Social differentiation and social originality

In this article we have presented a theoretical outline and a body of empirical work relating to the processes of social differentiation and social originality. If, in a competition, someone else seems to possess a decisive advantage or if mere comparison with this other person constitutes a threat to social identity, there are signs, in given conditions, of a tendency to differentiate oneself from the other, to be different or to do something else, to invent new criteria of being or doing with others or to combine accepted criteria in an original way. In other words, one tends to give proof of originality or, to use a Darwinian metaphor, to occupy ‘vacant places’. Doubtless the strategies described here only apply to certain social systems in which the visibility of the agent is an important social value and in which comparison may pose a threat to that identity. The restoring of identity by way of the search for otherness merits the attention of social psychology. But originality is not necessarily accepted or not necessarily immediately. Innovation may take time, may necessitate the creation of schismatic groups and the waging of battles for recognition, etc. We give a brief account of observations made with regard to groups of children in summer camps, laboratory experiments and the results of surveys in the scientific and artistic communities which fit into our theoretical framework. It will not be difficult for the reader to see that this article is a first step in a direction which, in our eyes, holds out a great deal of promise.     

A dual system for producing self-repairs in spontaneous speech: Evidence from experimentally elicited corrections

This paper presents a cognitive theory on the production and shaping of self-repairs during speaking. In an extensive experimental study, a new technique is tried out: artificial elicitation of self-repairs. The data clearly indicate that two mechanisms for computing the shape of self-repairs should be distinguished. One is based on the repair strategy called reformulation, the second one on lemma substitution. W. Levelt's (1983, Cognition, 14, 41–104) well-formedness rule, which connects self-repairs to coordinate structures, is shown to apply only to reformulations. In case of lemma substitution, a totally different set of rules is at work. The linguistic unit of central importance in reformulations is the major syntactic constituent; in lemma substitutions it is a prosodie unit, the phonological phrase. A parametrization of the model yielded a very satisfactory fit between observed and reconstructed scores. © 1987 Academic Press, Inc.     

Sequencing of vocational development stages: Further studies

This paper reports two studies which support the prediction derived from Hershenson's (Journal of Counseling Psychology, 1968, 15, 23–30) life-stage vocational development model that average scores on Self-differentiation (worker self-concept and motivation) would exceed those on Competence (work habits, skills, and interpersonal relations), which in turn would exceed those on Independence (appropriateness and crystallization of vocational goals). The first study involved ratings by project staff on an inner city, socially disadvantaged population, and the second study involved self-ratings by individuals who had changed occupations in midcareer. Findings are consistent with those reported by Hershenson and Langbauer (Journal of Counseling Psychology, 1973, 20, 519–521) on a population of deaf clients.     

Extension of the taste-test analogue as an unobtrusive measure of preference for alcohol

The utility of the taste-test analogue for obtaining an unobtrusive measure of preference for alcohol was examined. Thirty-two male undergraduates participated in each of two taste-rating tasks. In each task. subjects were presented with two beakers containing beverages they were to rate. Although one container was labeled “Alcohol”, and the other was labeled “Orange Juice”, both actually contained only orange juice. Subjects rated the beverages differently on 52% of the dimensions for which ratings were completed. Furthermore, subjects estimated that they had consumed an average of over three ounces of alcohol in the combined taste tests. Wider use of the analogue preference test may have significant value in the study of the determinants of human alcohol drinking behavior.     

Perceptual centres for Dutch digits

In two experiments, analogous to those reported by Marcus (1976) with English words and subjects, we determined the psychological moment of occurrence (p-centre) of Dutch digit names. In the first experiment we determined the p-centres for the digits 1 through 10 and compared the empirical results with values calculated from the formula that Marcus defines over the acoustic characteristics of stimulus words. We found good agreement between empirical and predicted values. In a second experiment we studied the effect of cycle time and repeated measurement on perceptual centres. The results confirm the independence of the p-centre phenomenon from practice and periodicity. A comparison of ‘identical’ and ‘non-identical’ stimulus pairs shows that larger variances are associated with the former condition.     

Effects of reinforcement schedule on facilitation of operant extinction by chlordiazepoxide

Learning and memory are central topics in behavioral neuroscience, and inbred mice strains are widely investigated. However, operant conditioning techniques are not as extensively used in this field as they should be, given the effectiveness of the methodology of the experimental analysis of behavior. In the present study, male C57B1/6 mice, widely used as background for transgenic studies, were trained to lever press on discrete-trial fixed-ratio 5 or fixed-interval (11 s or 31 s) schedules of food reinforcement and then exposed to 15 extinction sessions following vehicle or chlordiazepoxide injections (15 mg/kg i.p., administered either prior to all extinction sessions, or prior to the final 10 extinction sessions). Extinction of operant behavior was facilitated by drug administration following training on either schedule, but this facilitation only occurred once a number of extinction sessions had taken place. The extinction process proceeded more rapidly following fixed-interval training. Resistance to extinction was equally high following training with either schedule type, and was reduced by drug administration in both cases. These phenomena were evident in individual cumulative records and in analyses of group data. Results are interpreted in terms of phenomena of operant extinction identified in Skinner's (1938) Behavior of Organisms, and by behavioral momentum theory. These procedures could be used to extend the contribution of operant conditioning to contemporary behavioral neuroscience.     

Norming clinical questionnaires with multiple regression: the Pain Cognition List

Questionnaires for measuring patients' feelings or beliefs are commonly used in clinical settings for diagnostic purposes, clinical decision making, or treatment evaluation. Raw scores of a patient can be evaluated by comparing them with norms based on a reference population. Using the Pain Cognition List (PCL-2003) as an example, this article shows how clinical questionnaires can be normed with multiple regression of raw scores on demographic and other patient variables. Compared with traditional norm tables for subgroups based on age or gender, this approach offers 2 advantages. First, multiple regression allows determination of which patient variables are relevant to the norming and which are not (validity). Second, by using information from the entire sample, multiple regression leads to continuous and more stable norms for any subgroup defined in terms of prognostic variables (reliability).