Social uncertainty and interdependence: A study of resource allocation decisions in groups

Social uncertainty about the behavior of others with whom one is interdependent for rewards is hypothesized to encourage self-interested behavior and inhibit behavioral commitment to the group. This paper examines the roles of uncertainty, expectations, and feedback about other group members' contributions to the group in interdependent decision making. In the absence of feedback, resources tend to be divided between individual and group interests. Resource allocations to the group are found to increase significantly if group members receive feedback about other members' allocations, particularly if that feedback is at the individual level, not an aggregated group level. However, the effects of feedback presence and type are eliminated when group members state their expectations about other members' future contributions to the group. Implications for expectancy value theories of motivation and commitment to groups in organizations are discussed.     

Internal consistency and reliability of alternate short forms of the college women's assertion sample: Clinical and research implications

Assertive behavior is most often assessed with self-report or role-play measures. The latter modality is preferred because it provides for the sampling of the structure of behavior and for the consideration of the situational context. MacDonald (1978) has developed such an assessment device but it is limited by the length of time for administration and scoring. Two studies were conducted to reconstruct reliable alternate short forms. The first study describes the selection of items and demonstrates the internal consistency of the alternate forms. The second study demonstrates the alternate form and retest reliability and provides normative statistics. We conclude that reliable alternate short forms have been constructed to be used in research in clinical applications.This research was supported by the Marie Wilson Howells Fund.Alternate short forms of the CWAS may be obtained from the first author.     

A computerized system for monitoring and controlling intracranial electrical self-stimulation behavior

An automated system for measuring intracranial self-stimulation behavior is described. The system consists of two Commodore 6502 microcomputers interfaced with a constant-current generator and a standard operant chamber. The system hardware allows sine- and square-wave stimulation. Stimulus intensity can be varied in 256 steps between 0 and 100, 0 and 500, or 0 and 1,000 /µA. The system programs, which are written in machine language, allow the control of various schedules of reinforcement, the counting of operant responses and reinforcements, the measurement of interresponse intervals, and the storage of the data on disk. The software is designed for the determination of the threshold of reinforcement, on the basis of the titration of postreinforcement pauses caused by changeover in schedule control between concurrent continuous reinforcement and fixed ratio schedules.     

A comparison of Guided Imaginal Coping and imaginal exposure in the treatment of panic disorder

The present study evaluated the efficacy of a new intervention, Guided Imaginal Coping (GIC), compared to imaginal exposure (IEX), and a waiting-list control (WLC) condition among 24 clinic outpatients meeting DSM-III-R criteria for panic disorder (PD) or PD with agoraphobia. GIC was the more consistently effective intervention, with individuals demonstrating significant improvement in frequency and severity of panic attacks (Pas) as well as significant reductions in physiological and subjective arousal to provocative imagery. Individuals in the IEX intervention demonstrated less consistent improvement on the dependent measures, while individuals in the WLC condition essentially remained unchanged. Both GIC and IEX were effective according to a composite measure of clinically significant improvement. However, only GIC was superior to the WLC condition when clinical improvement was defined as zero PAs at follow-up. These findings, while preliminary, suggest that GIC can be added to the armamentarium of effective approaches to treating PD.     

A collection of 4,741 word fragments that have unique completions with respect to 146,205 words

A collection of 4,741 word fragments that have a unique completion is described. All word fragments are specified by two letters (e.g.,__Q__U__can only be completed by the word LIQUEURS). The words completing these fragments range in length from five to nine letters. The fragments are unique with respect to a pool of 146,205 words, which helps rule out the possibility that obscure words could be used as a completion to the fragments. The collection of fragments as well as the words that complete them is available in ASCII format on computer disks or in printed form.     

In search of gender bias in evaluations and trait inferences: The role of diagnosticity and gender stereotypicality of behavioral information

Meta-analytic reviews indicate that the gender of a target person has a significant but small impact on evaluators' judgments about this person. The present study examines the extent to which this small effect reflects evaluators' tendencies not to use an evaluatee's gender because they assume that case information about a target is more informative about his or her abilities, knowledge, and traits than is gender. The first study indicates that decreasing the diagnosticity of case information does not increase the tendency for people to be influenced by the target's gender. However, the first and second study illustrate that despite the weak influence of the target's gender, subjects are still using gender stereotypes when making social judgments about the evaluatee. This is evidenced by the impact of the stereotypicality of the case information. This is most clearly seen in Study 2, which illustrates how components of gender stereotypes are influencing judgments.Portions of this research were supported by a University of Minnesota Dissertation Grant. Thanks go to Gail Swenson, Rose Enriques, and Wayne Bylsma for their assistance in the data collection, to my committee members Eugene Borgida (Chairperson), Marti Gonzales, Mark Snyder, Geoffrey Maruyama, Barbara Loken for their suggestions on the first study, and to Cindy Thomsen and Eugene Borgida for their support, encouragement, and consultations.     

Hand Test characteristics of severely behavior handicapped children

The Hand Test was administered to 98 severely behavior handicapped (SBH) children and a matched control group of public school children. The withdrawal score and associated variables, indicative of severe psychopathology, differentiated the two groups. In addition, a qualitative analysis of the SBH protocols tentatively suggested a preponderance of four behavioral types that could be described as the underproductive, perseverative, psychotic and impulsive child. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

A simple but powerful theory of the moon illusion

Modification of Restle's theory (1970) explains the moon illusion and related phenomena on the basis of three principles: (1) The apparent sizes of objects are their perceived visual angles. (2) The apparent size of the moon is determined by the ratio of the angular extent of the moon relative to the extents subtended by objects composing the surrounding context, such as the sky and things on the ground. (3) The visual extents subtended by common objects of a constant physical size decrease systematically with increasing distance from the observer. Further development of this theory requires specification of both the components of the surrounding context and their relative importance in determining the apparent size and distance of the moon.     

The spontaneous facial expression of differential positive and negative emotions

This research examines the expression of positive and negative emotions under minimally social conditions. Male and female encoders were covertly videotaped while they viewed and made written ratings of their responses to a number of slides, using a list of emotion terms derived from members of the same subject pool. Results show that, even when the social nature of the situation is reduced to a minimum, the experience of some emotions is reflected on the face, and there is clear evidence for differential expression of certain positive emotions. However, the reduced social nature of the situation removes the usual female encoding advantage, supporting the suggestion that this reflects the operation of display rules. The ability to recognize the minimal expressions in this study is related to both gender and emotion type in ways that may be explained by a socialization hypothesis.I wish to thank Gill Thorpe and Eiko Mori for running the decoding subjects of this study, and Sylvie Collins, Tony Manstead, and two anonymous reviewers for comments on an earlier version of the paper.