A clarification of frequency effects in children’s discrimination learning

Memory & Cognition - Three experiments were conducted to assess the effects of certain stimulus variables on children’s discrimination learning. In general, it was found that word...     

Mistreatment of an esteemed other as a consequence affecting dissonance reduction

Recent research has shown that aversive behavioral consequences affect the magnitude of dissonance reduction. The present experiment was conducted to help clarify the meaning of an aversive consequence. In previous research, an aversive event was manipulated by having a subject believe that a counterattitudinal speech he had delivered was successful in convincing one of the subject's colleagues. In the present study, it was argued that convincing a colleague is aversive only to the extent that the colleague is liked. This reasoning was tested in a 2 × 2 factorial experiment in which subjects delivered a counterattitudinal speech to a recipient whom either was or was not liked by the subject and either was or was not convinced by the subject's speech. It was predicted and found that the subject would evidence attitude change only in the condition in which the speech led to the aversive event of successfully convincing an esteemed other. The results were discussed in terms of refining the relationship between attitude discrepant behavior and attitude change.     

Consistency and modification of judgment

In an investigation of minority influence, it was predicted that a consistent preference for paintings based on nationality by a confederate would cause previously neutral subjects to increase their preference in the direction of this minority viewpoint. Further, it was predicted that ethnic origin of the confederate could be seen as a biasing factor which could diminish influence. Four naive subjects were paired with one experimental confederate who was presented as being of either Italian, German, or unknown ethnic origin. On every trial, subjects were asked to indicate their preference between two paintings, one labeled “Italian” and the other labeled “German.” Labels were actually assigned at random. The confederate consistently chose the Italian or the German paintings on every one of the 19 trials. Results indicate that Control subjects rather than being neutral, exhibited a preference for the Italian paintings. Further, the presence of a confederate who took a consistent standard, whether it was Italian or German, had the effect of making subjects significantly more pro-German (or less pro-Italian) than the control group. The findings are explained on the basis that the German position was actalternative minority position, whereas the Italian position was actually an extreme of the majority position. While the former situation leads to minority influence as predicted, the latter situation appears to have polarized subjects. An alternative in terms of a norm of fairness is suggested, also.