Sampling autobiographical memory

An empirical procedure for probing autobiographical memory was assessed. Words designating common objects, activities, and feelings were used as guides for recall of discrete experiences. Four properties of the recollections were assessed: latency, age of occurrence, temporal specificity of memory report, and type of experience. The three results of most general interest were: (1) consistent differences in properties of reports elicited by affect terms and those elicited by object and activity words; (2) a curvilinear relationship between latency and event age; and (3) reliable sex differences. Several proposals regarding the organization of autobiographical memory, and voluntary recall of personal experiences are discussed.     

Development in the understanding of causes of success and failure in verbal communication

Each child observed a communication game in which two dolls sent messages to each other so that the listener doll could pick out a matching card.Allocations and justifications of blame were examined as a function of the age of the child, adequacy of message, correctness of choice, and seating position. The results were generally consistent with two propositions. Younger children passed judgements as though they were asking themselves whether the message sent was inconsistent with the speaker's card — only when this was so was the speaker blamed. Older children blamed the speaker and cited the inadequacy of the message whenever the message did not identify the speaker's card uniquely, even when communication was successful.     

The Effects of Task and Interpersonal Cohesiveness on Performance of a Disjunctive Group Task1

This experiment examined the effects of two different types of group cohesiveness on performance of a disjunctive task. Both interpersonal and task cohesiveness were varied independently. Results show that high levels of both types of cohesiveness were necessary for success on a task requiring group interaction. Groups high on one type of cohesiveness but low on another performed no better than groups low on both types of cohesiveness. These results suggest that cohesiveness should be conceptualized as a multidimensional rather than as a unitary variable. It is also suggested that the effects noted in the present study may well vary according to task characteristics.     

Self-Serving Attributions for Performance in Naturalistic Settings: A Meta-Analytic Review1

The study of self-serving attributions in sports settings is fertile ground for testing the validity of self-serving attributional phenomena. This paper reports the results of a meta-analytic review of research examining self-serving attributions in the context of sports events. A total of 91 distinct hypothesis tests were located, comprising five dimensions of attribution: ability (N= 21), effort (N= 21), task difficulty (N= 21), luck (N= 21), and a general internal-external dimension (N= 7). The meta-analytic combination of significance levels indicated that the combined results were unlikely to occur if the null hypothesis of no effect were true (for each of the five dimensions of attribution). The internal-external dimension and the ability dimension produced effects of moderate magnitude, whereas effort, difficulty and luck produced effects of small magnitude. Meta-anaiytic focused comparisons revealed that self-serving attributions (ended to be more extreme in the context of larger team sizes, and for attribution measures focused upon the team rather than the individual. Discussion considers the implications of these findings and develops and explanation for the finding that ability is the specific attribution dimension exhibiting the greatest self-serving attribution effects.     

Gender and work values: Survey findings from a working-class sample

Traditional propositions concerning gender roles and work values are tested, investigating empirical connections between work values and other variables such as marital status, parenting responsibilities, and age. Both men and women were most likely to select two intrinsic work values—chance to learn new things and chance to use skills and abilities. Women were more likely than men to select a high number of intrinsic values. Male-female differences in work values were found to be situational. The presence of children seemed to heighten sex differences in this working-class sample, particularly in the salience of intrinsic work values for women. Women with children were in the category most likely to select a high number of intrinsic and extrinsic work values.     

Trials per problem and age as factors in learning set formation of children

Discrimination learning set performance was examined in preschool children as a function of age and number of trials per problem. Subjects 3, 4, 5, and 6 years old were trained over three 72-trial sessions. Half of the children at each age were given problems three trials in length, and half received 12-trial problems. As predicted, younger children (3 and 4-year-olds) performed significantly better for 12 than for three trials per problem, whereas no differences in performance were evident for older children. Response pattern analyses revealed that younger children, especially those receiving less exposure within problems, produced a higher proportion of stimulus alternation and position determined response sequences than did older children. These results contradict the commonly held assumption that learning set acquisition is simply a function of the total number of trials presented and indicate that the amount of exposure to individual problems is a factor in problem solution for young human subjects.     

Programming experiments with pocket programmable calculators

The use of programmable calculators as research equipment for stimulus presentation and response recording, in addition to their use in mathematical and statistical analysis, is proposed. The calculators may be used alone or in conjunction with other equipment in programming experiments.