Attitudes Toward Male Oral Contraceptives: Implications for Models of the Relationship Between Beliefs and Attitudes1

Four factors (effectiveness, health risks, cost, and convenience) were orthogonally manipulated in a 3 × 2 × 2 × 2 factorial design to determine their relative importance in influencing attitudes toward and intentions to use male oral contraceptives. The experimental design also permitted a test of the assumption of additivity underlying expectancy-value models of attitude and the assumption of absence of context effects. Results were consistent with expectancy-value models of the relationship between beliefs and attitudes. In addition, it was found that health risks and effedtiveness, in that order, were the most important factors influencing receptivity to male oral contraceptives, with the effects of cost and convenience being mediated by these two factors. Sex differences in attitudes toward male oral contraceptives were also observed.     

Circularity in relative pitch judgments for inharmonic complex tones: The Shepard demonstration revisited,again

The Shepard illusion, in which the presentation of a cyclically repetitive sequence of complex tones composed of partials separated by octave intervals (Shepard, 1964) gives the illusion of an endlessly increasing sequence of pitch steps, is often cited as evidence for octave equivalence. In this paper, evidence is presented which demonstrates that this illusion can be produced using (inharmonic) complex tones whose partials are separated by equal ratios other than octaves. Therefore, the illusion is not evidence for octave equivalence.     

Interactive effects of generalized and situational expectancies on the arousal of cognitive and emotional components of social anxiety

This study examined the arousal of social anxiety in an interview setting as a function of anticipated self-disclosure. Of 88 college students who completed the Social Avoidance and Distress (SAD) scale and other measures of social anxiety, self-disclosure, need to affiliate, and interpersonal trust, 24 volunteered for the interview. During the interview, both components of anxiety (worry and emotionality) were affected by expectancy conditions, and emotionality was higher for high- than for low-SAD subjects. The prediction of an interaction between SAD level and expectancy condition on worry was confirmed: only high-SAD subjects exposed to the negative-expectancy condition experienced significant elevations in worry. Though social anxiety and self-disclosure measures correlated negatively, anxiety did not affect self-disclosure during the interview.     

Retention of verbal information by rehearsal in relation to the fluency of verbal output in aphasia

The purpose of the present study was to determine if aphasic subject groups differentiated by the fluency of their verbal output employed rehearsal as a strategy for maintaining verbally coded information in primary memory. A task based upon the Brown-Peterson paradigm was administered to 10 fluent aphasic patients, 10 nonfluent aphasic patients, 10 right-brain-damaged patients, and 10 nonneurological patients. The findings indicate that the nonfluent aphasic patients did not rehearse the verbal information while the fluent aphasic, right-brain-damaged, and nonneurological patients did rehearse. In addition, both fluent and nonfluent aphasic patients encoded significantly less information into the memory system initially and performed worse on the task overall than right-brain-damaged and nonneurological patients.     

Videotaping effects on the behaviors of low income mothers and their infants during floor-play interactions

Interaction behaviors and language measures of low income mothers and their 12-month-old infants were compared for floor-play situations in which the mother was aware and unaware of being videotaped. When the mothers were aware of being videotaped, they were more proximal to their infants, offered and demonstrated toys more frequently, engaged in more frequent interaction games, vocalized more frequently, emitted a greater number of words as well as declarative and imperative utterances, and their infants engaged in more constructive play. Combining the analysis of variance and correlational analyses results suggested that the verbal behaviors of mothers were inflated and their non-verbal behaviors were distorted when they were aware of being videotaped. The implications of these data for the use of videotaping as an assessment and intervention tool are discussed.     

The inferiority game: Perceptions and behavior

Other-sex perceptions and actual reported behavior of 318 college males and 287 college females were compared for four dating situations. The average degree of inaccuracy (disregarding direction) for males was 29.0%, while for women it was 12.5%. Conclusions support other research indicating superior role-taking ability on the part of females. The issues of cultural transmission and pluralistic ignorance are discussed as they affect male and female interaction. Important research implications for human relations and the family in particular are noted.     

Comparative psychology returns: A review of Hulse, Fowler, and Honig's Cognitive Processes in Animal Behavior

Especially remarkable seems the rarity of efforts to trace the evolution of the human intellect from that of the lower animals. Since Darwin's discovery, the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air and the fish of the sea have been examined with infinite pains by hundreds of workers in the effort to trace our physical genealogy, and with consummate success; yet few and far between have been the efforts to find the origins of intellect and trace its progress up to human faculty. And none of them has achieved any sure success. (Thorndike, 1911, p. 282)