The Effects of Varying Goal Difficulty Operationalizations on Goal Setting Outcomes and Processes

The three studies reported here investigated the effect of operationalization of goal difficulty on the relationship between goal difficulty and performance. Subjects were assigned goals (easy, moderately difficult, or very difficult) under either an absolute goal level or performance improvement condition. Results indicated that the goal difficulty interacted with operationalization in affecting performance. Specifically, there was a linear relationship between goal difficulty and performance when goals were operationalized in terms of absolute level, but an inverted U-relationship between these two variables when goals were operationalized in terms of performance improvement. This interaction held up despite controlling for normative goal difficulty, performance improvement difficulty and absolute goal level difficulty. The effects of operationalization seemed to be attributable to differences in self-set goal levels, particularly among high ability persons. Taken as a whole, these studies indicate that how assigned goals are derived and how they are communicated to subjects affects goal setting outcomes.     

Blood donation and the foot-in-the-door technique: a limiting case.

Three experiments testing the effectiveness of the foot-in-the-door technique for recruiting blood donors consistently failed to demonstrate that this procedure influences either verbal or behavioral compliance, suggesting that the generality of the foot-in-the-door phenomenon is limited. Experiment 1 attempted to demonstrate that an earlier failure of this technique was due to poor operationalization rather than to the magnitude of the critical request or to the invalidity of the phenomenon, but it failed to do so. Experiment 2, designed to more closely resemble other foot-in-the-door studies by using telephone contacts and an initial request for persons to answer questions, was conducted to examine other possible explanations for the two previous failures. This experiment also failed to show any foot-in-the-door effect. Experiment 3 was a conceptual replication of Experiment 2 but used personal contacts. One apparent foot-in-the-door effect emerged in this case, but it was more likely due to a factor other than the experimental treatment. It is concluded that although the foot-in-the-door procedure may indeed influence verbal compliance with requests for minimal forms of aid, it probably will not significantly affect people's willingness to comply with more substantial requests involving behaviors that are psychologically costly to perform.     

Aquinas on Hating Sin in Summa Theologiae II-II Q34 A3 and I-II Q23 A1

This essay explores the phenomenological features of the passional response to evil that Aquinas calls ‘hatred of sin’ in Summa Thelogiae II-II Q34 A3 and I-II Q23 A1, among other places. Social justice concerns and philosophical objections, however, challenge the notion that one can feel hatred toward an agent’s vice or sin without it being the agent who is hated. I argue that a careful, contextual reading of these texts shows that Aquinas cannot be read as commending ‘hate’ in any form. The texts under consideration offer no comfort to those who appeal to hatred of sin or vice to legitimate sentiments or actions that can be reasonably taken to express hatred of persons.     

Getting the story right: a Reductionist narrative account of personal identity

A popular “Reductionist” account of personal identity unifies person stages into persons in virtue of their psychological continuity with one another. One objection to psychological continuity accounts is that there is more to our personal identity than just mere psychological continuity: there is also an active process of self-interpretation and self-creation. This criticism can be used to motivate a rival account of personal identity that appeals to the notion of a narrative. To the extent that they comment upon the issue, proponents of narrative accounts typically reject Reductionist metaphysics that (ontologically) reduce persons to aggregates of person stages. In contrast to this trend, we seek to develop a narrative account of personal identity from within Reductionist metaphysics: we think person stages are unified into persons in virtue of their narrative continuity with one another. We argue that this Reductionist version of the narrative account avoids some serious problems facing non-Reductionist versions of the narrative account.     

A nonspatial methodology for the analysis of two-way proximity data incorporating the distance-density hypothesis

This paper presents a nonspatial operationalization of the Krumhansl (1978, 1982) distancedensity model of similarity. This model assumes that the similarity between two objectsi andj is a function of both the interpoint distance betweeni andj and the density of other stimulus points in the regions surroundingi andj. We review this conceptual model and associated empirical evidence for such a specification. A nonspatial, tree-fitting methodology is described which is sufficiently flexible to fit a number of competing hypotheses of similarity formation. A sequential, unconstrained minimization algorithm is technically presented together with various program options. Three applications are provided which demonstrate the flexibility of the methodology. Finally, extensions to spatial models, three-way analyses, and hybrid models are discussed.     

Differentiation in judgements of self and others: The role of self-consciousness

This study investigated the role of individual differences in Private and Public self-consciousness (SC) on differentiation of self and others in judgements of personality. Ss judged themselves and six other familiar persons on personality constructs derived from a modified Rep Grid procedure. Results showed that the judgements of high scorers on Private SC exhibited greater within-self and self-other differentiation than those of low scorers. There was no significant influence of Private SC on differentiation of other stimulus persons. Public SC had no significant influence on any of the measures of differentiation. The findings were discussed in terms of previous research on self-awareness, the specificity of measures of self-consciousness, and Duval and Wicklund's attentional model of self-awareness.     

