpoint of their adequacy in advancing our understanding of a problem as complex as reading disability. Experimenters should be explicit about their guiding theoretical assumptions, and should think through the relations, if any, between their laboratory tasks and the actual processes of reading. The reading protocol of a dyslexic child is provided, and is interpreted within the frameworks of the Mann, Wolford and Fowler, and Morrison viewpoints.     

Developmental aspects of the generation effect

Children from Grades 2, 3, 5, and 7 (7.6, 9, 11, and 13 years of age, respectively) were required to generate or study exemplars of semantic categories (semantic orientation) or rhymes to stimulus words (phonetic orientation). Each child then participated in one of three retention tests: free recall, standard recognition, and rhyme recognition. The results indicated that the developmental emergence of the “generation effect” (C. E. McFarland, Jr., T. J. Frey, & D. D. Rhodes, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1980, 19, 210–225; N. J. Slamecka & P. Graf, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 1978, 4, 592–604) was dependent on both encoding orientation and the type of retention task employed. A substantial generation effect first emerged (7-year-olds) for standard recognition in the semantic condition. A similar effect for recall was evident for 9-year olds, but not for younger children. Internal stimulus generation became a strong memory facilitator for phonetically encoded items at age 11 for standard recognition, but not until age 13 for recall. The results of the rhyme recognition test indicated that internal generation facilitated “transfer-appropriate processing” (C. D. Morris, J. D. Bransford, & J. J. Franks, Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 1977, 16, 519–533) only for seventh graders (age 13). The processes underlying this developmental pattern were discussed.     

Stimulus-reinforcer and response-reinforcer relations in the control of conditioned appetitive headpoking (“goal tracking”) in rats

Experiment 1 studied the effect of several Pavlovian appetitive conditioning procedures on rats' headpoking into a food tray (goal tracking). The procedures included forward delay conditioning, CS-alone extinction, differential conditioning, and simultaneous compound conditioned inhibition training. In general, the headpoke behaved in all of these treatments much like a Pavlovian CR; however, one could also say that the headpoke behaved like an adventitiously reinforced operant for which the CS was an S^D. Experiment 2, therefore, used the differential-nondifferential technique (E. Gamzu & D. R. Williams, Science, 1971, 171, 923–925), and Experiment 3 used an omission technique (F. D. Sheffield, in W. F. Prokasy, Ed., Classical conditioning, New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1965; D. R. Williams & H. Williams, Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 1969, 12, 511–520), to try to separate the role of stimulus-reinforcer and response-reinforcer relations in controlling the headpoke. These techniques proved inadequate. The results of Experiment 2 could be given either operant or Pavlovian interpretations. Those of Experiment 3 showed that headpoking is dominated by response-reinforcer, rather than by stimulus-reinforcer, relations when the two compete but forced no conclusion about which dominates when the two act together as in acquisition. Implications for pigeon autoshaping are discussed.     

Why additive utility models fail as descriptions of choice behavior

This experiment sought to determine whether previously found metric violations of additive expectancy-value models C.F. J. C. Shanteau, Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1974, 103, 680–691; J. G. Lynch and J. L. Cohen, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1978, 36, 1138–1151) were attributable to the inappropriateness of these models or to nonlinearities in the relationship between numerical ratings and underlying psychological impressions. Undergraduate participants performed two tasks employing the same experimental stimuli. In the first task, they rated the subjective values of hypothetical bets, judged separately and in combination. In the second task, they made pairwise comparisons of the same bets in terms of preference. The use of the same experimental stimuli in both tasks allowed a test of alternative models of utility judgment through application of the criterion of scale convergence (M. H. Birnbaum & C. T. Veit, Perception and Psychophysics, 1974, 15, 7–15). Results suggested that the additive expectancy-value model of judgments of the utilities of combinations of outcomes should be replaced by a weighted averaging rule in which the weight given to the value of each outcome in the averaging process is greater when this value is negative and extreme than when it is neutral.     

Subjective utility,anticipated utility,and the Allais paradox

One of the most notable counterexamples to expected utility theory is the “Allais paradox” (M. Allais, 1953, Econometrica, 31, 503–546). A number of alternative theories have been proposed in an attempt to resolve this paradox, notably including Karmarkar, 1978, Karmarkar, 1979, 24, 67–72). It is shown that SWU theory necessarily involves violations of dominance, but that the theory can be modified to avoid these violations. The result is a special case of J. Quiggin's anticipated utility theory (1982, Journal of Economic Behaviour and Organisation, 3, 323–343).     

An experimental and theoretical investigation of the constant-ratio rule and other models of visual letter confusion

The constant-ratio rule (CRR) and four interpretations of R. D. Luce's (In R. D. Luce, R. R. Bush, & E. Galanter (Eds.), Handbook of mathematical psychology (Vol. 1). New York: Wiley, 1963) similarity choice model (SCM) were tested using an alphabetic confusion paradigm. Four stimulus conditions were employed that varied in set size (three, four or five stimulus elements) and set constituency (block letters: A, E, X; F, H, X; A, E, F, H; A, E, F, H, X), and were presented to each subject in independent blocks. The four interpretations of the SCM were generated by constraining one, both, or neither of its similarity and bias parameter sets to be invariant in across-stimulus set model predictions. The strictest interpretation of the SCM (both the similarity and bias parameters constrained), shown to be a special case of the CRR, and the CRR produced nearly equivalent across-set predictions that provided a reasonable first approximation to the data. However, they proved inferior to the least strict SCM (neither the similarity nor bias parameters were constrained; the common interpretation of the SCM in visual confusion). Additionally, the least strict SCM was compared to J. T. Townsend's (Perception and Psychophysics, 1971, 9, 40–50, 449–454) overlap model, the all-or-none model (J. T. Townsend, Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 1978, 18, 25–38), and a modified version of L. H. Nakatani's (Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 1972, 9, 104–127) confusion-choice model. Both the least strict SCM and confusion-choice models produced nearly equivalent within stimulus set predictions that were superior to the overlap and all-or-none within-set predictions. Measurement conditions related to model structure and equivalence relations among the models, many of them new, were examined and compared with the statistical fit results of the investigation.     

Finite and infinite state confusion models

A confusion model is defined as a model that decomposes response probabilities in stimulus identification experiments into perceptual parameters and response parameters. Historically, confusion models fall into two groups. Models in Group I, which includes Townsend's (Perception and Psychophysics, 1971, 9, 40–50) overlap model, were developed on the basis of the notion that stimulus identification is mediated by a finite number of internal states. We call the general class of models that have this processing interpretation finite state confusion models. Models in Group II, which includes Luce's (R. O. Luce et al., Eds., Handbook of Mathematical Psychology (Vol. I), New York: Wiley, 1963) biased choice model, were not developed on the basis of an explicit processing interpretation. It is shown here that models in Group II are not finite state confusion models. We prove in addition that except for Falmagne's (Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 1972, 9, 206–224) simply biased model models in Group II belong to a certain class of infinite state confusion models, namely, models asserting that stimulus identification is mediated by a continuous space of vectors representing detector activation levels.