Category width and expectancies: Risk conservatism or generalization?

To compare interpretations of category width as an equivalence range and as a risk-taking dimension, an experiment by Phares and Davis (1966) was replicated and extended to examine the effects of unexpected failure and success on expectations for subsequent task performance. High scoring subjects on Pettigrew's (1958) Category Width Scale showed less generalization of expectancy following success and greater generalization following unexpected failure. A measure of similarity between tasks failed to differentiate from narrow categorizers and suggests that broad categorizers may adopt more conservative expectancies following unexpected outcomes of any favorability.     

Loudness adaptation: fact or artifact?

In the present study, the authors tested the hypothesis that contrast effects confound the Ipsilateral Comparison Paradigm (ICP). Bidirectional referents were used in which base tones of 50 or 70 dB alternated with referents of greater or lesser intensity in a 3.5-min listening period. The contrast hypothesis leads to the expectation that the bidirectional referents would produce opposing effects that should nullify time-based loudness changes in the common base tone. Contrary to that expectation, base-tone loudness declined significantly over time in the context of the bidirectional referents, and the loudness of the referents also declined significantly over time. Thus, the results of the study testified to the validity of the ICP as a contrast-free measure of broad-based loudness adaptation.     

Familiarity and attraction to stimuli: Developmental change or methodological artifact?

One hundred thirteen 7-, 9-, and 11-year-old children viewed a series of stimuli consisting of Chinese characters exposed a different number of times. Following exposure to the stimuli, children ranked the stimuli according to liking. Seven- and 9-year-olds preferred the more familiar characters to those seen less frequently, but the oldest children preferred novel stimuli. In rankings taken 3 weeks after original exposure, a subsample of 11-year-olds preferred the more familiar characters. These results suggest that discrepancies obtained in previous research on the affective consequences of mere exposure are of methodological rather than developmental origin. Possible critical differences in procedure are discussed.     

Gender differences in personality: Biological and/or psychological?

The results of three empirical studies are reported in which the hypothesis is tested that differences in personality variables between the morphophenotype sexes can be explained by psychological sex-role orientation variables. Furthermore, it was expected that normative sex-role orientations (measured with the SRO-S and the AWS-S Scales) and gender-related self-concepts (femininity, masculinity, and androgyny measured with a modified BSRI) explain more variance in personality variables than morphophenotype sex. Besides these sex-role orientation variables, test and questionnaire data on verbal fluency, spatial reasoning, self-concept, anxiety, and aggressiveness were obtained in Study I from 50 young adults and their same-sex parents; in Study II, data on verbal fluency, spatial reasoning, self-concept, anxiety, and neuroticism were obtained from 120 university students; and in Study III, data on anxiety, locus of control, and Machiavellianism were obtained from 226 university students. The results confirm both hypotheses for the two aspects of intelligence studied, domain-specific self-concepts, different aspects of anxiety and aggressiveness, neuroticism, powerful others' externality in locus of control, and Machiavellianism. For all these personality variables the effect sizes of the psychological gender variables were larger than those of morphophenotype sex and reached medium to large values.     

Support groups: A psychological or social device for suicide bereavement?

This paper examines the psychological studies of bereavement support groups as well as exploring the ways in which people talk about their participation in such groups after their family member's suicide. Rather than reflecting any universal human condition, talk about experiences is considered as a local and contextual social construction, which in this case takes place in qualitative interviews in the modernWest (Finland). The paper draws on a study of 16 interviews with bereaved parents and (adult) children, half of whom had attended a bereavement support group after their family member's suicide. The study makes a contribution to the research field of family suicide bereavement from which sociological analysis has been so far largely missing.     

The Bransford-Franks linear effect: Integration or artifact?

