The Relationship Between the Consequences Adolescents Expect from Smoking and Their Behavior: A Factor Analysis with Panel Data1

The expected consequences of behavior are basic to many modern theories of behavior and to programs designed to influence behavior. In this research, 52 consequences expected from smoking cigarettes were measured in a panel study of 1,406 adolescents. Six factors were identified through factor analysis of these consequences. Multivariate analyses generally indicated that the negative physical/social factor predicted the initiation of smoking and the pleasure factor predicted smoking initiation and increased smoking among those who were smokers at the beginning of study. The other factors-positive peer relationships, negative peer relationships, habit, and health-were either unrelated to subsequent smoking behavior or inconsistently related across the multiple measures of behavior. The research is considered in the context of theory, methods, and programs related to adolescent cigarette smoking.     

The effect of task and maternal verbosity on compliance in toddlers

The purpose of the study was to examine the relationship between compliance in toddlers and maternal verbosity as well as the type of task. Mothers and their toddlers completed a warm‐up task, a proactive toy clean‐up task, and a prohibitive forbidden objects task. Mothers were assigned to one of two verbosity conditions (high versus low) and to one of two nurturance conditions (high versus low) where the rates of verbosity and nurturance were experimentally manipulated. It was hypothesized that toddlers would demonstrate higher noncompliance when given high levels of verbosity than toddlers given low levels of verbosity. It was expected that toddlers would demonstrate higher noncompliance when given low levels of nurturance than toddlers given high levels of nurturance. It was also expected that toddlers would demonstrate more noncompliance in the prohibitive task than they would in the proactive task. Results indicated that the rates of child compliance were related to the level of maternal verbosity with greater noncompliance being exhibited by children who received high levels of verbosity than those who received low levels of verbosity. Child compliance rates were also related to the type of task, with greater noncompliance exhibited in the proactive task versus the prohibitive task. Excessive detail about what children should or should not do appears to be related to child behavior and supports Patterson's premise of ‘nattering’. Child behavior also was related to the type of task in which the child was engaged. These findings have direct implications for individuals working with or raising very young children. Copyright © 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Focus of attention, chronic expectancy, and responses to a feared stimulus.

An attentional model of fear-based behavior is proposed and a study that tested the model is reported. It was predicted that among subjects with moderate fear of snakes, heightened self-attention during an approach attempt would cause increased awareness of existing anxiety, followed by one of two courses of events: Subjects who believed that they could do the behavior in spite of their fear were expected to redirect their attention to the behavior--goal comparison and exhibit no behavioral deficit. Subjects who doubted their ability to do the behavior were expected to divert their attention from the behavior--goal comparison and to withdraw behaviorally from the approach attempt. The results of the study support this reasoning. Discussion centers on relationships between the proposed model and previous theory.     

The role of fair treatment and rewards in perceptions of organizational support and leader-member exchange

This study examined a model of the antecedents and consequences of perceived organizational support (POS) and leader-member exchange (LMX). It was predicted that organizational justice (procedural and distributive justice) and organizational practices that provide recognition to the employee (feelings of inclusion and recognition from upper management) would influence POS. For LMX, it was predicted that leader reward (distributive justice and contingent rewards) and punishment behavior would be important antecedents. Results based on a sample of 211 employee-supervisor dyads indicated that organizational justice, inclusion, and recognition were related to POS and contingent rewards were related to LMX. In terms of consequences, POS was related to employee commitment and organizational citizenship behavior, whereas LMX predicted performance ratings.     

Turkish University Students' Attitudes Toward Rape

In this study we investigated the effects of gender and gender roles upon attitudes toward rape among 432 female and 368 male college students in Turkey whose mean age was 22.08 (SD = 2.09). The Bem Sex Role Inventory (BSRI) and measures of attributions toward date rape and stranger rape, and myths scenarios were used. All 3 scenarios were given to each participant. It was hypothesized that women would attribute less responsibility than men would to the rape victim, more responsibility to the assailant, and describe the assault as a serious crime. Women and men who have masculine gender roles were expected to attribute more responsibility to the rape victim and less responsibility to the assailant and show higher tolerance of the assault than would those in the other classified gender roles. Both men and women were expected to attribute more responsibility to the victim of a date rape and less responsibility to the date rape assailant and show higher tolerance of date rape than stranger rape. Results indicated that gender, but not gender role, was an important factor in Turkish college students' attitudes toward date rape. Women and men shared a similar point of view on stranger rape, but date rape was considered less serious than stranger rape. Gender role was not a significant factor in attitudes toward rape.     

