Tachistoscopic vs. Conventional Presentation of Incomplete Sentence Stimuli

Summary

The Rotter Incomplete Sentences Blank (ISB) was administered to college students under tachistoscopic (T) and conventional (C) modes of presentation. In the T-mode, sentence stems were completed with random letters. No significant differences were found due to sex, sets (items 1–20 vs items 21–40), modes, or order of presenting sets or modes. Within the male data only, Set 2 had significantly higher scores than Set 1, and the C-mode produced higher scores than the T-mode. Implications are discussed.     

Frequency of Exposure and Evaluation of Candidates and Campaign Speeches1

Three slides, each showing the photograph of a college-age male, were shown either 5, 10, or 25 times to a total of 95 students (S s). After the presentation, the slides, plus a fourth not previously shown, were presented as photographs of candidates in a campus election, each being paired with a campaign speech. Three speeches consisted of bland platitudes, whereas the fourth argued in favor of a large tuition increase. Ratings of the speeches and the candidates indicated that subjects were accurate in ranking the relative frequency of exposure of the four slides and that the controversial speech elicited less agreement and less favorable ratings than the three other messages. There were U-shaped curvilinear effects of exposure on S s' agreement with the messages, and with ratings of the persuasiveness of the message. Neither exposure nor speech effects were found in ratings of the candidates themselves. Implications of these findings for the frequency of exposure hypothesis (Zajonc, 1968) and for political campaigns are discussed.     

The Representation of the Body Self in Human Figure Drawings

The matching of 25 frontal drawings of the female human figure with 25 frontal photographs of the college women who drew the figures was attempted by 30 male graduate psychology students and 30 women religious graduate students of art. The drawings and photos were arranged in envelopes according to a balanced lattice design, and presented to each of the judges in different envelopes in an order determined by randomized latin squares. Both groups matched the drawings with the photographs of the same Ss at significantly higher than chance expectancy (p<.01). These findings suggest that this matching technique may be of some value in testing the hypothesis of objective body self projection in human figure drawings.     

Trait Self‐Control Predicts Adolescents’ Exposure and Reactivity to Daily Stressful Events

The current study used an influence model of personality and stress processes to examine the association between individual differences in trait self‐control and daily stress exposure and reactivity in adolescent youth. A total of 129 adolescents (M_age = 14.7 years, 59% female) completed individual difference measures of self‐control, neuroticism, and measures of responses to stress. Participants then reported on daily stressful events, stress severity, mood, coping, and mindlessness (a predictor of acting on impulse) for 14 consecutive days. Self‐control predicted less exposure to daily stress, less reactivity to daily stress, and more adaptive responses to stress. Specifically, adolescents with higher self‐control experienced fewer daily stressors and reported lower stress severity, particularly when daily mindlessness was high. Second, adolescents with higher self‐control reported less mindlessness in response to daily stress relative to those with lower self‐control, but they did not show differences in emotional reactivity to stress. Finally, results also offered evidence for an indirect effect of problem‐focused coping strategies between self‐control and emotional reactivity to stress. The current investigation illustrates the importance of trait self‐control in daily stress processes among adolescents and suggests possible mechanisms through which self‐control confers these positive effects.     

SORTO: Factor Analyzing Q Sorts of Kelly's Personal Construct Productions

A procedure for evaluating personality is described. Conventional and transposed factor analyses are made from Q sort data describing the important people in the subject's life in terms of his own constructs (á la Kelly) as variables. The scoring procedure produces construct-factors and people-factors. Sorts from a subject illustrate the method. Cross-cultural applications are possible since the translation of personal constructs is not essential. Simulation of relationships to others, SORTO, combines Kelly's (1955) personal constructs with Stephenson's (1953) Q sort procedure. A large amount of personal data is factor analyzed by the computer to reveal the main idiosyncratic features of a subject's perceptions of his relationships to others. Maximum output from the analysis occurs when the nature of personal constructs employed is supplied as input to the analysis.     

A Structural Validation of an Inventory Based on the Abridged Five Factor Circumplex Model (AB5C)

Nineteen upper-middle class, pre-marital, college couples volunteered to participate in a study on interpersonal relationships. Couples received a modified Rorschach, thematic test, Marriage Value Inventory, a sex questionnaire, and an intensive depth interview. A Q sort of 100 personality items was used to assess the Ss. It was hypothesized that couples would show smaller discrepancies than randomized pairs, except for items relating to dominance, dependency, nurturance, exhibitionism, masculinity and femininity, where the reverse was predicted. Results confirmed the homogamy prediction, but only the dependency need was significant of the complementary predictions. Perception scores and expressive behavior are seen as potential adjuncts to questionnaires and inventories in predicting marital choice.     

