Problem solving as a function of extraversion and masculinity

The present study aimed at investigating the differences in performance on five problem solving tasks in terms of extraversion-introversion and masculinity-femininity of 48 University males and females assigned to meet the requirements of a 2 × 2 × 2 between group factorial design. While the first four problems were solved with a time limit, and then the scores combined to obtain a composite index, in the fifth, the index of performance was both number of trials and time taken to solve the problem. The data were analyzed by ANOVA. The findings are: (i) Introverts are superior to extraverts on the composite performance index of the first four problems. (ii) On the fifth problem (i.e. problem squares) the male subjects performed significantly better than their female counterparts. (iii) A highly significant personality × sex role × sex interaction revealed that in males extraversion determines the level of performance, i.e. introverts perform better than extraverts regardless of their scores on masculinity-femininity; and in females masculinity boosts the performance of the extraverted group, and femininity hinders the performance of this group. (iv) When males and females were matched on E-I and M-F, the expected sex differences failed to emerge.     

Changes in leadership appraisal as a function of the stress of a simulated panic situation.

Research by Mintz and Kelley, Condry, Dahke, and Hill left unresolved the question of what level of personal threat leads to group incoordination of "panic behavior." The present study set out to resolve this issue and to explore the additional relationship between leadership and behavior in the panic situation. The dependent variables were Likert-type questionnaire items designed to investigate the level of responsibility attributed to a leader by members of a group as a function of four variables: (a) two levels of stress (threat of shock or of small monetary loss); (b) two levels of leadership authority (elected or appointed); (c) two conditions of leadership ("me-last" or "me-first"); and (d) group success or failure. The specific questions were adapted from earlier pilot work by Sulzer and Sisti. One hundred and forty-four males were run in this 2 X 2 X 2 X 2 factorial design with a nonfactorial control group. The task setting, which required subjects to retrieve their wooden cones through the same hole, was designed to be analogous to the kind of situation that would occur in a theater fire where only one narrow exit existed. The results support the contention of Kelley that group incoordination (panic) increases under personal threat. Additional results were: (a) Leaders facilitated achieving the goal of safe exit; (b) elected leaders were given more responsibility and were seen as more competent than appointed leaders, but only when the stress is comparatively low, as otherwise the difference in evaluation narrows and reverses; and (c) success or failure seems to have had little effect on the leader's evaluation by the group.     

Problem solving and the search for crucial evidence

Summary Four experiments are reported that examine performance on a complex reasoning task. Subjects have to determine which factory has polluted a river by ordering a series of tests for the presence or absence of various pollutants. Previous research has shown that people typically employ a non-optimal exhaustive search stragegy on this task. Experiments 1 and 2 attempt to identify some of the boundary conditions of this strategy. It is found that the order in which pollutants appear on the matrix list does not seem to be a critical factor, whereas the overall size of the factory-pollutant matrix is. Experiments 3 and 4 attempt to deter people directly from adopting the exhaustive strategy. The results show that even when people are deterred from using the exhaustive method, this will not necessarily result in their adopting a more efficient strategy.     

Problem solving by men and mammals

There are two opposed theories which attempt to account for the processes of problem solution involved in learning and intelligence. The former is neural in its basis and postulates the existence of a bare connection as a bonding or linkage of two experiences. The second theory, that of gestalt, implies that learning or apprehension involves a relationship of the parts of the experience to each other as well as to the whole. While these psychological schools are exclusive of and opposed to each other, yet they are merely extremes of what actually exists. There is a minimum level of learning in which associationism is operative and a maximum intellectual level at which explicit relationships predominate. An examination of experimental results will show this to be the case. The results of conditioned reflex experiments in both animals and man appear to show that there is present nothing beyond arbitrary linkage or bonding between the parts of the situation involved. On the other hand, one finds a certain degree of implicit meaning involved in perceptual situations—the level of animal achievement—as well as a certain measure of transfer of meaning. Explicit meanings may be related by means of word symbols involving the principle of the concept through the medium of speech, and this is only arrived at by human beings. We may regard these higher levels as “emergents” from the level of bonding or linkage.