Self-serving bias in the attribution of responsibility: Cognitive versus motivational explanations

The purpose of this study is to compare the cognitive and motivational explanations of differences in the responsibility assigned to the victim of a crime. It has generally been found that the victim of a crime is assigned more responsibility for that crime by similar others if its consequences are severe. The motivational explanation for this finding is that subjects are threatened by the idea that a serious crime can happen by chance. The cognitive explanation is that serious crimes are rarer and subjects attribute more of the responsibility for rarer events to those who experience them. This study tested these two explanations by independently varying the severity and the likelihood of a crime and examining attributions of responsibility to its victim. The results of the study support the cognitive explanation. Similar others were found to attribute more responsibility for a crime to the victim when that crime was presented as rare, irrespective of whether its consequences were mild or severe. In addition, when likelihood was controlled experimentally no effect of severity upon attributions of responsibility was found. These results suggest that, within the context of attributions of responsibility to victims, patterns of attribution consistent with those predicted by theories suggesting motivational influences upon attribution may actually represent the operation of cognitive processes.     

Decreased helpfulness with increased group size through lessening the effects of the needy individual's dependency1

The present experiment attempted to integrate the research on helpfulness in which subjects work for someone else in an artificial laboratory setting (Berkowitz & Daniels, 1963; Berkowitz, 1972) with the bystander-intervention-in-emergencies studies often carried out under more realistic conditions (e.g., Latané & Darley, 1970; Schwartz & Clausen, 1970; Clark & Word, 1972). Fifty-six university women in a 2 × 2 factorial design were led to think they were working for a same-sex peer who could win a cash prize, although there was “nothing in it for them.” Half were told that the other's chance of getting the prize was greatly dependent upon their effort while the remaining participants were informed that the other did not need their-work very much. Moreover, half of the subjects thought they were the only ones working for the other whereas the remaining people believed there were two other co-workers and that the output from all three would be averaged. It was expected that the participants would feel the greatest personal responsibility to help the other and would work hardest for her when she was greatly dependent upon their productivity and they were the only worker, while the subjects would feel the lowest level of personal responsibility for their peer and would be least helpful to her when she was not particularly dependent upon them and there were two other co-workers. The findings are generally in accord with these expectations.     

Trait attributions and defense against insult from a dissimilar other

It was hypothesized that subjects would prefer to blame a character assault on negative ability characteristics of a dissimilar attacker as opposed to negative motivational characteristics in order to escape responsibility for the attack. It was reasoned that because we generally think of ourselves as having less potential influence over the abilities as opposed to the motivations of another person, it might be possible to diminish one's responsibility for another's behavior by attributing that behavior to that person's ability characteristics. Subjects in this experiment responded either to an insulting or noninsulting stimulus person who was either similar or dissimilar by selecting from a list of both motivational and ability bipolar trait dimensions, those dimensions they would most prefer to use in rating the stimulus person. As predicted, subjects responding to an insulting and dissimilar stimulus person showed a significantly greater preference for ability trait dimensions than subjects in the other conditions combined and also disliked the stimulus person more. The significance of these results for defensive attribution processes and phenomena such as racism and sexism are discussed.     

Motives and social evaluation: Actor-observer differences in the delineation of motives for a beneficial act

Adequate social evaluation of an intentional act depends on a specification of the actor's motives, that is, the consequences he or she anticipated when performing the purposeful behavior. Prior work in experimental social psychology has often underestimated the important social functions served by motive statements, including how they influence and regulate social conduct, permit adequate social analysis of purposeful behavior, and project desired identities. Two experiments examined actor-observer differences in the delineation of motives for the positive act of helping another person. In both studies, it was found that actors attributed their behavior largely to positive motives (e.g., to help the other) and minimized nonpositive ones (e.g., to make a favorable impression), while observers' attributions showed little or no differentiation as a function of the valence of the motives. Actors' self-enhancing attributions were somewhat more pronounced when the consequences were large, and occurred under private as well as public assessment conditions. Also, a reversal of the “typical” actor-observer effect was found in that actors attributed more personal than situational responsibility, while observers did the opposite. This pattern occurred under private assessment conditions and was even more pronounced when the actors' interpretations would be public. The results suggest the presence of motivational biases in the interpretation of social events, and are difficult to explain through recourse to the standard “logical” information processing alternatives.     

