Meinungsänderung durch eigenes Handeln Die Rückwirkung einstellungskonträrer Agitation

Zusammenfassung Zur Klärung der Frage, ob und unter welchen Umständen einstellungskonträre Agitation auf den Agitator zurückwirkt, wurden Gruppen- und Einzelversuche durchgeführt. Als Versuchspersonen dienten insgesamt 409 männliche und weibliche Oberschüler und Studenten. In allen Versuchen mußten die Versuchspersonen Reden erfinden und halten. Die Messung der Meinungsänderung und einiger hypothetischer Variablen wurde mit Fragebogen vorgenommen, zum Teil wurden nach den Versuchen Interviews durchgeführt.Wir erhielten folgende Hauptergebnisse: Erfinden und Vortragen von Argumenten für einen zudiktierten Standpunkt führen, unabhängig voneinander und von der im Vortrag enthaltenen Argumentation, zu einer Meinungsänderung. Ihre Richtung und ihr Ausmaß sind außerdem abhängig vom Verhältnis der zudiktierten Stellungnahme zu anderen, bereits vorhandenen psychischen Inhalten — starke Verankerung der ursprünglichen Meinung führt zur Meinungsänderung im Gegensinne der Agitation (Bumerang-Effekt) — sowie vom Grad der Willentlichkeit der Handlung: bereits die Entscheidung, einen einstellungskonträren Standpunkt nach außen zu vertreten, kann zu einer Meinungsänderung führen. Das Lernen der Argumente, die Bewertung der eigenen Leistung, des Versuchs und Versuchsleiters sowie Eigenschaften eines Themas für sich erweisen sich nicht als alleinige Bedingungen der Meinungsänderung.Diese und andere, weniger wichtige Ergebnisse werden diskutiert. Die Theorie der kognitiven Dissonanz wird als beste einheitliche Erklärungsgrundlage der empirischen Befunde angesehen.

---

Summary Experiments with groups and single persons were conducted to test the effect of persuasive behaviour on the communicator. 409 male and female high-school and university students served as subjects. In all experiments the subjects had to invent and verbalize speeches contradicting their own opinion. Opinion change and some hypothetical variables were measured by questionnaires, the sessions were partially followed by interviews.Main results: Inventing or speaking of arguments in favour of an appointed opinion lead, independently of each other and of the informational content of the arguments, to opinion change the direction and magnitude of which are, in addition, dependent on the relation of the argument to previously existent mental contents (if the original opinion is strongly anchored, the persuasive behaviour results in a boomerang effect), as well as the degree of volition of the subject's persuasive behaviour. (Already the decision to defend a point of view contrary to one's own may lead to opinion change). Learning of arguments and evaluation of own achievement, of the experiment and the experimenter as well as the qualities of a topic in itself cannot be shown to be the only conditions of opinion change.These and other, less important results are discussed; the theory of cognitive dissonance is considered the best uniform explanation of these empirical results.

---

---

Diese Arbeit wurde von der philosophischen Fakultät der Ludwig Maximilians-Universität in München als Dissertation angenommen.Die referierten Versuche wurden durch das Yale Communication and Attitude Change Programme und die Gesellschaftder Freunde der Wirtschaftshochschule Mannheim e.V. finanziell gefördert. Der Verfasser dankt den genannten Institutionen für ihre Unterstützung.     

Faking personality questionnaires: Fabricating different profiles for different purposes

Over fifty subjects completed four personality measures used in personnel selection. Based on a latin-square design they were asked to fill them in as they would if they were trying to present themselves as ideal candidates for the job of librarian, advertising executive or banker, while on one questionnaire they gave “honest,” actual responses. The results indicated, as previous research in this area has shown, that the questionnaires are all highly susceptible to faking, and that a quite different prototypic profile arose for each of the three different jobs. The results are discussed in terms of the templates of fakers for specific jobs; the methods of detecting fakers, and what dissimulation studies tell us about theories of both occupations and personality.     

Persistent crying and parenting: Search for a butterfly in a dynamic system

The risks and causes of persistent crying in early infancy are discussed on the basis of a study of 61 infants referred to the Munich Interdisciplinary Research and Intervention Program for Fussy Babies for persistent crying between 1 and 6 months of age, and of a community sample of 51 infants of the same age. Particular attention was paid to pre-verbal parent-infant communication, the development of which was interpreted in terms of a dynamic interactional system including both regulatory and communicative predispositions in infants and intuitive competence for supporting infant predispositions in parents. Neither a gut problem nor any other single causal factor was identified for persistent crying in the majority of cases. In contrast, persistent crying was significantly associated with multiple biological and psychosocial risk factors for both parents and infants. Neurological immaturity, difficult temperament and sleep problems in infants, and impaired psychological conditions, limited resources and failures of intuitive competences in mothers were found to threaten the developmental process in infants and give rise to ‘vicious circles’ which were destabilizing the interactional systems. Increased attention to intuitive parental competences is recommended as one effective model for therapeutic interventions.     

