University and student segmentation: Multilevel latent‐class analysis of students’ attitudes towards research methods and statistics

Background. It is often claimed that psychology students’ attitudes towards research methods and statistics affect course enrolment, persistence, achievement, and course climate. However, the inter‐institutional variability has been widely neglected in the research on students’ attitudes towards research methods and statistics, but it is important for didactic purposes (heterogeneity of the student population). Aims. The paper presents a scale based on findings of the social psychology of attitudes (polar and emotion‐based concept) in conjunction with a method for capturing beginning university students’ attitudes towards research methods and statistics and identifying the proportion of students having positive attitudes at the institutional level. Sample. The study based on a re‐analysis of a nationwide survey in Germany in August 2000 of all psychology students that enrolled in fall 1999/2000 (N= 1,490) and N= 44 universities. Methods. Using multilevel latent‐class analysis (MLLCA), the aim was to group students in different student attitude types and at the same time to obtain university segments based on the incidences of the different student attitude types. Results. Four student latent clusters were found that can be ranked on a bipolar attitude dimension. Membership in a cluster was predicted by age, grade point average (GPA) on school‐leaving exam, and personality traits. In addition, two university segments were found: universities with an average proportion of students with positive attitudes and universities with a high proportion of students with positive attitudes (excellent segment). Conclusions. As psychology students make up a very heterogeneous group, the use of multiple learning activities as opposed to the classical lecture course is required.     

Effects of a flexible work-time design on employee- and company-related aims

This article addresses the effects of flexible work-time designs on employee- and company-related aims. Using objective and self-reported quantitative and qualitative data the current study examines the effects of a flexible work-time design that was introduced in a service company in Germany. Building on the learning hypothesis of the job demands?–?control model, we predicted that a highly flexible work-time design that provides employees with high demands but at the same time also with a high degree of autonomy, and self-determination over their working time leads to positive effects on employee's personal development and learning opportunities. The results supported this hypothesis. However, in addition to employee-related benefits the results also suggested benefits for the company, such as an increase in adherence to company goals. Moreover, the objective data showed a lower degree of absenteeism and higher work quality compared to the control group working with the traditional work-time design. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

"It's not my fault--but only I can change it": counterfactual and prefactual thoughts of managers

In testing for the self-serving bias in performance evaluation, the authors propose that comparing managers' counterfactual and prefactual thoughts about subordinates' performance is more conclusive than the attributional approach and also offers practical advantages. In a study with 120 managers, a 4-way interaction of subordinate performance, temporal perspective, direction, and reference confirmed the predicted pattern. Managers' thoughts about how a weak performance could have been enhanced had external references, but thoughts about how such a performance could be enhanced in the future focused on the leader. This asymmetry was only observed for weak performance. Results are discussed with regard to biases in leaders' performance evaluations and to how counter- and prefactual thoughts could be used for leadership research and practice.     

On the relations between crowding and visual masking

To study the question of which processes contribute to crowding and whether these are comparable to those of visual temporal masking, we varied the stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) between target and flankers in a crowding setting. Monotonically increasing Type A masking functions observedfor small spacings and large eccentricities indicate that the integration of information from target and flankers underlies crowding. Decreasing masking functions obtained for large spacings and small eccentricities relate processes of crowding to those contributing to Type B masking. In addition, Type B masking was more frequent with letter-like nonletter flankers than with letter flankers, suggesting that Type B masking, just like crowding over large areas, is due to higher level interactions. The rapid decrease of the effects of interletter spacing and eccentricity with increasing SOA indicates that positional information is transient.     

Spared access to idiomatic and literal meanings: a single-case approach

The current study examines how patients with aphasia access the meanings of idioms during spoken sentence comprehension. In our experiment, we had 4 subjects whose native language is German: 2 left-hemisphere damaged patients (Wernicke's and global aphasia); 1 right-hemisphere damaged patient; and 1 age-matched healthy speaker. Ambiguous two-element German noun compounds carrying an idiomatic as well as a literal meaning served as target words. While listening to contextually biasing sentences containing the target words, the subjects performed a lexical decision task at the offset of each compound. All the subjects, including the aphasic patients, accessed the compounds' literal and idiomatic meanings simultaneously despite the existence of contextually biasing sentences. The data are discussed by taking account of the findings of recent studies of lexical semantic processing in aphasia.     

Sequence learning in Parkinson's disease: the effect of spatial stimulus-response compatibility

Patients with Parkinson's disease (PD) have repeatedly demonstrated reduced sequence-specific learning effects in serial reaction time tasks (SRTs). Previous research with PD patients has mainly employed the 'classical' SRT task, involving a spatially compatible assignment of stimuli and responses. From cognitive research, it is known that spatial compatibility triggers rapid, automatic responses in the direction of the stimulus. Automatic responding has shown to be disinhibited in PD patients and may therefore interfere with stimulus anticipation during the learning process. The aim of the present study was to test this hypothesis by investigating if reduced sequence-specific learning depends on spatial stimulus-response compatibility. PD patients and age-matched controls were examined either with an SRT variant involving central stimulus presentation, thereby preventing automatic linking of stimulus and response locations, or with a spatially compatible SRT task. Patients showed reduced sequence-specific learning effects only when the stimulus-response assignment was spatially compatible. This pattern of results confirms the hypothesis that sequence learning deficits in PD may result from a predominance of automatic response activation over learning-based stimulus anticipations during the learning phase.     

