Memory for faces: A social learning analysis

Recognition memory for unfamiliar faces was related to locus of control and anxiety. On the basis of Rotter's social learning theory, it was predicted that memory for faces would be associated with more internal locus of control in an unstructured memory task but not when encoding was controlled. In Experiment 1, where no specific instructions about encoding were presented, the predicted relationship was found for males. In addition, better recognition was associated with low anxiety for females. In Experiment 2, where encoding was controlled by having subjects judge the faces, no significant correlations between the personality measures and memory were found. The results are interpreted as supporting predictions made on the basis of social learning theory.     

Doctors and patients: Partners or adversaries?

The author suggests that an inadequate understanding of the ethical relationship between doctors and patients is at the core of many current health care issues. The doctor-patient relationship is discussed with an emphasis on the expectations of patients and physicians. Three sets of expectations or models of doctor-patient interaction are reviewed and a number of health care issues are explored in this frame-work. It is hypothesized that when doctors and patients have similar expectations they will be partners and that when they differ, they are more likely to be adversaries. Finally it is suggested that unless national health policy is designed to take into account the effect of legislation on physicians' and patients' expectations, dissatisfaction with health care will continue to increase.     

The permanence of mental objects: testing magical thinking on perceived and imaginary realities

This study tested participants' preparedness to acknowledge that an object could change as a result of magical intervention. Six- and 9-year-old children and adults treated perceived and imagined objects as being equally permanent. Adults treated a fantastic object as significantly less permanent than either perceived or imagined objects. Results were similar when a different type of mental-physical causality--a participant's own wish--was examined. Adults were also tested on the permanence of personally significant imagined objects (participants' images of their future lives). Although almost all participants claimed that they did not believe in magic, in test trials they were not prepared to rule out the possibility that their future lives could be affected by a magical curse.     

High risk drinking and college students' self-perceptions

The present study examined the relationship between high risk drinking and college students' self-perceptions. High risk drinking was defined as the consumption of four or more drinks in a row for women and five or more drinks in a row for men during a single sitting (within the last year). Historical trends regarding college-age drinking indicate that 44% of college students fit the criteria for high risk drinking at least once over the past year. A survey was administered to 210 college students (52 men and 158 women) between 18 and 22 years of age (M = 20.9, SD = 1.3) to assess their use of alcohol and their self-perceptions. Students' self-perceptions were measured with four subscales from the Neemann-Harter Self-perception Profile for College Students. Students either volunteered to participate in this study outside of class or were solicited during class. It was predicted that students' self-perceptions would differ significantly depending upon their alcohol consumption, i.e., 17.1% were Abstainers, 25.2% were Nonproblem Drinkers, and 57.6% were High Risk Drinkers. Analysis gave significant difference on Global Self-worth between students who abstained and those who were High Risk Drinkers. However, students' perceptions of Scholastic Competence, Intellectual Ability, and Social Acceptance did not differ significantly for the alcohol consumption groups. In addition to high risk drinking, a number of other variables were associated with self-perceptions, such as high school alcohol use, low high school GPA, and students' reported academic involvement. These relations are discussed.     

Socioeconomic status,value, and response to number

An experiment was designed to study the role of sensory; empirical, and motivational variables in number discrimination of coin or slug displays having equal luminance. It was found that groups of children, differentiated on the basis of economic status, social class, and availability of money but equated for knowledge of purchasing power of money, respond in identical fashion when the number of slugs or coins viewed is within the “span of attention,” i.e., when response is at a sensory level. Differences between groups of children appear when the number of coins (but not slugs) in a display are so many as to fall outside the child’s “span of attention,” thus requiring the additional utilization of a judgmental framework in ascertaining the “manyness” of a display. The less favored socioeconomic group coin estimates were significantly greater than those of the more favored. When response data are expressed as numerosity functions, the operation of motivational factors may be differentiated algebraically. A t a theoretical level, it appears that motivational and sensory explanations are both true, providing they are restricted to definite and appropriate ranges of stimulus number and type.     

Improving Juror Comprehension of Judicial Instructions on the Entrapment Defense1

When the defense of entrapment is raised, the legal and psychological question is not whether the defendant committed some illegal act, but rather why the defendant behaved as he or she did and whether government agents' actions provoked the defendant to commit the same crime. The subjective test of entrapment focuses on the predisposition of the defendant to commit a particular crime, while the objective test focuses on situational forces. In Study 1, type of entrapment defense (subjective, objective) and the defendant's prior record (no prior record, prior record) were experimentally manipulated. As expected, superior comprehension of the judge's instructions was found for jurors who heard subjective test instructions. Study 2 was designed to improve the comprehension and judgments of jurors who received 1 of 3 versions of the objective test. Juror comprehension of key legal concepts and subsequent judgments improved if jurors heard one of the rewritten versions of the objective test.