The Validity of the SHL Customer Service Questionnaire (CSQ)

This study set out to validate the Saville and Holdsworth (SHL) Customer Services Questionnaire (CSQ) by relating test scores to ‘objective measures’ like absenteeism, punctuality, and letters of compliment and complaint, as well as subjective supervisor rating measures. Over 170 airport staff served as subjects. The dependent measures were logically related one to another and there were a few sex and rank differences on them. A number of significant correlations between CSQ subscales and the dependent measures showed two subscales (TC4) Approach to Organizing and (EC2) Need for Results the best correlates of the dependent variable. Of the subscales scores within the three factor scores Relations with People showed fewest significant correlations, and Emotions and Energy most. Results were discussed in terms of the limited research in this field.     

Carnap und der Physikalismus

Ohne Zusammenfassung     

De Finetti's earliest works on the foundations of probability

Bruno de Finetti's earliest works on the foundations of probability are reviewed. These include the notion of exchangeability and the theory of random processes with independent increments. The latter theory relates to de Finetti's ideas for a probabilistic science more generally. Different aspects of his work are united by his foundational programme for a theory of subjective probabilities.This work would not have been possible in its present form without the generous help of Prof. Maria Carla Galavotti. For several years, she has unfailingly answered all my requests for papers difficult of access, and discussed the details of interpretation as well as the philosophy of probability in general. To her I express my gratitude for everything.     

Modelling cognition in emotional disorder: The S-REF model

Cognitive therapy techniques are applied to an ever-increasing range of psychological disorders. However, both basic methods and general theory of therapy have evolved more slowly. Although cognitive therapy is based on experimentally testable concepts derived from cognitive psychology, an integration of these areas capable of explaining cognitive-attentional phenomena and offering treatment Implications remains to be achieved. In this paper, we outline the Self-Regulatory Executive Function (S-REF) model of emotional disorder, which integrates information processing research with Beck's schema theory. The model advances understanding of the roles of stimulus-driven and voluntary control of cognition, procedural knowledge (beliefs), and of the interactions between different levels of information-processing. It also accounts for cognitive bias effects demonstrated in the experimental psychopathology literature. The model presents implications concerning not only what should be done in cognitive therapy, but how cognitive change may be most effectively accomplished.     

The role of proprioception in the perception and control of human movement: Toward a theoretical reassessment

The theoretical role of proprioception in the perception and control of human movement is elusive because of the obvious inability to manipulate experimentally the various receptive systems. Individuals who have had the metacarpophalangeal joint and joint capsule removed and replaced with silastic inserts afford a unique opportunity to evaluate a principal source of proprioception, namely, slowly adapting joint afferents. In a set of experiments, we show that such individuals show no deficits in finger localization following joint replacement. We take this and other complementary findings as a preliminary basis for proposing a dynamic rather than kinematic account of movement production. In addition, we provide a reconceptualization of the function of proprioceptive information in the CNS. Our arguments focus on proprioceptive inputs as tuning or modulating interneuronal pools rather than providing dimension-pecific information to the brain, as is commonly assumed.     

Additivity and expected utility in risky multiattribute preferences

This experiment analyzed human preferences among even chance gambles for commodity bundles. The purpose of the experiment was to test several independence assumptions that distinguish between models for risky multiattribute preferences. In particular, the additivity and the expected utility part of the additive expected utility model were tested symmetrically. The degree and form of model violations were established, and the effects of instructions and of response modes were examined. All independence assumptions were violated by a bias to prefer a gamble or a commodity bundle that was previously matched against a standard. Systematic and strong violations that superseded this bias questioned the validity of the additive expected utility model. In violation of the additivity part of that model subjects consistently preferred the gamble with more balanced outcomes when comparing gambles with identical marginal probability distributions. This trend, called multiattribute risk aversion, was independent of subjects' single attribute risk attitude. Instructions and response modes had no noticeable impacts on these response patterns.     

Choice reaction time with a random foreperiod

Choice reaction latencies were measured at three different a priori probabilities for two stimulus alternatives. Unlike the results of some other studies, the mean latency of a given response was nearly the same whether the response was correct or incorrect. The discriminable stimuli were a 1000- or a 1700-Hz tone presented at 70 dB SPL. Latencies and standard deviations, based on about 17,000 observations, are reported for three observers. The data are compared with predictions of the optimum sequential model of Wald and Stone and two modifications of that random-walk model, one proposed by Link and Heath and the other proposed by Laming. Fast-guess analyses were also carried out. The three-parameter version of either the sequential or the modified random-walk models provided reasonably accurate predictions of the mean data for each observer. The parameters estimated by the fast-guess analysis were unrealistic. There are three obvious differences between this experiment and most previous choice reaction-time experiments. First is stimulus modality#x2014;we used an auditory signal, whereas most of the previous studies used a visual signal. Second, the observers practiced more in this experiment than in most previous experiments. Finally, there was a random foreperiod with a heavy penalty for anticipations. One or more of these factors is the probable reason for the discrepancy between our results and those of previous studies.