Agoraphobia and Locus of Control

This study investigated whether external locus of control, as measured with the Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale, is a specific feature of agoraphobia or whether it characterizes neurosis in general. Forty agoraphobic patients, 81 nonagoraphobic neurotic controls, and 49 normal controls completed the Dutch version of the Rotter Internal-External Locus of Control Scale. Agoraphobic patients were found to have a more external orientation as compared to the normal controls, but as a group, they could not be identified as being different from neurotic controls.This study was supported in part by a grant from the Dutch Organization for Fundamental Research (ZWO/Psychon 560-268-001).     

Address by Recipient of Great Man Award: A Rational Explanation of the Irrational: Freud's and Jung's Own Dreams Reinterpreted

Two hypotheses were tested: (a) That information critical of self will disrupt the body boundary; (b) That information which is self-enhancing will bolster the body boundary. Male and female Ss were exposed to tape recorded messages containing either self-critical or self-enhancing information. Holtzman Inkblots were administered before and during exposure to the taped messages. The state of the boundary was measured by means of the Fisher-Cleveland Barrier score. There were also two control conditions in which the taped input did not contain information either critical or enhancing of self. The results supported the hypothesis concerning the boundary disrupting impact of self-critical information; but they were not congruent with the hypothesis concerning the boundary bolstering effect of self-enhancing input.     

A COMPARISON OF PROCEDURES FOR TRAINING EFFICIENT WORD PROCESSING

The efficiency with which words can be identified is assessed in basic research by measuring identification reaction time or by determining the probability of a correct response when targets are presented tachistoscopically for very brief exposure durations. Subjects in this experiment‐‐eight high school students and one elementary student whose mean reading comprehension scores were at the 4.6 grade level‐‐received practice in making both speeded and tachistoscopic identifications of high and low frequency words. These two training conditions were compared to each other and to a third control condition where target stimuli were presented at a self‐paced rate with no experimental press for efficient processing. Comparisons were made on the time required to silently read simple sentences containing the trained words. Although reaction time training yielded faster identifications of high and low frequency words in isolation, differential transfer to sentence reading was not obtained. It is argued that the cost of using the experimental technology in classrooms remains to be justified.     

The Rôle of Clasping Activity in Adaptive Behavior of the Infant Chimpanzee: I. Delayed Response

Forty male and 40 female volunteer college students were divided into two groups. Half were exposed to actual tape recorded verbal reports of violent events, and half to similar reports of nonviolent happenings. Ss who had been angered by insult prior to being exposed to violent tapes displayed significantly more aggression than Ss in an insult, nonviolent condition and Ss in a no-insult, violent condition on a subsequent “extrasensory learning” task supposedly involving shocks for incorrect responses. An unexpected finding was that Ss who had not been insulted administered significantly higher “shocks” after exposure to nonviolent reports than Ss in the no-insult, violent group. No significant sex differences were found. Results were interpreted as failing to support the catharsis hypothesis, and comparisons with the effects of visually witnessed violence were made.     

Effects of repeated exposure to sexually violent or nonviolent stimuli on sexual arousal to rape and nonrape depictions

The major purpose of this investigation was to examine the effects of repeated exposure to sexually violent stimuli (SVS) in relatively ‘naturalistic settings’ on sexual arousal to rape and nonrape stimuli. Repeated exposure effects using nonviolent erotica were also examined. Sixty-nine male Ss participated in the study. A preexposure session was conducted in which Ss were exposed to written and pictorial depictions of rape and mutually-consenting intercourse. Based on Ss' penile tumescence to these depictions, they were classified as either Force-oriented, Nonforce-oriented or Unclassifiable. Subsequently, Ss were randomly assigned to sexually violent (SVS), sexually nonviolent (SNVS) or control conditions within each force-orientation group. Those assigned to the SVS condition were then exposed to 10 SVS including feature-length films and written and pictorial depictions over a period of 4 weeks. Ss in the SNVS condition were exposed to 10 similar media presentations depicting sexually nonviolent activities only. Ss in the control condition were not exposed to any stimuli during this 4-week period. Soon after completion of the exposure phase, Ss returned for a postexposure laboratory session in which they were presented with four depictions that were similar in theme to those in the preexposure session. Penile tumescence scores and self-reports of sexual arousal were obtained. Results revealed that, for Force-oriented Ss, those exposed to either SVS or SNVS were less aroused to the rape depictions in the postexposure session than those in the control condition. A similar pattern occurred with the nonrape depictions for these Ss, though it was considerably less pronounced. No evidence of a similar ‘satiation’ pattern was obtained for either Nonforce-oriented or Unclassifiable Ss, with these Ss showing no significant differences among the three exposure conditions. The findings are discussed in the context of cognitions, personality differences, conditioning processes, stimulus parameters and response habituation theories. Social and clinical implications are also discussed.     

