Identification with an aggressor or a victim and its relation to creativity

Studied identification using a meta-contrast design. The first stimulus was the word 'I'. The second stimulus depicted an aggressor and a victim facing each other. The subliminal 'I' was flashed on either the victim or on the aggressor, or completely withheld. The subjects were 33 school children, aged 10–12 years. They also took a percept-genetic (PG) test of creativity, measuring willingness to return to and recognize early conceptions of a stimulus picture (a still-life). The results showed that the creative children reacted with less anxiety and defense when manipulated to identify with the aggressor than with the victim. The uncreative children showed the opposite reaction, namely a preference for the passive, surrendering victim.     

The bullied who bullies: the reciprocal relationship between victim and aggressor in workplace bullying situations

The aim of this study was to explore longitudinal relationships between organizational factors (workload and procedural justice) and targets and perpetrators of workplace bullying. We compared several causal models (baseline or stability, normal, reversed and reciprocal models). The sample comprised 286 employees from two companies in Madrid, and we used a time-lag of one year. Results of structural equation modeling analyses showed that reciprocal model fit the data the best. We found that T1 workload was related positively to T2 target of bullying, and T1 procedural justice was related negatively to T2 target of bullying. There was a significant reverse effect of T1 target of bullying on T2 workload. Furthermore, we found a reciprocal relationship between being the target and the perpetrator of bullying. Overall, these findings emphasize the need to extend the traditional causal models of workplace bullying to more dynamic approaches.     

Payoff expectancies between contingent serial moves of victim and aggressor in three hypothetical conflict situations

The expectancies of payoffs in the contingent serial interactive moves between victim and instigator, from the point of view of the victim, were measured for three hypothetical confrontations: someone pushes ahead of you in a movie line; a driver of a car takes a parking space you felt was yours; or you are the object of a rape attempt. These situations differ in urgency, and in the likelihood of success if there is resistance to the instigator. Expectations of persons were elicited as to their response to the particular aggressive act, the counter-response then expected of the instigator of the attack, and the subsequent contingent responses of each of the two persons, victim and instigator, until one or the other withdrew. The results show, in general, different payoffs at each interactive point over the ongoing serial stages in a situation, rather than an overall generalized contingency expectation, with these being different for self and the symbolized other, and also different for the three situations. Personality and sex-role measures showed minimal relation to the expectancies, and then not at the opening of the conflict, and for the instigator's rather than for the victim's expected responses.     

The influence of victim intoxication and victim attire on police responses to sexual assault

Limited research exists on the impact of contextual factors such as victim intoxication and victim attire on police processing of a case of sexual assault. The effects of these variables were examined in a simulated sexual assault case. Participants were 125 detectives from the New South Wales Police Department. Officers read controverted witness statements and viewed photographs pertaining to an investigation of a report of date rape. Contrary to findings in earlier studies, complainant intoxication, ‘provocative’ dress, and gender of the officer had no influence on the likelihood of charging the alleged offender. Factors predictive of pressing charges were the perceived credibility of the complainant and culpability of the alleged offender. Credibility and guilt judgements were themselves influenced by the level of rape myth acceptance endorsed by the officers. Rape myth acceptance also exerted a number of other effects on case evaluations. Implications for future studies and education and training programmes for police on sexual assault were discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The relation between size and apparent heaviness

Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics - A formula for the size-weight illusion was derived from the Stevens and Rubin (1970) finding that heaviness functions form a family of power functions...     

The relation between information and variance analyses

Analysis of variance and uncertainty analysis are analogous techniques for partitioning variability. In both analyses negative interaction terms due to negative covariance terms that appear when non-orthogonal predictor variables are allowed may occur. Uncertainties can be estimated directly from variances if the form of distribution is assumed. The decision as to which of the techniques to use depends partly on the properties of the criterion variable. Only uncertainty analysis may be used with a non-metric criterion. Since uncertainties are dimensionless (using no metric), however, uncertainty analysis has a generality which may make it useful even when variances can be computed.The work of the senior author was supported by Contract N5ori-166, Task Order 1, between the U.S. Office of Naval Research and The Johns Hopkins University. This is Report No. 166-I-192, Project Designation No. NR 145-089, under that contract.     

The relation between recognition memory and classification learning

Two experiments investigated the relation between recognition memory and classification learning. The subjects were instructed that they would see a series of random-dot patterns and later would be asked to classify or to recognize the patterns. Following study, the subjects performed a classification task, a recognition-memory task, or both. It was found that classification-learning instructions were superior to recognition-memory instructions for the classification task, but that there was little or no effect of instructions on the recognition task. When subjects performed both recognition and classification tasks, there was no relation between saying “old” to a probe and correctly classifying it, except with old exemplars, and then only when the initial instructions had been to expect a recognition-memory test. Overall, the data show that classification and recognition can be experimentally separated. In addition, classification is often statistically independent of recognizing that items are old. These observed relations provide some constraints for the further development of models of classification learning and recognition memory.     

The relation between sample and population characteristic vectors

Data are reported which show the statistical relation between the sample and population characteristic vectors of correlation matrices with squared multiple correlations as communality estimates. Sampling fluctuations were found to relate only to differences in the square roots of characteristic roots and to sample size. A principle for determining the number of factors to rotate and interpret after rotation is suggested.This study was supported by the National Science Foundation, Grant GB 4230. The author wishes to express his appreciation for the use of Western Data Processing Center and the Health Sciences Computing Facility, UCLA. He also thanks Dr. Roger Pennell for extremely valuable assistance in a number of phases of the study.     

The relation between source memory and aging.

Previous research has shown that elderly adults have difficulty recalling the source of recently acquired facts but does not indicate whether source memory is more impaired than fact memory. This study examined old and young subjects' memory for novel facts that had been read to them by 1 of 2 experimental sources either in a random order or in a blocked order. When fact memory was equated in young and old at different levels of performance, the elderly exhibited disproportionate source memory deficits in the blocked condition but not in the random condition. Results suggest that the relation between fact and source memory in the elderly varies across experimental conditions.