It was hypothesized that the Bransford-Franks linear effect is an artifact of the method of presentation of stimulus sentences and is unrelated to semantic processes. Ss were given sentences containing the same information in one of two ways. In a control condition, which was identical to the procedure used in earlier research, overlapping combinations of ideas were presented during learning and recognition; in an experimental condition, ideas were presented one at a time. Results demonstrated that one-idea sentences received significantly higher recognition confidence ratings in the experimental condition, thus supporting the artifact interpretation. It was proposed that Ss assign recognition confidence ratings based on the probability that a sentence containing a certain number of ideas could have occurred in acquisition.     

Bimodal score distributions and the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator: fact or artifact?

We examined Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) score distributions computed using item response theory (IRT) to assess the generalizability of earlier bimodality reports that have been cited in support of the "type" versus "trait" view of personality. Using the BILOG IRT program to score a sample of approximately 12,000 individuals who participated in leadership development programs, theta score distributions for the 4 dimensions of the MBTI computed using 10 (the BILOG default) versus 50 quadrature points were compared. Results indicated that past reports of bimodality were artifacts caused by BILOG's default use of a small number of quadrature points; when larger numbers of points were used, score distributions became strongly center-weighted. Although our findings are not supportive of the "type"-based hypothesis, the extremely high correlations between theta scores (rs > .996) suggest that no practical differences would be expected as a function of the number-of-quadrature-points decision.     

Aversive functions of response effort: Fact or artifact?

Historically, effort has been viewed as aversive. Most supporting evidence comes from studies demonstrating increased force/effort requirements reduce operant responding. Changes in force/effort requirements, however, are often accompanied by changes in response definition when mechanical devices are used to define the response. As a consequence, responses measured at one point in a study may go unmeasured at other points. In an alternative approach, we used a continuous measurement strategy that provided a means to fix the threshold force defining the response class and simultaneously allowed independent manipulation of the force criteria required to produce reinforcement. Rats pressed a force transducer according to a fixed‐ratio 5 schedule of food delivery. The criterion force was systematically increased and decreased; the threshold for response detection was constant. When response rates included only criterion responses, overall rate decreased when force requirements increased. By contrast, when all responses, both those meeting force criteria and those that did not (above the threshold but below the criteria for reinforcement) were included in the rate calculation, increases in force increased response rate. Increases in force criteria also increased the maximum force (g) and time‐integral of force (g‐s) of operant behavior. Control conditions showed increases in responding could be explained by the emergence of subcriterion responses, irrespective of force. We conclude that prior results showing effort decreases response rates are due to an artifact arising from inadvertent changes in response definitions. Increases in effort may better be understood as changes in the response:reinforcer payoff owing to the emergence of a subcriterion response class.     

The tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon: Blocking or partial activation?

Tip-of-the-tongue states may represent the momentary unavailability of an otherwise accessible word or the weak activation of an otherwise inaccessible word. In three experiments designed to address these alternative views, subjects attempted to retrieve rare target words from their definitions. The definitions were followed by cues that were related to the targets in sound, by cues that were related in meaning, and by cues that were not related to the targets. Experiment 1 found that compared with unrelated cues, related cue words that were presented immediately after target definitions helped rather than hindered lexical retrieval, and that sound cues were more effective retrieval aids than meaning cues. Experiment 2 replicated these results when cues were presented after an initial target-retrieval attempt. These findings reverse a previous one (Jones, 1989) that was reproduced in Experiment 3 and shown to stem from a small group of unusually difficult target definitions.     

The outcomes and correlates of job search objectives: searching to leave or searching for leverage?

The authors investigate a previously overlooked yet important objective for employee job search--seeking leverage against the current employer. They explore the outcomes and correlates of leverage-seeking search and how it may differ from the more traditional objective for engaging in job search--to change jobs. Results show that leverage-seeking and separation-seeking search objectives associate with different outcomes. The authors also find that characteristics of the work situation and individual differences associate with leverage-seeking search and relate differently with the 2 job search objectives. Implications for practice and the advancement of job search research are discussed.     

Response-repetition costs in choice-RT tasks: Biased expectancies or response inhibition?