To Picture or Not to Picture: Levels of Erotophobia and Breast Self-Examination Brochure Techniques1

People's level of erotophobia influences their acceptance of sexually related situations, including the likelihood of engaging in sexually related health care such as breast self-examinations (BSE). Female college students (n= 61) completed a measure of erotophobia and read a BSE brochure that either did or did not contain instructional photographs showing a woman's breasts. As hypothesized when the brochure contained photographs, women high in erotophobia felt less competent in giving themselves BSE and were less likely to claim that they did things to improve their health. When the brochure contained no photographs, women low in erotophobia thought that the information was easier to understand and that BSE was more important.     

A Psychometric Comparison of Narcotic Addicts With Hospital Attendants

This study sought to determine the effect of a single intraperitoneal injection of methylchloroethamine on the long-term activity response of immature, male, Holtzmann albino rats. The 10 experimental Ss showed a significant progressive decline in activity up to 110 days after injection. The activity of the control Ss over the same period showed random variation. A subsidiary finding was a significantly faster weight gain for the experimental Ss than for the control Ss.     

Psychoticism, creativity and dichotic shadowing

Thirty Ss were presented with pairs of words simultaneously under the instruction to shadow one ear while ignoring the other (the Focused Attention condition) or to shadow one ear while attempting to remember the other (the Divided Attention condition). Ss also completed the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire and two tests of creativity from the Wallach and Kogan battery. It was hypothesized that Ss high on EPQ Psychoticism and on creativity should make more shadowing errors of omission and intrusion. Creative Ss made significantly more errors of intrusion under the divided attention condition, but Ss scoring high on the Similarities subtest showed significantly fewer errors in the Focussed Attention condition. An ‘impulsivity’ interpretation of the data is tentatively advanced, and it is shown how this interpretation may explain a number of the anomalous findings in the psychoticism literature.     

A Comparative Study of Groups of High and Low Intelligence in Learning a Maze

In accordance with the determination of base-line heart rate and running in an activity wheel, 14 Long-Evans male rats were given ten 30 minute sessions of Immobile-Avoid conditioning followed by 30 minute sessions of Active-Avoid conditioning. Control Ss were yoked to the experimental Ss.

Experimental Ss made significantly fewer responses in the immobile-avoid period and significantly more responses in the active-avoid period than did the yoked control Ss. Heart rate was correlated with skeletal activity both for experimental and control Ss. For experimental Ss, low heart rate was concomitant with a low amount of activity in the immobile-avoid period and high heart rate was concomitant with greater skeletal activity in the active-avoid period.

These results support the position that heart rate is secondary to responses of the somatic-motor system and that heart rate during immobile-avoid or active avoid conditioning is more closely related to the level of somatic-motor activity than to the emotional stress which purportedly motivates instrumental avoidance behavior.     

Upward and downward social comparisons can decrease prosocial behavior

This experiment addressed whether upward or downward social comparisons can affect people's prosocial behavior toward the comparison targets. Undergraduates (N = 123) completed an inkblot test and then were randomly assigned to conditions in which they were told that their performance was either inferior or superior to their peers. A control group was given no performance feedback. Participants' self‐reported prosocial behaviors were measured 2 days later. Results indicated that both the upward and downward comparison groups engaged in significantly less prosocial behavior than did the control group and that empathy toward their peers mediated this effect. Our findings suggest that upward or downward comparison can make people feel less empathic toward the targets and thus less inclined to help them.     

Emphasis on Experimental Procedure,Sex of Subjects and the Biasing Effects of Experimental Hypotheses

For a set of 20 male graduate student Es, the experimental hypotheses held were significant partial determinants of the responses Ss produced for Es. This effect of Es' hypotheses was more marked among Es made more conscious of their experimental procedure when collecting data from female Ss. Male Ss were found to be less susceptible than female Ss to the biasing effects of Es' hypotheses. Unexpected was the finding that for a minority of Es (15%) the data they obtained from their Ss were significantly opposite to the data they expected to obtain.