Gender and Sex Role Differences in Group Decision-Making Social Interactions: A Behavioral Analysis1

Sex role formulations assume relationships between role orientation and adjustive social behavior. However, few studies have examined behavioral differences with respect to both gender and sex role orientation in realistically complex social interactions. In the current study, groups composed of four male and four female “representatives” from each sex role category (masculine-typed, feminine-typed, androgynous, and undifferentiated) were presented with two group decision-making tasks. Group interactions were videotaped and subjects' behavior was rated on social skill variables. Analyses of variance revealed gender differences with males performing more actively than females, especially when the content of the decision-making task involved more historically male-oriented topics. However, when subjects' group behavior was examined in relation to their sex role orientation, androgynous and masculine-typed persons of both sexes performed in a more active, instrumental manner than feminine-typed or undifferentiated persons. Further, correlational analyses indicated that females' masculinity scores were substantially associated with ratings of effectiveness in the decision-making groups. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Phonological recoding and lexical access

Four experiments are reported that examine the effects of homophony (e.g., SAIL/SALE) on response latency in a lexical decision task. The results indicated that an effect of homophony was evident only if the nonword distractors consisted of legal, pronounceable strings (e.g., SLINT), but that this effect disappeared if the nonwords sounded like English words (e.g., BRANE). An optional encoding strategy is proposed to account for this differential effect. It is suggested that while both graphemic and phonemic encoding occurred simultaneously, naive subjects tended to rely on the outcome of the phonological route. However, when such reliance produced a high error rate (i.e., when the nonwords sounded like English words),. these subjects were able to abandon a phonological strategy and rely on the graphemic encoding procedure instead. Two further aspects of the results are of interest. First, the less frequent member of a homophone pair was slower when compared with a control item if the nonword distractors were of the SLINT type, but not different if they were of the BRANE type. The high-frequency members did not differ from their controls in either nonword environment. Second, in a homophone “repetition” experiment, the frequency order of presentation within pairs of homophones (i.e., the high-frequency member followed by the low-frequency member, or vice versa) had a substantial effect. A spelling recheck procedure and a response-inhibitory mechanism are postulated to incorporate these effects into a dual-encoding direct-access model of word recognition.     

Effect of mutual acquaintance on the construction of conversation

In a previous investigation, we demonstrated the role of questions as an instructional resource in the social construction of conversation by depriving conversationalists of their use. The resulting conversational structure, measured in terms of the ability of third parties to reconstruct the dialogues after they had been randomized, was impaired. The importance of culturally shared knowledge for the reconstruction (and by implication the construction) task was apparent in the superiority of British over Canadian subjects in reconstructing unconstrained British dialogues. The present study was concerned with the effects of privately shared knowledge on the construction of conversation. Conversational structure and the frequency of questions were greater in strangers' than in mutual acquaintances' unconstrained dialogues. Strangers' dialogues, but not those of mutual acquaintances, were disrupted under a ban on questions. The results were taken to indicate that strangers need to provide one another with continual instruction in how to proceed, whereas mutual acquaintances, in virtue of their privately shared social knowledge, can construct orderly dialogue with less moment-to-moment guidance.     

Search for a matching or mismatching letter pair

The perceptual matching task was modified in order to increase the error rate and thus to reveal more clearly whether internal noise more often changes an objective match into a perceived mismatch than vice versa (noisy-operator theory). In Experiment 1, subjects searched for a “same” pair in a list of “different” pairs or for a “different” pair in a list of “same” pairs. As predicted, the target pair was overlooked or missed more often on “different” lists. False alarms, though, were not higher on “same” lists, owing apparently to rechecking, which also produced slower search through “different” lists. To disable the rechecking mechanism, rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP) was used in Experiments 2 and 3. As predicted, misses exceeded false alarms on “different” lists, whereas the reverse held on “same” lists, both at the physical level (Experiment 2) and at the name level (Experiment 3). Letter set size and repetition were varied in Experiments 1 and 2, and the results indicate that when letter pairs are presented in close temporal and spatial proximity, subjects are influenced by extraneous interpair comparisons in addition to relevant intrapair comparisons in deciding whether or not a target pair is present.     

The social origins of depression : By G.W. Brown and T. Harris: Its methodological philosophy

A preliminary assessment is made of the book from the point of view of ‘relative objectivism’, which is defined. The aim of the assessment is to decide whether it is worth while devoting the time that would be necessary for an assimilation of all the findings of a large scale and apparently thorough study. The eventual decision is against doing so. for five reasons: (i) the methods of selecting patients are open to contamination by the views of the investigators; (ii) the procedure for eliciting life events is unvalidated; (iii) the assessment of the severity of life events is based almost entirely upon the subjective judgements of a handful of investigators; (iv) the methods of analysing data appear to be selective and ambiguous; and (v) important conclusions often seem to be inconsistent with the findings. The causal theory of depression finally arrived at might still be worth considering on its own merits; but that is outside the scope of this paper.     

A further study of stimulus generalization following three-stimulus discrimination training

A group of pigeons was trained in a Skinner box to peck for VI reinforcement when the key was illuminated by a monochromatic light of 540 or 580 mμ but were non-reinforced for responding to 560 mμ. Two control groups, differing in amount of training, received only the two positive stimuli. At the completion of training all Ss received generalization tests under extinction. Both control groups produced bi-modal generalization gradients with the peaks of responding at the S+ values. The post-discrimination gradient revealed peaks displaced from the S+ values in the direction away from the S−, low responding and increased steepness in the region of S− and a general elevation of the gradient.     

Self-observation and the reduction of inappropriate classroom behavior

In an effort to reduce disrurtive classroom behavior, five students attending a school for behavior-disordered youth were shown edited videotapes depicting themselves or a peer appropriately engaged in classroom activities. Effects were idiosyncratic across students, the most significant effects occuring for the self-observation procedure. The results of the present study are compared with other similar investigations.     

Trauma, Shame, and Group Psychotherapy: A Self Psychology Perspective

This paper attempts to define trauma from a self psychology/intersubjective perspective and explores shame as a basic aspect of trauma. Self psychologically oriented group therapy is examined as an effective treatment modality for dealing with issues of shame as well as the after effects of trauma.