Chains of Command: Responsibility Attribution in Hierarchies1

Obedience to authority involves a chain of causation whereby one party causes another to act. Theoretical problems of responsibility in chains of command were addressed and responsibility within interpersonal causal chains was investigated among a quota sample of the Boston SMSA (N= 391). Findings replicated prior investigations of attitudes about the My Lai massacre and Calley trial. Most respondents approached the incident in terms of the assertion versus denial of responsibility—assertion on the basis of personal causation, versus denial the basis of superior orders. Judgments of responsibility for other bureaucratic crimes of obedience (Watergate burglary and cover-up) or for wrongdoing in professional settings differed sharply, but tendencies to assign or reject assignment of responsibility to subordinates were consistently observable across incidents. Demographic cleavages supported earlier conclusions: More educated respondents and religious “others” (Jewish, other groups, and none) were more likely to assert individual responsibility, but education's effects were stronger for non-Catholics. The paper concludes by raising the possibility of training individuals to assert individual responsibility in the face of illegal or immoral commands from authority.     

The Capital Punishment Debate: Public Perceptions of Crime and Punishment1

Psychophysical scales for seriousness of crime and severity of punishment were developed to aid in investigating the Eighth Amendment issue of whether the death penalty is “cruel and unusual” punishment. Using indirect crossmodality matching techniques with a quota sample of the Boston SMSA, satisfactory scales were obtained for both dimensions with most items in both scales concentrated toward the serious/severe end as planned. Further, specific case vignettes in which experimental variations were embedded were also developed; psychophysical lines production judgments for these specific cases indicated that quite complex social stimuli can be successfully judged psychophysically. Results indicated that (1) capital and noncapital offenses are thoroughly intermingled in seriousness ratings; (2) the death penalty is not rated as significantly more severe than life imprisonment without parole; (3) respondents assign the death penalty relatively rarely even to serious offenses, and then in a manner not particularly in line with capital statutes; and (4) respondents' weighing of extra-legal and legally relevant aspects of capital cases is inconsistent with current statutes. These results suggest multiple ways in which capital punishment could be defined as “cruel”, and strongly suggest the need for further research and through about the issue.     

Positive parental praise: Increasing reactivity and accuracy of self-observation

The parents of a 6-year-old disruptive boy were observed interacting with their son during 20 assessment-oriented, 10- minute experimental sessions. An experimental design consisting of alternately arranged baseline and self-monitoring conditions was utilized. Following the reversal- to- baseline phase, parents were given specialized training in self-recording positive parental praise. Results indicated that (a) self-monitoring of positive verbalizations was an effective means of producing reactive changes in parental behavior, and (b) training in self-monitoring increased parent-observer accuracy scores to more than acceptable levels of agreement. These findings were discussed with regard to the simplicity of a parental self-observational intervention and recommendations were made for continuing investigations in the area.This research was supported by the University of Montana Research Grant and Fellowship Program.     

Self-punishment as a regulation strategy in borderline personality disorder

Studies using the Thought Control Questionnaire (TCQ; Wells & Davies, 1994) suggest that the tendency to use self-punishment (e.g., shouting at oneself) in order to control unpleasant internal experiences (e.g., cognitive and emotional) is associated with psychopathology. To evaluate the role of self-punishment in borderline personality disorder (BPD), we first examined whether TCQ scales, including Self-Punishment, were different among adults with BPD (n = 31) when compared to those with other personality disorders (OPD; n = 24), elevated symptoms of major depressive disorder (MDD; n = 24), and healthy controls (n = 105). Findings indicated that Self-Punishment was elevated in the BPD group relative to other groups. Next, Self-Punishment was examined as a potential mediator in the relationship between negative affectivity and BPD symptom severity in all participants. Results indicated that Self-Punishment did not mediate this relationship, but did account for significant variance in BPD symptoms over and above negative affectivity. Implications and future research directions are discussed.     

Heightened sensitivity to facial expressions of emotion in borderline personality disorder

Individuals with borderline personality disorder (BPD) have been hypothesized to exhibit significant problems associated with emotional sensitivity. The current study examined emotional sensitivity (i.e., low threshold for recognition of emotional stimuli) in BPD by comparing 20 individuals with BPD and 20 normal controls on their accuracy in identifying emotional expressions. Results demonstrated that, as facial expressions morphed from neutral to maximum intensity, participants with BPD correctly identified facial affect at an earlier stage than did healthy controls. Participants with BPD were more sensitive than healthy controls in identifying emotional expressions in general, regardless of valence. These findings could not be explained by participants with BPD responding faster with more errors. Overall, results appear to support the contention that heightened emotional sensitivity may be a core feature of BPD.     

The picture superiority effect in conceptual implicit memory: a conceptual distinctiveness hypothesis

According to leading theories, the picture superiority effect is driven by conceptual processing, yet this effect has been difficult to obtain using conceptual implicit memory tests. We hypothesized that the picture superiority effect results from conceptual processing of a picture's distinctive features rather than a picture's semantic features. To test this hypothesis, we used 2 conceptual implicit general knowledge tests; one cued conceptually distinctive features (e.g., "What animal has large eyes?") and the other cued semantic features (e.g., "What animal is the figurehead of Tootsie Roll?"). Results showed a picture superiority effect only on the conceptual test using distinctive cues, supporting our hypothesis that this effect is mediated by conceptual processing of a picture's distinctive features.     

Sex differences in the Poggendorff illusion: identifying the locus of the effect

Extensive research has identified individual differences associated with sex in a range of visual task performances, including susceptibility to visual illusions. The aim of this study was to identify the locus of sex differences within the context of the Poggendorf illusion. 79 women and 79 men participated within a mixed factorial design. Analyses indicated that sex differences were only present in the stimulus context with the full inducing element present. This finding replicates recent research and provides qualifying evidence as to the locus of the effect. The findings are discussed within the functional framework of perceptual processes involved in extrapolating 3-dimensional characteristics from 2-dimensional visual stimuli.     

Comparison and contrast in perceptual categorization

People categorized pairs of perceptual stimuli that varied in both category membership and pairwise similarity. Experiments 1 and 2 showed categorization of 1 color of a pair to be reliably contrasted from that of the other. This similarity-based contrast effect occurred only when the context stimulus was relevant for the categorization of the target (Experiment 3). The effect was not simply owing to perceptual color contrast (Experiment 4), and it extended to pictures from common semantic categories (Experiment 5). Results were consistent with a sign-and-magnitude version of N. Stewart and G. D. A. Brown's (2005) similarity-dissimilarity generalized context model, in which categorization is affected by both similarity to and difference from target categories. The data are also modeled with criterion setting theory (M. Treisman & T. C. Williams, 1984), in which the decision criterion is systematically shifted toward the mean of the current stimuli.     

Dissociations among tasks involving inhibition: A single-case study

Recent theories of working memory have emphasized the role of inhibition in suppressing irrelevant information. Moreover, psychometric studies have reported that several inhibition tasks with very diverse requirements load on a single inhibition factor. A patient with left inferior frontal damage, Patient M.L., previously reported to have a semantic short-term memory deficit (R. C. Martin & He, 2004), showed evidence of difficulty with inhibition on short-term memory tasks. We investigated whether he would show evidence of inhibition difficulty on two verbal tasks (a Stroop task and a recent-negatives task) and two nonverbal tasks (a nonverbal spatial Stroop task and an antisaccade task). M.L. was impaired on both verbal tasks but performed normally on the nonverbal tasks. M.L.’s data also represent a dissociation between Stroop and antisaccade performance, two tasks that load on a single factor in factor-analytic studies. The implications of these data for theories of inhibition and executive function are discussed.