How innovation can alleviate negative consequences of demanding work contexts: The influence of climate for innovation on organizational outcomes

This study examines climate for innovation as a method by which negative organizational consequences of demanding work may be lessened. It was expected that a climate for innovation would enable employees to develop coping mechanisms or improved work‐related processes which counteract negative consequences of work demands. Extending the job demands‐resource model ( Karasek, 1979 ), we predicted and found that among the sample of 22,696 respondents from 131 healthcare organizations, organizational climate for innovation alleviated the negative effects of work demands on organizational performance. Thus, this study informs climate theories and guides practitioners' efforts to support the employees.     

Conformism moderates the relations between values, anticipated regret, and behavior

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the moderating effect of Conformism values on the relations between other values and behavior. The authors expected people low, but not high, in Conformism to behave in a manner that is consistent with their personal values related to self-transcendence versus self-enhancement. In Study 1 (N = 199), such values predicted actual altruistic behavior, as estimated by other-reports, but only if Conformism values were low. In Study 2 (N = 189), only people who considered Conformism values to be relatively unimportant showed expected connections between self-transcendence values and anticipated regret in hypothetical scenarios having negative consequences. The data are interpreted as supporting the view that (a) anticipated regret motivates value-consistent behavior, (b) self-transcendence values in particular are connected to altruistic behavior and to anticipated regret, but (c) conformity to social norms moderates these connections.     

Normative explanations of helping behavior: A critique,proposal, and empirical test

Criticisms of normative explanations of helping behavior are examined, and an explanation responsive to these criticisms is proposed. This explanation specifies conditions which affect the activation of personal norms and hence their influence on behavior. One hypothesis based on the explanation was tested: the impact of norms on behavior is a function of the tendency to deny or to ascribe responsibility to the self (AR). AR and personal norms toward donating bone marrow to a stranger were measured in a mailed questionnaire. Three months later, 132 women received mailed appeals to join a pool of potential donors from an unrelated source. As predicted, volunteering was a function of the AR × personal norm interaction (p < .0001). Personal norms had no impact on volunteering among those low on AR (deniers), but a substantial impact among those high on AR. Neither intentions to donate, attitudes toward transplants, nor various sociodemographic variables added to the variance in volunteering accounted for by the AR × personal norm interaction.     

Activated Self-Concept as a Mechanism Underlying Prevention Message Effects

Recent theorizing has posited that messages influence behavior via currently activated self-concepts. This proposition was tested in the context of evaluating real-world anti-marijuana television ads. A pretest yielded two themes (autonomy and responsibility) with two exemplars each. It was hypothesized that any effects of themes on behavioral willingness to use marijuana would be mediated by accessibility of a nonuser self-concept. An experiment was conducted in which participants (N = 129) viewed one of three clips that 1) contained embedded ads about nonuse supporting autonomy; 2) contained embedded ads about nonuse supporting responsibility to others; or 3) retained original commercials (control). Outcomes included reaction-time measures that assessed nonuser self-concept and willingness to use marijuana in social situations. Among those who identified as not a “druggie” and who were unwilling to smoke a joint at a party with friends, analyses revealed that exposure to the responsibility ads resulted in slower reaction times to endorse these positions, contrary to what might be expected from prevention messages. Among these participants, exposure effects on willingness were mediated by self-concept, as predicted.     

The PrE Model of Coping and Tornado Preparedness: Moderating Effects of Responsibility

The person-relative-to-event (PrE) model of coping with threat was used to investigate the impact of fear arousing or negative threat appeals on tornado preparedness behavior. It was predicted that negative threat appeals using combinations of levels of factors that cause a person to appraise their resources as sufficient in quantity and quality to obviate or minimize the negative consequences of the threatening event would increase levels of preparedness behavior to a greater extent than communications that do not. Furthermore, this prediction would only hold true for those individuals who felt personally responsible for preparing for tornadoes. Results indicated a significant pattern of behavior change that fit predictions generated by the model.     

责任对后悔强度的影响：来自ERP的证据

采用事件相关电位技术,研究责任对后悔的影响。实验采用赌博范式,主要因素是被试对于负性结果所负责任的大小,分为三个水平：1（只有被试一人犯错）、1/2（被试和另外一个人犯错）以及1/3（三人同时犯错）。研究结果发现,被试主观评定的情绪强度和责任感上,1条件下的显著大于1/2和1/3条件下的,而1/2和1/3条件无显著差异;被试的反事实思维则在三个水平上差异显著,责任越大,反事实思维越强。fERN（feedback error-related negativity,反馈错误相关负波,也称FRN,反馈负波）的波幅在1条件下的显著大于1/2和1/3条件下的,而1/2和1/3条件下的无显著差异;而P300的波幅则在三种水平上差异显著,责任越大,波幅越小。结果支持责任对后悔强度有所影响,且后悔强度在一定程度上随责任大小呈线性变化。