Explaining Demographic Group Differences in Affirmative Action Attitudes1

This research identified mediators and a moderator of the relationship between demographic category and attitudes toward affirmative action (AA). Data were collected from national samples of sociologists and business academics. The results indicate that racism, traditional attitudes toward women, and belief in the existence of gender and race discrimination in academe were significant predictors of AA attitudes. Several findings provide support for the prediction that these factors mediate the relationship between demographic group membership and AA attitudes. Additionally, male sociologists who believed they personally experienced discrimination had more negative attitudes toward AA. Perceiving personal discrimination increased support of AA among female business academics. Implications for attitude and intergroup conflict theories are discussed.     

On separability of and interference between tracking dimensions in dual-axis tracking

Time-shared tasks may conceivably be separable or integral. A case in which the question of separability seems quite relevant is dual-axis tracking. To test the interaction between tracking dimensions, we first studied whether they interfere with each other. Practiced subjects performed tracking on one or two axes, with or without feedback indicators and with or without a requirement to allocate resources unevenly between axes. They also performed with or without a concurrent binary classification of visually presented digits which were presented within a moving square that served as the target for tracking. Small deficits were found in the performance of both tracking and digit classification when performed together. However, the conditions of tracking did not have a discernible effect on either tracking or digit classification. Hence, the introduction of a second tracking axis probably does not have harmful consequences either on tracking itself or on any other task time-shared with tracking. Further studies were conducted to examine whether the absence of an effect of number of tracking axes is dues to their integrality. Ordinary position tracking was paired either with another similar task on the other axis or with a novel sort of tracking in which subjects had to continually match sizes of moving rectangles. Tasks were paired under both divided-attention and focused-attention instructions. No interference on position tracking was observed even when the types of task on the two axes differed, and no other evidence for integrality of the homogeneous task pairs was found.     

Nicotine fading,self-monitoring and cigarette fading to produce cigarette abstinence or controlled smoking

This study developed and evaluated a smoking-treatment program. Twelve subjects were randomly assigned to one of two groups within a multiple baseline design. Subjects were first given a nicotine-fading and self-monitoring procedure for 3 weeks in which they changed their cigarette brands each week to ones containing progressively less nicotine and tar and plotted their daily intake of the two substances. Those subjects unable to quit smoking were then given a cigarette-fading procedure in which they systematically reduced the number of cigarettes smoked for 3 weeks. The study had two goals: (1) to achieve a reasonable percentage of abstinence; and (2) to reduce non-abstainers' smoking to a ‘safer’ level by having them smoke very low tar and nicotine cigarettes. The 12-month follow-up results revealed that 33% of the subjects were abstinent and all non-abstainers were smoking cigarettes lower in tar and nicotine than their baseline brands. Half the non-abstainers had decreased their smoking rate relative to baseline while the other half had increased. The subjects decreased their daily nicotine intake by 13.3 mg (81.6% reduction from baseline) and tar intake by 218.2 mg (85.5% reduction from baseline). These results suggest that the study's goals were achieved and that the non-aversive combined procedure could be used to treat not only habitual smokers but also those with cardiovascular and respiratory problems who cannot be treated by smoking-cessation procedures that use cigarette smoke as the aversive stimulus. Finally, a least-restrictive model for treating smoking is proposed and discussed.     

The effects of spatial,temporal, and control variables on the free-recall serial position curve of retardates and equal-MA normals

Memory & Cognition - In Experiment I seven pictures were sequentially illuminated at a 3-see rate through seven translucent windows. A different window provided the starting point for each of...     

Naming two-digit arabic numerals: evidence from masked priming studies

The authors investigated how 2-digit Arabic numerals are named by looking at the effects of masked primes on the naming latencies. Target numerals were named faster when prime and target shared a digit at the same position (e.g., the target 28 primed by 18 and 21). In contrast, naming latencies were slower when prime and target shared 1 or 2 digits at non-corresponding places (e.g., the target 28 primed by 82, 86, or 72). Subsequent experiments showed that these priming effects were situated at the level of the verbal production of the Arabic numerals. The data point to a non-semantically mediated route from visual input to verbal output in the naming of 2-digit Arabic numerals.     

Performance of retarded adolescents and nonretarded children on one- and two-bit logical problems

Groups of adolescents of retarded and borderline intelligence, ranging in IQ from 44 to 80 and in mean MA (mental age) from 8 to 12 yr, and groups of nonretarded children ranging in mean MA from 6 to 12 yr, were given logical problem solving tasks. In the nonretarded groups, on a one-bit problem only the kindergarten children (mean MA = 6 yr) failed to perform above chance, and were not tested further. On a two-bit problem, only the first graders (mean MA = 7 yr) failed to perform above chance.Conversely, in the low IQ groups, only the borderline group (mean MA = 12 yr) performed reliably above chance on the one-bit problem, and none performed above chance on the two-bit problem. There is a profound deficiency in low IQ individuals on certain tasks requiring logic and foresight, and MA markedly over-estimates their performance relative to the performance of nonretarded individuals.