Social influence: The role of originality

Two experiments investigated the role of message originality vs. conventionality in social influence. It was hypothesized that subjects would generate more original proposals when confronted with a minority advocating an original viewpoint than when confronted with a conventional minority proposal or with an original majority proposal. In the first experiment, subjects exposed to an original minority paired with a conventional majority produced a wider range and more original proposals than those exposed either to a conventional minority paired with a conventional majority or to a majority source only. The second experiment further demonstrated that the original message induced creative processing only when attributed to a minority source but not when attributed to a majority source. It also showed that the original minority elicited creative processing mainly when paired with a conventional majority, but not when paired with a majority advocating an equally original position. Findings are interpreted in the frame of Nemeth's (1986) minority influence theory.     

Semantic components in children's errors with pronouns

In the presence of the experimenter and two dolls, children were asked to respond to sentences containing pronous which required distinctions to be made on the basis of person, number, and gender, such as “Point tomy (your, his, her, our, their) feet.” Errors tended to maintain distinctions; for example,we was treated as if it meantI (maintaining first person) orthey (maintaining plural) more often than could be accounted for by a response-bias model. Furthermore, there were consistent individual differences in the kinds of distinctions that were difficult; some subjects has more trouble with number, others with person. These findings support the notion that errors made during acquisition result from dropping only part of the correct meaning, and they suggest that individuals may differ in the relative strengths of different components.     

Effect of different delayed auditory feedback intervals on a music performance task

The effects of 12 different delay intervals were studied in a musical task involving performance on an electronic organ. Disruption was found to occur to a degree comparable to similar studies involving verbal and rhythmic tasks under DAF. Maximal disruption was found with a delay of 0.27 sec, a value rather greater than that typically found to be most disruptive in speech. Three of the 12 Ss showed speeded performance under part of the range of DAF intervals, as compared with performance under immediate feedback; however, their performance also reached a peak of slowing at a delay of about 0.27 sec. No significant differences were found between male and female Ss’ performance. These findings were discussed without the context of control processes operating in music performance, and compared with the possibly analogous mechanisms of speech.     

Responses of boys and girls to a behaviorally focused school attitude questionnaire

In response to the Teacher Approval-Disapproval Scale (TADS), elementary school boys report receiving more personal disapproval and less personal approval from their teachers than do elementary school girls, but boys and girls do not differ in reporting how frequently their teachers distribute approvals and disapprovals to the whole class. Boys' attitudes toward being in the classroom are more negative than girls', but there is also a tendency for boys to perceive the whole class's attitude as being more negative than do girls. These results suggest that sex differences in school attitude are at least partially determined by differential teacher behavior toward boys and girls.     

Modeling,vicarious reinforcement and extraversion on blood donating in adults: Immediate and long-term effects

Studied the immediate and long-term effects of modeling on adult altruism using a quasi field experiment in a naturalistic setting. Forty-three female trainee occupational therapists aged 18-21 observed or did not observe a female model volunteer to donate blood. Modeling significantly increased the number of female observers who (a) also agreed to donate and (b) in turn actually gave their blood. The opportunity to donate blood occurred in a naturalistic situation on average six weeks after the commitment. It was concluded that observing a model could produce generalizable and durable behavior change in adults using an altruistic behavior of some cost to the individual. Personality and vicarious reinforcement effects however were not found.     

Self-Efficacy and Training for Strength in Adolescent Girls1

To test the hypothesis that a gain in self-efficacy about strength training could generalize to other areas of life and positively affect self-esteem, untrained adolescent female volunteers were tested before and after participation in 12 weeks of strength training and compared with nonactive and mildly active volunteer controls. Pretest-posttest results for the treatment group showed improvement in strength (+40%), weight training efficacy, confrontation efficacy, and total efficacy summed over 11 tasks. There were related positive changes in perceived physical ability, physical self-presentation confidence, and general effectiveness in life. The treatment group improved posttest over controls on all these variables; controls did not change or worsened. These findings offer preliminary support that weight training for strength can improve confidence about a variety of life tasks in adolescent girls and could provide the basis for new modalities of therapy for low self-esteem.     

The role of social categorization and perceived source credibility in minority influence

This study was conducted in order to compare the influence of ingroup and outgroup minorities and to assess the role of perceived source credibility in minority influence. The subjects were exposed to the simultaneous majority/minority influence paradigm. Ingroup minorities were more influential than outgroup minorities. Subjects moved toward the minority position in private and toward the majority position in public when the minority was represented by members of the ingroup. On private responses subjects were not affected by outgroup minorities who argued for abortion, and they became more positive toward abortion when outgroup minorities opposed abortion. Final &, ingroup minorities were perceived as more credible than outgroup minorities and greater credibility of minority source was associated with greater attitude change toward the minority position. The superior influence of ingroup minorities held when controlling for source credibility. Overall, the results were highly supportive of social identity theory.