两种自我保护机制：记忆忽视和自我免疫

当自我概念的稳定性受到威胁时,人们有时会采取自我保护手段来加以应对。在诸多自我保护方式中,记忆忽视加工是指个体在接触具威胁性的信息时进行选择性记忆,自然地忽视此类信息而不让其进入精加工,以消除该信息对自我概念的伤害;自我免疫加工是指个体通过对具威胁性信息的适宜操作界定来强调自己的优势能力,并重新评估自己的弱点,从而策略性地实现自我概念的稳定。文章从两种加工的认知机制角度来介绍和评述该领域的研究概况、研究方法与研究展望,借以引起对自我保护机制研究新进展的关注     

Relational Autonomy and the Social Dynamics of Paternalism

In this paper I look at various ways that interpersonal and social relations can be seen as required for autonomy. I then consider cases where those dynamics might play out or not in potentially paternalistic situations. In particular, I consider cases of especially vulnerable persons who are attempting to reconstruct a sense of practical identity required for their autonomy and need the potential paternalist’s aid in doing so. I then draw out the implications for standard liberal principles of (anti-) paternalism, specifically in clinical or therapeutic situations. The picture of potential paternalism that emerges here is much more of a dynamic, interpersonal scenario rather than a case of two separate individuals making decisions independent of each other.     

The perceived attractiveness and traits of the Dark Triad: Narcissists are perceived as hot,Machiavellians and psychopaths not

The current work investigated how a fictitious opposite-sex narcissist, Machiavellian, and psychopath are perceived in an experimental between subjects-design with three groups (total N = 184). Participants rated personality traits (Big Five and Agency/Communion) and different domains of interpersonal attraction (likeability, attractiveness, friend value, short-term mate value, long-term mate value) of the target persons. While all three target persons were not perceived particularly favorably by participants, the narcissist was consistently perceived more favorably than the Machiavellian and the psychopath who were perceived quite similarly to each other. It is discussed why narcissists may be judged more favorably and Machiavellians and psychopaths converge in people’s lay perceptions.     

Why a family perspective for pain?

Although it is well established that families have a strong influence on individuals' beliefs and behaviors related to health and illness, relatively little attention has been devoted to the family's role in the development, maintenance, and treatment of pain or to the impact of chronic pain in one family member upon other family members. A major source of information about pain and how to respond to pain symptoms is learned within the family setting. This article reviews ways in which pain conceptualizations are developed in the family and highlights the need to more carefully study health as well as dysfunctional family reactions to chronic pain. A case example is presented that details the far reaching consequences that chronic pain can have on family life. It is concluded that more careful research, particularly in terms of the operationalization of theoretical constructs and the reliable assessment of these constructs, is needed before any definitive statements can be made about the importance and characteristics of pain-family transactions.     

Referees' Decision Making in Handball and Transgressive Behaviors: Influence of Stereotypes About Gender of Players?

We offer norm theory as a framework for developing some common ground within both feminist psychology and lesbian and gay psychology about the meaning of empirical differences between social groups. Norm theory is a social cognitive theory that predicts that empirical differences will be consistently explained by taking more typical groups (e.g., men, straight people) as implicit norms for comparison and by attributing differences to less typical groups (e.g., women, lesbians, and gay men). Results of an experiment (N = 114) are presented to show that norms shape interpretations of empirical differences between lesbian/gay and straight persons by (1) leading explanations to focus on attributes of lesbian/gay persons, and (2) leading to judgments that straight persons have less mutable attributes. Stereotypes also affected interpretations; stereotype-consistent results led to more essentialistic explanations and, when targets were female, to higher ratings of the results' importance and fundamentality. We highlight how experiments can be used to understand the process of constructing the meaning of scientific data, and make recommendations for empiricists' interpretive practices and constructionist theories in feminist psychology and lesbian and gay psychology.     

Immunizing the self: self-concept stabilization through reality-adaptive self-definitions

Processes of self-concept immunization are introduced as a way of reconciling self-concept protection against threatening information with the necessity of acknowledging own failure or losses. Self-immunization works by adaptively changing the subjective operationalization of personal traits, such that skills that individuals believe themselves to be good at are conceived as highly diagnostic, whereas skills that persons do not believe they possess are considered less diagnostic. Three studies are presented to investigate this stabilizing process. Correlational as well as experimental and longitudinal data support the assumption that self-immunization stabilizes central and abstract aspects of the self-concept without ignoring negative information on concrete skills.     

