The effect of subject's race and other's race on judgments of causality for success and failure

This study examined the proposition that blacks and whites make dispositional attributions for an in-group's positive behaviors and an out-group's negative behaviors. The study also examined whether this positive in-group bias was caused by dislike of the out-group or belief in a stereotype. Thus, blacks and whites made attributions to black and white others who succeeded or failed on tasks for which there was either no stereotype or a more negative stereotype of whites than of blacks. An out-group other's failure on both tasks was attributed to lack of ability more than was an in-group other's failure. This finding suggests that the in-group bias is caused by dislike of the out-group. Furthermore, in success conditions subjects' attributions to the in-group or out-group other did not differ. It was suggested that these attributions may result from a combination of an in-group bias and a polarized appraisal.     

INDIVIDUAL REACTIONS TO ORGANIZATIONAL RECRUITING: A REVIEW

The present paper reviews the research that has examined the influence of organizational recruiting on applicants' attitudes and job choice behaviors. It was found that recruiting representatives, administrative practices, and procedures used to evaluate applicant qualifications are all potentially important influences on job seeker attitudes and behaviors. However, limitations of the existing research necessitate caution in the interpretation of findings. Of particular concern is the likely generalizability of results presented here to all job seekers. The review concludes with recommendations for the conduct of subsequent recruiting research.     

Anxiety and locus of conflict in delinquents

The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC) and the Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (CMAS) were administered to 54 juvenile delinquents (27 males, 27 females). Ratings on locus of conflict were also obtained. The STAIC A-State scale was significantly correlated with internalization but not with externalization or the total maladjustment index. Neither A-Trait nor the anxiety portion of the CMAS was correlated with locus of conflict. All measures of anxiety were significantly correlated with each other. Boys were rated as more internal, external, and maladjusted than girls despite the fact that girls reported more subjectively experienced anxiety.     

On insirumental response interaction as explaining the influences of Pavlovian CSs upon avoidance behavior

The finding that Pavlovian signals for food or shock influence avoidance responding might be explained either by interaction of conditioned central mediational states or interaction of learned instrumental responses. Using three groups of dogs, the two hypotheses were pited one against the other in a three-stage transfer-of-control experiment. In the initial conditioning phase, tones were established as signals for food, shock, or neither; additionally the tones also cued a common instrumental response. Following avoidance training, the tone was tested for its influence upon avoidance. If the lone had signaled food, avoidance was suppressed; if shock, avoidance was facilitated; if neither, avoidance was unaffected. This was interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that interaction of central states mediates the transfer-of-control.     

Structure, Self-Regulating Sequences, and Institutional Third Parties in Therapy: The Veterans Administration as a Model

This article examines the structural organization and sequences of interaction among therapists, institutions, and patients and their families that contribute to the problem of institutional dependence. Our contention is that when patients have become dependent on an institution for the livelihood and/or for the stability it represents, they are only one part of a systemic relationship characterized structurally by enmeshed boundaries, and sequentially by self-regulating feedback loops. We use this premise to outline the nature of the enmeshed transactions in patient-therapist, patient-institution, and therapist-institution relationships. Family interfaces with this triad are also addressed. Sequentially, we outline the interactions among patient, family, therapist, and institution that lead to hierarchical incongruities. These sequences tend to produce self-regulating feedback loops that perpetuate and maintain the structure of the system and its patterns of interaction. The final part of this article demonstrates how we strategically use a therapy team to manipulate the hierarchical incongruities and, hence, the recursive complementarity, that characterize the interactions between and among the members of this suprasystem. Besides manipulating the role of the therapist through team intervention, we also present several paradoxical and structural interventions that have been helpful when institutions have become third parties to therapy.     

Relative contributions of envelope maxima and minima to comodulation masking release

Comodulation masking release (CMR) is a phenomenon that demonstrates the sensitivity of the auditory system to across-frequency differences in the temporal modulation pattern of a complex waveform. In this paper, we review briefly some of the data on the physical parameters that affect CMR and describe models that have been proposed to account for CMR -- namely, models based upon envelope equalization/cancellation, across-frequency envelope correlation, and “dip listening”. The present literature is ambiguous with regard to the relative importance of energy in the peak and dip regions of the waveform envelope. We therefore performed a series of experiments to investigate this issue. In the first experiment, we examined CMR for signals that resulted either in a uniform increment or in uniform decrement in the masking noise centred on the signal frequency. This was accomplished by using a 20-Hz-wide noise band centred on 700 Hz as both the masker and as the signal, adjusting the phase angle between the signal and masker to either 0° (increment) or 180° (decrement). Conditions were examined where either zero, one, two, four, or six comodulated flanking bands were present. Results indicated positive CMRs for all conditions in which a comodulated flanking band was present. CMR increased as the number of flanking bands increased for intensity increments, but not for intensity decrements. The remaining experiments examined conditions where signals were present only in masker peaks, or only in masker dips. The results of these experiments indicated relatively large CMRs when the signal occurred in dip regions, but no CMR when the signal occurred in peak regions. Whereas some of the results of the above experiments would be difficult to account for in terms of the dip listening hypothesis of CMR, the present findings did indicate that the stimulus cues that give rise to CMR appear to be derived primarily from the dip regions of the masking noise.