Gender displays in portrait photographs

Following the research of Goffman (1976) and Henley (1977) on sex differences in nonverbal behavior, 1,296 portrait photographs from high school and university yearbooks and from the media files of a university were analyzed for sex differences. Females smiled with a significantly greater frequency and expansiveness than males and head canted significantly more than males. Results supporting the hypothesis that males would face the camera more directly than females failed to reach the acceptable significance level. The prediction that persons working in opposite-sex roles would deintensify their gender displays failed to gain support.The author expresses appreciation to Bill Drell and Andrea Wilson for their assistance in data collection.     

The Impact of Time Proximity and Level of Generality on Attitude-Behavior Consistency1

This study examines the effects of (1) generality equivalence between attitudinal and behavioral entities and (2) the order and proximity of the attitude and behavior questions on the observed relationship between attitudes and behavior. The behaviors examined are sentence recommendations for six hypothetical defendants. The sample is composed of 185 line probation officers from New York State. The variables chosen conform to Martin Fishbein's model of behavioral intentions. As predicted, the observed relationship is affected by both level of specificity and proximity of the questions. Order of the questions has little effect.     

Effects of degree of interpersonal similarity on physical distance and self-reported attraction: A comparison of uniqueness and reinforcement theory predictions

The apparently divergent similarity-attraction findings of the reinforcement theory and uniqueness theory researchers were investigated by exposing male (N = 45) and female (N = 45) subjects to conditions of slight, moderate, or high similarity relative to one comparison other. Similarity was manipulated by means of a bogus personality and attitude inventory. For the self-report measures, results consistent with reinforcement theory were obtained in that greater self-reported attraction to the partner was linearly related to increased similarity. Additionally, interpersonal distance was curvilinearly related to similarity. This distancing pattern reflected the fact that moderate similarity subjects positioned themselves relatively closer to the other person's chair than the slight or high similarity subjects. The physical distance results support the uniqueness theory notion that high similarity may have some aversive properties. The discrepancy between the physical distance and self-report results is discussed in terms of an implicit causal theory that subjects may have about interpersonal similarity (i.e., greater similarity is good).     

Children's strategies in producing three-dimensional relationships on a two-dimensional surface

It is a common task to give children a picture containing implicit depth cues and to require them to extract depth information from it. The cues are always selected from the adult repertoire; little is known about children's production of their own cues. In this experiment, 5- to 10-year-old children were required to draw one object behind another in a situation in which adults invariably produce the further object partially occluded by the nearer. The results were an age-related decline in the tendency to segregate the objects and an increase in the tendency to group the objects using partial occlusion, with a cross-over at 8 years. At all ages some children drew one object inside the boundary of the other. It is argued that the results are composed of two tendencies, a gradual mastery of discrete scaling phenomena (e.g., “up” on the page means “further”) within a given style, and a set of decisions to be made between incompatible styles.     

The effect of alcoholic intoxication upon calorically induced oculogyral illusion

Ten male and 10 female subjects, half of whom were classified as “heavy” and half as “light” drinkers, ingested a 4-1 combination of tonic water and 80-proof vodka in an amount calculated to produce a state of moderate intoxication (average estimated peak blood alcohol level=.075). This resulted in an increased sensitivity (latency, magnitude, and duration) to the calorically induced “oculogyral illusion” (OGI) relative to a placebo (tonic water) condition. “Heavy” and “light” drinkers did not differ significantly on any of the measures. It was speculated that the alcoholic enhancement of the OGI was due either to a decreased ability to suppress vestibular nystagmus when attempting to fixate a visual stimulus or to the expenditure of extra-normal effort in order to maintain fixation.     

Reaction time in reading a tachistoscopic display for a memory set item

Reaction times were measured in a task which requires the subject to search a brief visual array for a critical letter embedded in a row of background letters. In Experiment 1, the position of a critical letter in an instructed reading order and the size of a set of memorized letters were varied. Mean reaction time increased monotonically with distance of the critical letter from the beginning of the instructed reading path in the display. The variables reading position and memory set size were additive in their effect on mean reaction time. Data from a second experiment in which the retinal location of the critical letter and its reading position were varied showed that both reading position and retinal location influenced mean reaction time, but the effect of reading position on reaction time was greater. These variables interacted.