Effects of positive and negative adult-child interactions on children's social preference

The effects of positive and negative interactions on children's performance and preferences for the adults associated with each type of interaction were studied. Five children served as subjects during daily sessions in which each of three adults followed prescribed patterns of social interaction. One adult (positive) dispensed positive comments contingent upon either color-sorting or completion of arithmetic problems; a second adult (negative) mildly reprimanded the child for off-task behavior; and the third adult (extinction or nonreactive) said nothing to the child when he was present. Following each session the three adults reentered and the child chose one of them for an additional period of interaction. Three response measures (frequency, latency, and percent of time on-task) and children's adult preferences were obtained daily. The negative adult affected the most task behavior and had strongest stimulus control; the positive adult, though exerting little control over children's behavior, was the most preferred. Children's adult preferences were not specific to the task setting, but were observed across a variety of contexts.     

The nature of curiosity in children

This study examined several behaviors claimed to reflect curiosity in order to determine whether there are one or more types of curiosity. A secondary purpose was to examine the relations between the one or more types of curiosity and sex, social class, intelligence, achievement level, and ratings of personality traits. In two individual sessions 84 American first-grade boys and girls were administered five tasks which measured observation of complex and simple stimuli, preference of complex and simple stimuli, preference for the unknown, structure of meaning, and object exploration. A normalized Varimax factor analysis allowed the extraction of five factors: manipulatory curiosity, perceptual curiosity, conceptual curiosity, curiosity about the complex, and adjustive-reactive curiosity. Only the first factor was related to a demographic variable, sex. The nature of the factors and their theoretical and practical significance are discussed.     

Resolution of complex decisional conflicts as a function of degree of avoidance

The relationship between difficulty of conflict resolution and degree of avoidance was investigated in three experiments using imaginary conflicts consisting of choosing to have more or less of certain personal characteristics. Double forms of conflict were used to control for complexity of choice. In the first experiment, it was found that double approach-approach conflicts were resolved more quickly than double approach-avoidance which in turn were faster than double avoidance-avoidance. The second experiment showed a similar result using scaled judgments of subjective difficulty. In the third experiment, the basic finding was shown to be independent of situational pressure by permitting an undecided choice. The basic finding was also shown to be independent of individual differences in social desirability.     

Cross-category structure in semantic memory

In Experiment I, subjects made similarity judgments about all 56 category terms listed in the Battig and Montague (1969) norms. These judgments were then subjected to a hierarchical clustering analysis. Experiment II demonstrated that the relations among the category labels are very similar to the relations among the high dominance exemplars of these categories. Experiment III showed that the distances between the category terms in the hierarchical clustering analysis could predict RTs in a same-different paradigm.     

S.I.M.P.L.E. control and measurement of auditory events

A SIMPLE interactive programming language is shown to be useful for psychological research involving auditory stimuli and responses. It is helpful in recording spoken stimulus tapes with program control of event sequencing and timing; it can control on-line interactive auditory and bisensory experiments; and it can calibrate the stimulus durations and pause times for auditory events.     

On the relationship between ratio of number of variables to number of factors and factorial determinacy

It is shown that an important distinction can be made between determinacy of common-factors and determinacy of unique-factors and that determinacy can be used as a criterion to establish a lower bound for the ratio of number of variables to number of factors necessary if specified levels of common- and unique-factor determinacy are to be attained.The Illinois Department of Mental Health Drug Abuse Program is co-sponsored by the State of Illinois and the Department of Psychiatry, Division of the Biological Sciences and Pritzker School of Medicine, University of Chicago. Send reprint requests to Drug Abuse Programs—Research, East Pavillion, Museum of Science and Industry, 57th Street and South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago, Illinois 60637.     

Deviant behaviors in rural elementary schoolchildren

A sample of 1567 third- and fourth-grade children in rural Illinois were rated on the Behavior Problem Checklist. The mean frequency of conduct problems, inadequacy-immaturity, personality problems, and socialized delinquency were analyzed by grade, sex, and age. Fourth graders and older children tended to have more problems than did third graders and younger children. Boys had more problems than did girls except on the personality-problem dimension.     

Attention,brightness contrast,and assimilation: The influence of relative area

A model of information transmission in the visual system which describes the effect of attention on apparent brightness is examined. This model states in part that the luminance of the portion of the visual field which captures the attention is overweighted in arriving at an overall average luminance level across the visual field. As this average must be computed with respect to both luminance and relative area, it is hypothesized that increasing the relative area of the portion of the visual field that captures the attention will result in a greater effect on the apparent brightness of all parts of the visual field. Two predictions, which involve the effect of relative area on apparent brightness, are experimentally tested and confirmed.