On the consistency between attitudes and behavior: Look to the method of attitude formation

A field study and a laboratory experiment were conducted to test the hypothesis that the method by which an attitude was formed is a crucial variable affecting attitude-behavior consistency. It was predicted that people who form their attitudes on the basis of direct behavioral interaction with the attitude object will demonstrate significantly greater attitude-behavior consistency than individuals whose attitudes were formed by other means. In the field study, students with direct prior experience with a housing crisis demonstrated greater consistency between their attitudes and behavioral attempts to alleviate the crisis than did students with similar attitudes but without prior direct experience. In the laboratory experiment, subjects who indicated their attitude toward a variety of puzzle types after working examples of each demonstrated greater consistency between these attitudes and subsequent behavior in a free play situation than subjects with similar attitudes formed on the basis of information given by the experimenter. It was suggested that direct behavioral experience produces an attitude which is more clearly, confidently, and stably maintained than an attitude formed through more indirect means.     

Facilitation of discriminated lever-press avoidance by noncontingent shocks

Two experiments investigated the effect of presenting a brief noncontingent, unsignaled shock prior to warning-signal onset on discriminated lever-press avoidance behavior in rats. The main finding was that noncontingent shock delivered 2 sec but not 16 sec prior to warning-signal onset facilitated avoidance performance and learning. These results were predicted on the basis of shock-elicited response bursting which was expected to increase the operant level of the lever-press response at short shock-warning signal intervals. It was suggested that species-specific limitations on rats' lever-press avoidance are not unconditional, but rather can be overcome with environmental manipulations.     

Component problems in dichotic listening

The experiments reported examined monitoring for semantically defined targets whilst concurrently shadowing (Experiment I) or listening silently (Experiment II). The word lists for monitoring were either visual or auditory. Monitoring and shadowing accuracy showed less interference when presentation was bimodal than when it was dichotic. However, monitoring latency and recognition memory for shadowed material did not show this effect. It is argued that these data reveal the existence of a number of different sources of potential difficulty in dichotic listening situations and the nature of these is discussed.     

The effects of positive and negative feedback and reward on originality

Forty subjects participated in a remote associates verbal learning task. Subjects were assigned to reward or feedback and positive or negative conditions in a 2 × 2 factorial design. Subjects in the various groups performed at significantly different levels with the positive reward group producing the most remote associates, folllowed, respectively, by the negative feedback, negative reward, and positive feedback groups. It was suggested that rewarding remote assocites results in relatively flat associative gradients, wherein the subject has ready access to all associates. Conversely, punishing common associates produces emotionality which reduces the response probability of remote associates, thus producing a relatively steep associative gradient. Extrapolations to Mednick's theory of creativity were made, suggesting that creativity is under environmental control.     

Eye movements while reading and searching spatially transformed text: A developmental examination

The effects of spatial manipulation on eye movement when subjects either read or searched through paragraphs were examined. Adults, third, and fifth graders were presented with paragraphs which were typed normally or in alternating case (upper and lower). The spacing between the words was either normal, filled, or absent. The results show that approximately twice as many character spaces are processed during search as during reading. Subjects made more fixations of shorter duration during search than reading. The data indicated that the ability to vary the size of the perceptual unit develops with experience. When spatial cues were unavailable, all subjects resorted to a letter-by-letter-like processing strategy in reading but not in search. Although reading and search were found to be sensitive to the same types of spatial manipulations, discrepancies of span and speed suggest qualitative differences; comprehension demands during reading can account for these differences. The data were interpreted to provide support for the two-stage model of Hochberg (1970).     

Effects of a favor and liking on compliance

A laboratory experiment was conducted to examine the effects of a favor and of liking on compliance with a request for assistance from a confederate. Liking for the confederate was manipulated, and male subjects then received a soft drink from the confederate, from the experimenter, or received no favor. Compliance with the confederate's request to purchase some raffle tickets was measured, as was liking for the confederate. The results showed that the favor increased liking for the confederate and compliance with his request, but the effect of manipulated liking was weak. Detailed ratings of the confederate as well as correlational data suggested that the relationship between favors and compliance is mediated, not by liking for the favor-doer, but by normative pressure to reciprocate.     

A semiautomated Wisconsin General Test Apparatus

A modification of the WGTA is described. It retains those features of the original apparatus which make it efficient. In addition, it provides (1) precise and largely automatic control of trial pacing and stimulus presentation, (2) simultaneous acquisition of data on problem-solving and locomotor activity of the S, (3) rapid change to any one of a wide variety of behavioral situations, and (4) thorough but quick cleaning and disinfection of the monkey cage.