Social comparison,attraction, and choice of a comparison other

The effects of attitudinal similarity and task-relevant affiliative status, together with three situational factors (presence or absence of a monetary reward, choice of information source or work partner, and choice made before or after Ss completed preliminary work on the task), on the choice of comparison others were examined. The most significant determinant of the comparison other chosen was attitude similarity (p < .01). There was also a significant interaction between attitude similarity, task-relevant affifliative status, and time of choice (p < .05). The nature of the interaction suggested that general impressions such as conveyed by general attitudinal information may be more important in the selection of referent others than comparability on situation-specific factors.     

Effect of prior body experience on adaptation to visual displacement

The effect of proprioceptive adaptation to visual displacement is to produce a violation of the normal constraints on the relative position of body parts. In order to investigate the effect of this violation of constraints on the adaptation, the relative position of body parts for a group of dancers and a group of nondancers was determined after 5 and 15 min of adaptation. Empirical and theoretical support were provided for the propositions that (1) there is a tendency to resist the violation of constraints, and (2) the nature of the adaptation process is such as to minimize the amount of violation of constraints.     

A note on cross-modality matching

”Stevens' law”, that the psychophysical law is a power function, is often taken to be confirmed by results of cross-modality matching experiments, for it predicts both the fact that cross-modality matching experiments yield power functions, and the exponents of these power functions. Both these predictions, however, follow from a more general form of the psychophysical law, of which Fechner's law is a special case. In view of this, an interpretation of cross-modality matching based on stimulus discriminability rather than sensation magnitude is proposed.     

DISABILITIES TO EMPLOYMENT AMONG EX-ADDICTS

Are ex-addicts poor employment risks? To answer this question, the employment responses of male and female ex-addict clients serviced by a state narcotic aftercare program were studied. Comparison of the two groups found differences in their job-seeking behavior and their social and deviant behavior characteristics. The results support the view that ex-addicts are handicapped persons. Their varying potentials for obtaining legitimate employment are isolated and reported in this article.     

Development and control of licking in the guinea pig (Cavia porcellus)

Guinea pigs were taught to lick an electronic lickometer by successive approximations brought about by a gradually receding lickerandum-liquid feeder mounted in their home cage. All Ss learned to lick and obtain their total liquid intake by tongue licking. An optimum deprivation schedule was determined, and the response was brought under schedule control comparable to that of the rat.     

A common auditory-visual space” Evidence for its reality

This experiment compares two hypotheses concerning the relation between auditory anti, visual direction. The first, the “common space” hypothesis, is that both auditory and visual direction are represented on a single underlying direction dimension, so that comparisons between auditory and visual direction may be made directly. The second, the “disjunct space” hypothesis, is that there are two distinct internal dimensions, one for auditory direction and one for visual direction, and that comparison between auditory and visual direction involves a translation between these two dimensions. Both these hypotheses are explicated, using a signal detection theory framework, and evidence is provided for the common space hypothesis.     

Religion and Subjective Well-Being: Western and Eastern Religious Groups Achieved Subjective Well-Being in Different Ways

Culture can moderate which variables most influence subjective well-being (SWB). Because religion can be conceptualized as culture, religious differences can be considered cultural differences. However, there have been few studies comparing how different religious groups evaluate SWB at any given time. This study is among the first to investigate this issue. The present study compared Buddhists, Taoists, Christians, and atheists. In addition to demographic items, 451 Chinese adults completed Chinese version of the Socially Oriented Cultural Conception of SWB Scale. Religious belief was distributed as follows: 10 % Christian, 20 % Buddhist, 25 % Taoist, and 43 % atheists. As predicted, the socially oriented cultural conception of SWB was found to be highest among Buddhists, followed in order by Taoists, atheists, and Christians. It was concluded that the various religious groups achieved SWB in different ways.     

What Remains of the Fundamentum Inconcussum in Light of the Modern Sciences of Man?

Transcendental conceptions of subjectivity, beginning with Descartes and including Kant, Fichte, and Husserl as well as neo-transcendental accounts of the 20th century, try to explicate a subject’s subjectivity as a necessary condition for all theoretical and practical validity claims. According to this conception, only this subject-theoretical presupposition allows for an adequate foundation of terms of authorship of action (autonomy) and self-determination. However, the conceptual self-explication of this position faces some inherent difficulties, which has repeatedly been pointed out even by representatives of this school of thought themselves. Moreover, it seems as if the constitutional achievements of transcendental philosophy are increasingly being detached from philosophy: due to the development of the modern sciences of man, they are step by step conceived as objects of empirical research. This paper looks critically into this thesis of detachment.