The empirical violation of conservation laws and its relation to structural change

Concrete operational Ss were provided empirical evidence of nonconservation of discontinuous quantity and weight. The findings were that few Ss accepted this evidence. This was interpreted as supporting the organismic-developmental claim that lower forms of reasoning are transformed into structurally more advanced forms. It was also found that (1) probing provides a more accurate assessment of Ss' operational levels, (2) one can empirically distinguish between logicomathematical and physical knowledge, and (3) the former is understood by Ss to be nomically necessary and the latter, in the case of weight, may not be.     

Effects of felt adequacy and opportunity to reciprocate on help seeking

This experiment was prompted by the belief that felt inadequacy and lack of opportunity to reciprocate act as deterrents to help seeking when help is needed. The experiment was conducted on 56 freshmen by modifying Greenberg and Shapiro's physical disability paradigm. Subjects were told that they could not meet the quota on a manual task but had done well (poorly) for persons similarly handicapped (by arm in sling). Later they learned that the electricity would be shut off in 2 hr (15 min), making it possible (impossible) to help the visually handicapped fellow worker later on a visual task. The hypothesis that felt inadequacy inhibits help seeking was fully supported, while the corresponding hypothesis regarding lack of opportunity to reciprocate received only partial support. There were no sex differences. The relevance of these data for embarrassment theory is discussed.     

The relationship between binocular brightness matches and luminance difference discriminability of successively presented light flashes1

Measurements of monocular ΔI and PSE as a function of the ISI between two 2-deg foveal fields successively presented to the same retinal area were obtained for two Standard durations, using the method of constant stimuli. Binocular brightness matches of the stimuli revealed that detection of a difference occurred whenever a constant difference (in log mL) in matching luminance existed. The implication of the results was that ΔI is related to the rate of change of brightness with changes in test-field luminance.     

BIRTH ORDER OF MEDICAL STUDENTS AND THE OCCUPATIONAL AMBITIONS OF THEIR PARENTS

Une étude antérieure, faite aux Etats-Unis, a montré que les étudiants en médecine sont en général les aînés de leur famille; cette tendance est spécialement marquée lorsque le père souffre d'un certain déséquilibre dans son statut professionnel, en ce sens que celui-ci est inférieur à ce à quoi il pouvait aspirer de par sa formation. Cette étude a été refaite et étendue en Suède; les conclusions sont les suivantes: (1) Les étudiants en médecine, filies et garçons sont en général les aînés de leur famille. (2) Cette tendance est plus marquée chez les filies dont le père a un statut déséquilibré. (3) Pour les étudiants des deux sexes, la proportion d'aînés est spécialement forte chez ceux qui relatent que leur père a été frustré dans ses aspirations professionnelles. On pourrait done penser que le fils ainé prend son père comme modèle de rôle professionnel quand le père est satisfait de son travail, tandis que, lorsque le père est frustré, le fils prend pour modèle le rôle que le pére n'a pas réussi à atteindre. (4) Conformément aux prédictions basées sur la primogéniture, les effets du rang de naissance, pour les sujets masculins, sont plus marqués dans les zones rurales que dans les villes, mais cette différence ne joue pas pour les filies. Plusieurs problèmes méthodologiques afférant aux recherches sur le rang de naissance sont discutés ici.