Physical stigma and the pregnancy role: Receiving help from strangers

Previous research has demonstrated several similarities in the reaction of others to pregnant and to physically stigmatized individuals. This study recorded helping behavior (assistance in picking up scattered keys) directed toward an apparently pregnant, nonpregnant, or facially disfigured woman in an elevator either alone, with a female companion, or with a male companion. A predicted interaction revealed that significantly more assistance was given to the pregnant woman than to either of the other two only when she was alone or with a female companion; she was helped less than the non-pregnant experimenter when she was accompanied by a male. Differences and similarities in the norms that govern behavior toward pregnant women and the physically stigmatized are discussed in light of their relevance to women's development during the childbearing years. The well-documented negative effect of group size on helping was replicated. Unexpected sex differences were found in rate of helping. Women virtually never helped in this situation—even in all-female groups. These findings are discussed in light of previous work on sex differences in helping.Preparation of this article was supported by a faculty development grant awarded to the first author by Rhodes College. We wish to thank Bella DePaulo, Robert Vidulich, and Chris Wetzel for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of the paper.     

关于同化和对比错觉的实验研究

本文以Delbouef同心圆错觉图为材料,应用认知方式,控制注意,改变刺激和注视条件等变量,在三个实验中考察了同化错觉和对比错觉在机制上的区别和联系。结果发现,场依存性认知方式特征与同化错觉有显著正相关,对比错觉反之。利用指示语控制被试注意于测验成分时,显著的错觉减弱只出现在对比图形中。此外,在一般指示下两种错觉都因背景成分减弱轮廓的亮度对比而减弱,但在选择性指示的条件下,类似减弱只出现在同化错觉中。视角加大时显著地减弱同化错觉,却加大对比错觉。使用“减弱错觉”方法,即在多次连续判断中减小错觉量只在超中央窝(大视角)的观看条件下有显著效应。所有这些结果都难于用错觉产生的生理学模式和单因素认知模式来说明。因此,我们认为错觉是一种复杂的知觉加工活动的产物。在已有的各种错觉理论中,合成的认知性“集合与存储”模式(“Pool and Store Model”,Coren & Girgus,1978)似乎是最好的解释。     

FAILURE TO CONDITION TETRAHYMENA

APPLEWHITE, PH. B., GARDNER, F., FOLEY, D. & CLENDENIN, M. Failure to condition Tetrahymena. Scand. J. Psychol. , 1971, 12, 65–67.–Experiments were performed in attempts to condition Tetrahymena to light-shock. Negative results were obtained.     

The “magic” paradigm revisited

The “magic” paradigm was devised to assess conservation of number in young children. Previous results with the paradigm have suggested that children acquire the ability to conserve number by 3 years of age. Because these results indicate a very precocious development of number conservation relative to performance on the classic conservation task, a comparison of these two procedures was made. Several differences which might account for the superior performance with the magic paradigm were noted: The arrays are presented successively rather than simultaneously, the arrays are presented side by side rather than parallel to one another, and the displacement is performed surreptitiously rather than openly. In the present research the magic paradigm was modified in several steps so that these differences between procedures were removed. None of the changes had an impact on the performance of 3-year-olds. It was concluded that insofar as small numbers are concerned, young children treat displacement as irrelevant to number. In regard to the question of whether young children are capable of conserving small numbers, it was concluded that no answer can be given. Basically, the problem is that we lack sufficient information on how young children solve the magic paradigm.     

The pupil evaluation inventory

The Pupil Evaluation Inventory was developed to assess peer ratings of the behavior of male and female children in grades one through nine. Three homogeneous and stable factors emerged from a factor analysis: Aggression, Withdrawal and Likeability. High interrater agreement between male and female raters, stability of factorial structure, high internal consistency, and moderate concurrent validity were found across sex and grade levels. Test-retest reliability was high for a separate sample of third and sixth graders. There was a tendency for higher internal consistency and teacher-peer correlations for the Aggression factor.This research was supported by grant MH 21145 from the National Institute of Mental Health and by funds from the D. Grant Foundation, Inc. We wish also to acknowledge the support of the many school districts who have assisted us in this research.     

The effects of retention interval on preschool children's short-term memory of verbal items

The short-term recall of word-triads was tested, comparing retention over three types of intervals within 24 preschoolers. Retention was significantly lower in the 16 sec unfilled interval condition than in the immediate test condition. This result, predicted from preschoolers' rehearsal deficiency, differs from those obtained in previous adult and child studies. A filled interval condition, requiring irrelevant verbal activity during the 16 sec period, significantly reduced recall from that of the unfilled interval condition. Recognition of the word items on a subsequent recognition test was greater than chance and was not affected by interval condition. This suggests that the condition effects in short-term recall did not disrupt the long-term storage of the items.     

Pavlovian extinction,phobias, and the limits of the cognitive paradigm

The slow or total lack of decrease in some autonomic responses during extinction in aversive conditioning and concomitant verbalizations of fear have remained a problem for learning theories and psychophysiology. Removal of the aversive stimulus should result in a rapid decrement in responding, as it does in cognitive and somatic systems. In laboratory analogues of phobia and clinical neurosis, however, such decreases do not occur in some autonomic responses and reported fear. In this article three areas of research are presented in which dissociations occur between cognitive and autonomie responses: 1) relational learning, 2) phobia, and 3) incubation. The data indicate that there are some important distinctions to be made concerning the properties of different psychological and physiological systems. These distinctions pertain to the differences between cognitive and noncognitive systems, between the two branches of the ANS, and between acquisition and extinction processes. These distinctions lead to a number of hypotheses concerning dissociations between response systems and have important implications for the understanding and treatment of neurosis.     

Task-hemispheric integrity in dual task performance

A condition of task hemispheric integrity is predicted to result in a dual task situation when the central processing and response components of each task are associated exclusively with a given cerebral hemisphere. The prediction that this condition will generate more efficient time-sharing is tested in a series of four experiments. In experiment 1 the prediction is confirmed when a spatial (tracking) and verbal (letter memory search) task are time-shared, and the hand assignment to task responses is manipulated. In experiment 2 a spatial variant of the memory search is used instead of the verbal letter search, and hand assignment effects are not obtained, since when two spatial tasks are time-shared an integrity assignment is impossible. Experiment 3 validates the hemispheric lateralization of the two single task variants of the memory search task, while experiment 4 establishes the separate “spatial’ and “verbal” resource demands of the two variants by observing their differential interference with concurrent spatial and verbal tasks.     

The lady spaceman: Children's perceptions of sex-stereotyped occupations

In a study of perceptions of sex-sterotyping in occupations, children from first, fourth, and sixth grades in single-sex schools and a coeducational school were asked to name male and female occupants of traditionally male and traditionally female roles. Use of linguistic markers (e.g., lady doctor) or stereotypically inappropriate responses (e.g., naming a female doctor nurse, while correctly naming the male occupant of this role doctor) was associated with labeling female occupants of traditionally male roles and male occupants of traditionally female roles. The results from this study indicate that language subtly reflects children's perceptions of sex roles.This study was supported by a grant from the Melbourne State College Standing Committee on Research and Development.