Reaction time task as unconditional stimulus

Nonaversive unconditional stimuli (USs) are seldom used in human classic conditioning of autonomic responses. One major objection to their use is that they produce deficits in electrodermal (ED) second- and third-interval response conditioning. However, a nonaversive reaction time (RT) task that includes feedback of success has been shown to be an effective US while avoiding this disadvantage (Lipp and Vaitl 1988). The present study compared this new RT task (RT-new) with a traditional RT task (RT-old) and with a standard aversive US (shock) in differential classic conditioning of ED, heart rate (HR), and digital pulse volume (DPV) responses. Eight-second-delay differential conditioning was applied in three groups of 12 subjects each. Simple geometric features (square, cross) displayed on a television screen served as conditional stimuli (CS⁺ and CS^?). In acquisition, there were no statistically significant differences among the groups; differential conditioning did occur in HR, first- and second-interval ED responses, and first-interval DPV responses. Separate analyses within each group, however, revealed that there was no second-interval ED conditioning in the RT-old group. During extinction, neither DPV nor second-interval ED conditioning could be obtained, whereas HR and first-interval ED conditioning occurred in each group. In third-interval omission ED responses, RT-old and shock groups exhibited extinction, while response differentiation was maintained in the RT-new group throughout extinction. The RT task including feedback proved to be as reliable a US as a standard aversive US, whereas application of a traditional RT task again yielded some weaknesses in second-interval ED conditioning.     

Interactive effects of writing and reading a persuasive essay on attitude change and selective exposure

Subjects wrote an essay either supporting their own position on an issue or irrelevant to that issue. Subsequently, they received a communication that either supported or opposed their position, and that either claimed to present the only reasonable position or acknowledged the viability of alternative positions. Then, they reported their own beliefs in the position being advocated, and finally were given an opportunity to obtain subsequent information that either supported or opposed this position. Attitude change in the direction of a proattitudinal communication occurred only when both (a) this communication asserted that only the position advocated was defensible and (b) subjects had previously written a proattitudinal essay themselves. Moreover, either of these factors was sufficient to prevent attitude change in the direction of a counterattitudinal communication. Data supported predictions based upon a joint consideration of commitment and reactance effects. Subjects' subsequent preference for supporting over opposing information was greater when they had written a supporting essay than when they had not, greater when they had read an opposing communication than when they had read a supporting one, and greater when the communication they read was presented as stating the only reasonable position, no matter which position it advocated.     

Modeling instrumental agression in adults in a laboratory setting

Summary Five experiments with 353 young adults performing a game on an aggression machine are reported, three of them testing hypotheses concerning the effects of a model's aggressiveness and social status on instrumental aggressive behavior, and two investigating aspects of reliability and validity. Model's aggressiveness increased the Ss' aggressive behavior in all experiments. The use of presumptive monetary losses as a means by which SS punish their opponents in aggression machine experiments is as effective as presumed electric shocks, and therefore seems preferable in further experimental studies of aggression.

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Zusammenfassung Es wird über fünf Experimente mit insgesamt 353 jüngeren Erwachsenen als Versuchspersonen berichtet, deren instrumentell-aggressives Verhalten an einem Aggressionssimulator untersucht wird. Drei der Experimente dienten der Prüfung von Hypothesen über den Einfluß von Modell-Aggression und Modell-Status auf instrumentell-aggressives Verhalten, zwei weitere untersuchten Aspekte der Reliabilität und Validität. In allen Experimenten zeigte sich ein Anwachsen aggressiven Verhaltens, wenn das Modell aggressiv war. Ferner ergab sich, daß die Verwendung angeblicher Geldstrafen als Mittel, den Gegenspieler an der Aggressionsmaschine zum Rückzug zu zwingen, in gleichem Maße effizient war wie die Vergabe angeblicher Elektroschocks. Daher wird der Verwendung von Geldstrafen in weiteren Aggressionsexperimenten der Vorzug gegeben.

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Detailed reports in German should be requested from the autor at Universität Bielefeld, Postfach 8640, D-4800 Bielefeld 1 (Bielefelder Arbeiten zur Sozialpsychologie No. 2, 3, 10, 18, 25 for Experiments 1 to 5)

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The author is indebted to the following coworkers: Ulrich Goertz, Günter Maus, Amélie Mummendey, Bernd Schiebel, Friedrich-Wilhelm Schöer, Rüdiger Stallberg, Gabriele Sturm, Uwe Troske     

Some conditions to produce a dissonance and an incentive effect in a ‘forced-compliance’ situationx

Dissonance theory and incentive theory call for different predictions concerning the relation of reward and attitude change after a person has performed some counter-attitudinal behavior. According to dissonance theory a negative, and according to incentive theory a positive relationship is expected. An experiment was conducted in West Germany testing the interactions of choice versus no choice and public versus anonymus (private) essay-writing. A dissonance effect was predicted for the choice/public condition and an incentive effect for the no choice/anonymus condition. The results support these predictions.