Repetition effects are often viewed as informative regarding the cognitive mechanisms of action control. One particular finding, namely costs for repeating the same response in subsequent trials, especially challenges theorizing. Costs for response repetitions have recently been reported in task-switch studies on task-switch trials (whereas benefits usually arise in task-repetition trials), but also in some choice-RT task studies. In three experiments, two of the most successful accounts for the response-repetition costs in choice-RT task studies and task switching were tested: an expectancy-based explanation, and an inhibition-based account. Using a choice-RT task introduced by Smith (1968) and manipulating the response–stimulus interval (RSI) and the categorizability of the stimuli, some specific predictions of the two accounts were tested. The results clearly revealed that expectancy-based explanations fail to account for the observed patterns of effects, whereas they are well in line with the predictions from the inhibition-based account. Finally, the results are further discussed with respect to alternative accounts from the field of task switching.     

The drawbridge phenomenon: representational reasoning or perceptual preference?

Two experiments investigated whether infants would look longer at a rotating "drawbridge" that appeared to violate physical laws because they knew that it was causally impossible, as claimed by R. Baillargeon, E. S. Spelke, and S. Wasserman (1985) and R. Baillargeon (1987a). Using a habituation paradigm, they reported that infants looked longer at a display that appeared impossible (rotated 180 degrees while an obstructing box was behind it) than at one that appeared possible (rotated only 112 degrees, appearing to stop at the box). Experiment 1 eliminated habituation to 180 degree screen rotations. Still, infants looked longer at the 180 degree impossible rotations. Critically, however, infants also looked longer at possible 180 degree rotations in Experiment 2, in which no obstruction was present. Moreover, no difference in effect size was found between the 2 experiments. These findings indicate that infants' longer looking at 180 degree rotations is due to simple perceptual preference for more motion. They question R. Baillargeon's (1987a) claim that it is due to infants' representational reasoning about physically impossible object permanence events.     

Switching between memory and perception: Moving attention or memory retrieval?

Weber, Burt, and Noll (1986) estimated that the time needed to switch attention between memory and perception was around 300 msec. The first two experiments in the present paper estimated switching time using a variation of their task. Subjects reported aloud lists of six items. The items were read off a computer screen (perception), recited from memory, or reported alternately from the two sources. The data show that the switching-time estimate is influenced by input/output compatibility, response-initiation times, and memory load. When these factors were controlled, estimated switching time dropped to around 100-150 msec. The data suggest, however, that the switch from perception to memory might be slower than the switch from memory to perception, which would invalidate the formula used to compute switching time. Experiment 3 tested the time for a single switch from perception to memory and a single switch from memory to perception by restricting report to one pair of items in the list. When the to-be-reported pair was precued, estimated switching time dropped to zero. When the pair was not precued, the memory-to-perception switching time remained at zero, but the perception-to-memory time was more than 400 msec. The pattern of results forced a reconceptualization of the task in terms of memory retrieval rather than attention switching. The attention-switching times appear to reflect processes required to select items from memory.     

Sex differences in jealousy: evolutionary mechanism or artifact of measurement?

Two studies are presented that challenge the evidentiary basis for the existence of evolved sex differences in jealousy. In opposition to the evolutionary view, Study I demonstrated that a sex difference in jealousy resulting from sexual versus emotional infidelity is observed only when judgments are recorded using a forced-choice response format. On all other measures, no sex differences were found; both men and women reported greater jealousy in response to sexual infidelity. A second study revealed that the sex difference on the forced-choice measure disappeared under conditions of cognitive constraint. These findings suggest that the sex difference used to support the evolutionary view of jealousy (e.g., D. M. Buss, R. Larsen, D. Westen, & J. Semmelroth, 1992; D. M. Buss et al., 1999) likely represents a measurement artifact resulting from a format-induced effortful decision strategy and not an automatic, sex-specific response shaped by evolution.