“100% of anything looks good”: The appeal of one hundred percent

People overweight certainty, even when certainty is only an illusion. A vaccine that was described as 100% effective against 70% of disease targets was preferred to one described as 70% effective against 100% of disease targets (Studies 1 and 2). The appeal of 100% extends beyond the probability attribute. In Study 2, participants preferred both of the vaccines above to normatively equivalent vaccines that were less than 100% effective toward fewer than 100% of targets. In Study 3, participants preferred a 100% discount on a cup of coffee every 10 days to other more frequent, but lower amount, discounts. This preference evaporated, however, when savings were framed as points rather than as percentage discounts. We propose that people view 100% as a salient reference point and overweight it in those domains where it cannot be exceeded (e.g., probability, discount); the overweighting is weaker in domains where 100% can be exceeded (e.g., target range, points).     

Performance of students with learning disabilities on validity indexes of the Perception of Ability Scale for Students.

The present study examined the performance of 78 students with learning disabilities and 71 normally achieving students in regular Form 1 (Grade 6) classes on three validity indexes of the Perception of Ability Scale for Students, a measure of academic self-concept. The three indexes assess consistency of responding, negative or positive response biases, and misrepresentation of self-perceptions in terms of unrealistic perceptions of perfection in school. Analysis showed that learning disabled students obtained significantly lower Full Scale scores than the normal students, but no significant differences appeared on the three validity indexes. Users of the test can be confident that learning disabled students respond to items in as valid a manner as other students. Having specific learning problems in school should not interfere with response patterns on this scale.     

Unfair Discrimination in the Selection Interview: An Attributional Account

The selection interview remains the most popular method by which organizations select employees, yet it is also widely criticized for being vulnerable to bias and unfair discrimination. This paper draws upon two specific areas of attribution research: cross-cultural studies of attributional processes and studies of intergroup attributional bias in order to discuss how attributional processes can contribute to unfair discrimination in selection interviews. It is argued that unfair discrimination can arise in two ways: first, as a consequence of ethnocentric attributional biases on the part of interviewers when explaining the behaviour of candidates associated with in-group or out-group status; second, as a result of different patterns of attributions manifest by candidates from diverse cultural groups.     

Traditional attitudes and teacher consistency in producing student learning gains in the early elementary grades

Questionnaire responses of second- and third-grade teachers specially selected because of their relatively high consistency in producing student learning gains on standardized achievement tests (N =30) were compared with responses of other teachers working in the same school system at the same grade levels (N = 38). Due to sample selection procedures, the highly consistent teachers were older and averaged more years of teaching experience than the teachers in the comparison group. In order to see whether the consistent teachers differed in any other ways from the teachers in the comparison group, the teachers in each group were administered a 495-item questionnaire. Group difference analyses revealed 57 items showing differences beyond the .05 level of significance, when only about 25 would have been expected by chance. For the most part, the items showing group differences did not form interpretable patterns. However, a subset of 10 items emerged from a factor analysis to form a traditionalism factor. Further analyses revealed that the highly consistent teachers were more traditional in their attitudes and beliefs than the teachers in the comparison group, and that this difference was not related to teacher age or years of experience. Thus, traditionalism in beliefs and attitudes was related to consistency in relative success in producing student learning gains. Possible reasons for this puzzling finding are discussed.     

Discourse in aphasia: Integration deficits in processing reference

The present study investigated moderately impaired aphasic subjects' ability to integrate information across sentences by having them identify antecedents for ambiguous pronouns in brief narratives. In order to disambiguate the pronouns, the subjects had to consult either textual cues and/or extratextual cues. In addition, the subjects' ability to retrieve factual information was measured by having them identify explicitly stated noun referents. The results show that the aphasic subjects had significant difficulty using textual cues to resolve referents when the referents were not readily accessible through world knowledge. The patients had little difficulty interpreting referents which were recoverable from world knowledge or were stated explicitly. The explanatory power of world knowledge effects, grammatical class effects, memory effects, and linguistic integration effects in accounting for the deficit pattern observed is considered.     

Sensitivity to phobic imagery: a sensory decision theory analysis

The effects of deep muscle relaxation on anxiety were studied in a systematic desensitization context. A Sensory Decision Theory analysis of anxiety ratings to controlled imagery showed that relaxed Ss were significantly more sensitive to phobic properties of the controlled imagery than nonrelaxed Ss. The results are discussed in terms of Wolpe's theoretical basis for systematic desensitization. Sensory Decision Theory is presented as a useful technique for measuring the effects of therapy on emotional states.