Interviewer's Moods and Reactions to Job Applicants: The Influence of Affective States on Applied Social Judgments1

Male and female subjects interviewed a same-sex applicant for an entry-level management position. In reality, this person was an accomplice who presented a carefully standardized pattern of positive and negative information. Prior to the interview, participants were exposed to treatments designed to place them in a positive, neutral, or negative mood. Results indicated that subjects’ moods influenced their reactions to the applicant. They rated this individual higher on job-related and personal dimensions and made more favorable employment decisions about him or her when in a positive than negative mood. In addition, participants recalled more information presented by the applicant that was consistent with their current mood than information that was inconsistent with these feelings. Implications of these findings for the development of closer conceptual links between (a) basic knowledge about social cognition and (b) practical issues relating to the conduction of fair employment interviews are discussed.     

Density and delay of punishment of free-operant avoidance

In two experiments, the free-operant shock-avoidance behavior of rats was punished by electric shock. Two aspects of the schedule of response-produced shock were varied: the frequency of punishment over time (punishment density) and the temporal interval between the punished response and the punishment (punishment delay). The general finding was that response-produced shock suppressed avoidance responding under most of the density-delay combinations studied, and suppression increased as a function of increases in density and decreases in delay. Rate increases of small magnitude also were observed, usually as an initial reaction to the lesser densities and longer delays. Response suppression, while decreasing the number of punishment shocks received, also increased the number of avoidance shocks, so that the total number of shocks received usually was greater than the minimal number possible. The results were discussed from the standpoint of similarities between the effects of punishing positively and negatively reinforced behavior. The finding that subjects did not minimize the total number of shocks suggested that when avoidance behavior is punished, responding is controlled more by the local consequences of responding than by overall shock frequencies during the course of the session.     

Processing of sequentially presented letters

The effect on the number of letters S can report of the duration of each sequentially presented letter was compared with that of processing time, defined as the time from the onset of a letter to the onset of the next letter. Four Ss were each shown 1250 common English words, from four to eight letters long, one letter at a time. Each letter acted as a visual noise field for the preceding letter. The duration of each letter and the interval between letters was varied independently. The S reported the letters he saw after each word was displayed. It was found that the processing time (onset to onset) predicted the number of letters correctly reported, regardless of the partition between on time and off time. A calculation was made of the number of milliseconds of on plus off time that are needed to ensure correct report of each letter. This time was independent of the duration of the processing time, but was positively correlated with the number of letters in the word. This correlation is probably in part artifactual, so that no claim can be made that it takes longer to process a letter of a long as compared to a short word.     

Effects of inadmissible Evidence on the Decisions of Simulated Jurors: A Moral Dilemma

In a 2 × 3 design, simulated jurors received either weak or strong evidence against a defendant in a murder case. Within each evidence condition, subjects were given either additional evidence ruled admissible, additional evidence ruled inadmissible, or no additional evidence. Results indicated that ( a ) jurors were biased by inadmissible evidcnce in the weak-evidence but not in the strong-evidence condition, ( b ) strong evidence resulted in more guilty verdicts than did weak evidence, ( c ) confidence in verdict was influenced by strength of evidence, and ( d ) confidence of guilt was positively correlated with severity of punishment. Implications of the results are discussed within the context of the judicial process.     

TRAINING GENERALIZED RECEPTIVE PREPOSITIONS IN RETARDED CHILDREN1

Three retarded children were trained, using prompting and reinforcement procedures, to respond correctly to three categories of prepositional requests: “put the___ next to the___”, “put the___under the___”, and “put the___on top of the___”. Training sessions were alternated with probe sessions throughout the study. During training, a child was trained to respond to one request (e.g., “put the doll next to the cup”); during probing, the child was tested for generalization of this training to untrained requests. Responses to untrained requests were never prompted nor reinforced. The results showed that, as requests from one category were trained, the children's responses to the untrained requests of that category became increasingly correct. As discriminations among two or more categories were trained, the children's responses to the untrained requests of those categories also became increasingly correct. Thus, the methods employed appear to be successful in training generalized receptive discrimination among prepositional categories and possibly can be utilized in training other generalized receptive language skills.     

The dimensions of career and work orientation in college women

The purpose of this study was to clarify the meaning of the construct, career orientation. Fourteen presumed measures of career orientation as well as Super's Work Values Inventory were administered to college women. Analysis of the relationships among these variables identified two relatively independent clusters. The first cluster most closely approximated the usual definition of career orientation. Career-oriented women were found to be highly career motivated and perceived the career role as primary in their adult lives. The second cluster was called work orientation. This orientation characterized women with well-defined occupational aspirations who placed a high value on both the career role and marriage-family responsibilities in their future. Work-oriented women tended to choose traditionally feminine occupations in contrast to the career-oriented women whose aspirations included higher level and less traditional occupations.