Individual differences for sex differences in achievement attributions?

Past research has found a self-defensive bias in males and a self-derogatory bias in female achievement attributions. Dispositional explanations for these differences were examined in the present study. Subjects completed measures of Need for Achievement, Self-Esteem, Fear of Success, Attitudes Toward Women, and Androgyny. They later competed in same- or mixed-sex pairs on an anagram task which was prearranged in difficulty so that one subject clearly defeated his/her partner. Consistent with past research, males were more likely to attribute their outcomes to ability, and less likely to attribute their outcomes to effort and luck, than were females. Achievement motivation was the most consistently successful predictor of these sex differences.     

Transfer of conditioned appetitive stimuli to conditioned aversive excitatory and inhibitory stimuli

The transfer of Pavlovian appetitive stimuli to Pavlovian aversive stimuli was examined in three experiments. In Experiment 1, rats received appetitive (Ap) conditioning designed to establish a flashing-light stimulus as either a CS+, CSo, or CS? for food, or to maintain it as a novel stimulus for US-alone subjects. Then, the stimulus was employed as a signal for weak shock in conditioned-emotional-response (CER) training. Both acquisition and extinction results showed that the ApCS+ facilitated and the ApCS? retarded aversive excitatory conditioning relative to the ApCSo and US-alone controls. Experiment 2 replicated the findings of Experiment 1 with both a moderate and a severe shock in CER training. In Experiment 3, different groups received the same appetitive conditioning as before, but to a flashing-light stimulus which was then employed as a signal for no shock in CER training. The ApCS? facilitated and the ApCS+ retarded aversive inhibitory conditioning relative to ApCSo and US-alone controls. Collectively, these findings establish that, in Pavlovian conditioning, transfer of an appetitive CS to an aversive excitor or inhibitor is facilitated by maintaining the initial conditioning contingency.     

Apparatus conceptualization for psychopathological research inmonkeys

Investigation of psychopathology in monkeys requires analysis of multiple variables mediating specific behaviors. Assessment of both the relative contribution of each variable and the interactions among them is facilitated by the use of apparatuses whose designs permit separate or simultaneous manipulation of several variables. Three such devices, the pit, the tunnel of terror, and the standard living-experimental cage, each specifically constructed for the production of depression or despair in monkeys, are described.     

Anchor effects using numerical estimates of simple dot patterns

Shifts due to anchor stimuli using absolute judgments have been ascribed to “semantic” and “scale modulus” changes. To test this explanation, random dot patterns of 10, 12, 14, 16 and 18 dots were exposed for 0.30 sec with anchors of 4, 13 or 32 dots preceding each of the stimuli. In the control only the series of stimuli were judged. It was found that numerical estimates of the number of dots increased with small anchor, decreased with large anchor, and were not significantly changed with anchor in the vicinity of AL. These results exactly parallel those found using methods of absolute and comparative ratings and hence cannot be ascribed to semantic shifts especially in view of the fact that independent groups of Ss served in the four anchor and control conditions. Since the anchor effects were significant but not so large that they can be ascribed to change of scale modulus this theory must also be rejected. The AL model seems to offer the simplest and most unitary explanation of these as well as many other results obtained with different types of stimuli and different methods of judging.     

Resolution of the heywood case in the minres solution

In the course of developing the minres method of factor analysis the troublesome situation of communalities greater than one arose. This problem—referred to as the generalized Heywood case—is resolved in this paper by means of a process of minimizing the sum of squares of off-diagonal residuals. The resulting solution is superior to the otherwise very efficient original minres method without requiring additional computing time.Both authors were with the System Development Corporation when this work was done.     

A correction for replicated error in correlation coefficients

A solution is presented to the problem of determining a proper correction for spuriousness in correlation coefficients. The general case developed is the estimate of correlation betweenu andv, both being linear functions of the same set of variables. Special formulae relate to overlapping scales correlations, part-whole correlations, and item-total test correlations.The research and development reported herein was performed pursuant to a contract with the United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Office of Education, under the provisions of the Cooperative Research Program. This research was conducted by the Evaluation Division of the Research and Development Center in Educational Stimulation. The authors wish to thank E. E. Cureton for his helpful suggestions.