The redundancy of work alienation and job satisfaction: Some evidence of convergent and discriminant validity

The multitrait-multimethod matrix (MTMM) technique was used in an attempt to help clarify the ambiguities regarding concepts of work alienation, job satisfaction, and the relationships between them. Within each attitude domain considered separately, generally acceptable evidence of convergent and (to a lesser degree) discriminant validity was found for the trait measures (four dimensions of alienation and five of satisfaction). However, the discrimination between alienation and satisfaction measures was no greater than that among satisfaction and among alienation, casting doubt on the demarcation of these as two distinct domains. The measures of satisfaction and alienation also were not correlated differentially with demographic and self-esteem measures. Note was taken of the limitations in our knowledge and operationalization of these areas, as these relate to the assumptions of MTMM technique regarding independence of both underlying trait constructs and measurement methods.     

Balance,agreement, and attraction in hypothetical social situations

Sixty subjects rated hypothetical P-O-X situations involving two persons and an unspecified but important “thing” for pleasantness, tension, and consistency. The situations varied in terms of whether P and O liked or disliked each other and whether P and O agreed or disagreed regarding X. Half of the subjects rated eight situations used by Gutman and Knox (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1972, 24, 351–357) in which a unit relation was induced between P and O by describing them as necessarily having to continue interacting with one another in the future. The other half of the subjects rated situations that were identical to those of the unit condition, except that stipulation of continued interaction was omitted, so that no unit relation was specifically induced. Results showed that preferences for agreement and attraction were stronger for pleasantness and tension ratings than for consistency ratings, while the preference for balance was stronger for consistency ratings than for pleasantness and tension ratings. When no unit relation was specified, the balance preference increased, whereas the attraction preference decreased. Moreover, the effect of attraction decreased more from the unit to the no unit condition for pleasantness than for tension ratings and more for tension than for consistency ratings. The results underscore the need to consider the influence of both the described characteristics of hypothetical social situations and the type of dependent measure employed on the weighting of preferences for balance, agreement, and attraction.     

The effects of interviewers' initial impressions on information gathering

M. Synder and W. B. Swann, Jr. (1978, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 36, 1202–1212) suggest that people adopt information seeking strategies that confirm their hypotheses. To investigate whether or not these findings can be extended to employment interviews, an experiment was conducted examining the effects of interviewers' initial impressions and their decision task on the questions they formulate to assess applicants for a sales position. Twenty-six persons with varied interviewing experience reviewed the paper credentials of three applicants and then stated the questions they would ask each one. In separate sessions, ninety-two persons took the role of interviewee and responded to these questions. Contrary to the findings of P. Sackett (1982, Personnel Psychology, 35, 789–803) and T. McDonald and M. D. Hakel (1985, Personnel Psychology, 38, 321–334), the questions that interviewers asked of an applicant with poor credentials were biased in a more negative direction than the questions that were asked of moderately and highly qualified applicants. Consistent with these studies, however, no evidence was found for the strong confirmatory biases revealed in the Snyder and Swann (1978) research.     

Exploratory behavior as a function of motivational orientations and task conditions

Twenty-four boys and 24 girls from the 5th and 10th grades, one-half of whom were predominantly intrinsically motivated (IM) while the other half were predominantly extrinsically motivated (EM), were given an interesting task under task-imposed, task-offered and neutral conditions, and their exploratory behavior was observed during an intermission period. IM Ss both explored less and showed less satisfaction under the task-imposed condition than under the other two conditions, preferred a high level of difficulty across all conditions and showed higher diversive curiosity at 15 yr than at 10 yr of age. EM Ss explored about the same amount in all conditions, were less satisfied under the task-imposed condition than under the other conditions, preferred lower-difficulty tasks in the neutral condition than in the other conditions, showed more diversive curiosity at 10 yr than at 15 yr of age and showed more specific curiosity at 15 yr than at 10 yr of age. Personality integration and variation seeking appear to characterize relatively IM persons more than relatively EM persons. Age and gender differences are discussed, and conceptual analysis of performance expectations as a function of IM, task conditions and personality domains is offered.     

Improving outgroup attitudes in schools: A meta-analytic review

To provide information for educators, educational psychologists, school psychologists, and social psychologists, we conducted a quantitative meta-analytic test of n = 50 studies dating from 1995 to 2015 that evaluated the effects of in-school interventions on attitudes toward outgroup members (defined as members of different ethnic or religious backgrounds or different age groups, persons with either physical or mental disabilities, or persons with other distinctive features). Overall, the analysis revealed a mean effect size of d + = 0.36 with a 95% confidence interval that ranged from 0.17 to 0.55, indicating significant, moderate intervention effects, supporting the proposition that meaningful changes in outgroup attitudes can be obtained by applying anti-bias programs in schools. Results from our analysis did not provide evidence that teacher-led interventions produce positive outcomes, yet we found that interventions delivered by researchers promote positive attitudes toward outgroup members. Further, a closer examination demonstrated that one-on-one interventions are most effective at tackling intergroup attitudes. However, classroom-wide programs are more likely to be introduced into regular school activities because of their efficiency and the limited resources available for interventions.