An investigation of relative preference for consistency motivation

The present experiment was designed to determine relative preference for fulfillment of consistency motivation. Ninety-two students rated their attraction to, identification with, and idealization of a hypothetical stimulus person who was represented as having fulfilled particular social motives such as approval, power, achievement and consistency. Results confirmed that subjects prefer persons who have satisfied traditional needs more so than others whose consistency desires have been fulfilled. Implications for the role of consistency motivation in social behavior are considered.     

Appropriateness of anxiety and drive for affiliation

Anxiety was induced in first/only born and later born subjects by the threatened injection of a harmless drug. Perceived appropriateness of the induced anxiety was manipulated by the experimenter's suggestion that anxiety over an injection was either perfectly natural (appropriate condition) or to be found only in rather nervous and effeminate men (inappropriate condition). The results indicated that the anxiety induction was successful, but that the perceived appropriateness of the anxiety determined the tendency to affiliate. Subjects in the appropriate condition showed a significantly greater tendency to affiliate than did subjects in the inappropriate condition. Birth order was related to anxiety on one of two measures, but was not implicated in the determination of the affiliative tendency.     

MORAL DEVELOPMENT OF LAO CHILDREN1,2

Cette étude a pour propos d'examiner, chez des enfants laotiens âgés de six à quatorze ans, le développement du jugement moral dans deux domaines : le réalisme moral et la justice. Selon Piaget, le développement du réalisme moral, le passage de la responsabilité objective à la responsabilité subjective sont intimement liés à la qualité des interactions enfant-adultes, la contrainte adulte retardant le développement et la coopération l'accélérant. Le développement de l'idée de justice, d'autre part, serait moins dépendant de cette interaction et davantage lié aux rapports de groupe d'un même âge. En partant de l'hypothèse que les relations entre enfants d'un même groupe d'âge montrent une plus grande stabilité intercultutelle que les interactions adultes-enfants, on suppose que le développement de l'idée de justice présente un caractère plus universel que la genèse de l'idée de réalisme moral. Les résultats de la recherche ne confirment pas l'hypothèse. l'auteur conclut que le développement de l'idée de justice ne présente pas le même caractère d'universalité que la genèse des opérations cognitives et que le passage au jugement subjectif et à l'idée de justice peut dépendre d'autres facteurs que ceux identifiés par Piaget.     

Social Constructivism in Science and Technology Studies

Berger and Luckmann’s concept of “social construction” has been widely adopted in many fields of the humanities and social sciences in the half-century since they wrote The Social Construction of Reality. One field in which constructivism was especially provocative was in Science and Technology Studies (STS), where it was expanded beyond the social domain to encompass the practices and contents of contemporary natural science. This essay discusses the relationship between social construction in STS and Berger and Luckmann’s original conception of it, and identifies problems that arose from indiscriminate uses of constructivism.     

Effects of Gender,Socioeconomic Status,and Early Academic Performance on Postsecondary Educational Choice

National data were used to study the effects of gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and 4 types of eighth‐grade academic performance on postsecondary educational choices at late adolescence. Educational choices were classified by predominant Holland type (R, I, A, S, E, C). Gender had strongest independent influences on educational choice. Gender also interacted with SES and academic performance. Relationships between SES and educational choice were stronger for women than for men. For women, eighth‐grade reading scores were the strongest predictor of educational choice, whereas for men, mathematics scores were the strongest predictor. Implications for theory and counseling practice are discussed.     

Event models and the fan effect

The current study explored the persistence of event model organizations and how this influences the experience of interference during retrieval. People in this study memorized lists of sentences about objects in locations, such as “The potted palm is in the hotel.” Previous work has shown that such information can either be stored in separate event models, thereby producing retrieval interference, or integrated into common event models, thereby eliminating retrieval interference. Unlike prior studies, the current work explored the impact of forgetting up to 2 weeks later on this pattern of performance. We explored three possible outcomes across the various retention intervals. First, consistent with research showing that longer delays reduce proactive and retroactive interference, any retrieval interference effects of competing event models could be reduced over time. Second, the binding of information into events models may weaken over time, causing interference effects to emerge when they had previously been absent. Third, and finally, the organization of information into event models could remain stable over long periods of time. The results reported here are most consistent with the last outcome. While there were some minor variations across the various retention intervals, the basic pattern of event model organization remained preserved over the two-week retention period.     

Atheism and Morality,Guilt and Shame: Why the Moral Complacency of the New Atheism is a Mistake

When it comes to morality, the New Atheists appear to think that their rejection of religion, except for the removal of fundamentalist distortions, changes nothing. We think that this is because they have not thought things through. Atheism might not be a threat to shame morality, but it is certainly a threat to guilt morality. Given that there are reasons to doubt the viability today of shame morality, we face a far greater problem if atheism triumphs than the New Atheists admit.