Student Response to Three Types of Orientation Programs

A high proportion of positive responses was obtained from students who participated in three different types of pre-college orientation programs. Small group approaches consistently elicited more favorable responses than assemblies or large groups. Greater faculty involvement resulted in participants' noting an increased academic emphasis. Participants believed they had benefited in some way from programs which varied considerably as to length, activities, organization, and purposes.     

Attempts to train novices for beer flavor discrimination: a matter of taste

Inexperienced beer-drinkers who could not pass a beer-flavor discrimination test were divided into a taste group, which received additional perceptual experience with beer flavors; a verbal group, which received instruction in beer flavor terminology; a taste/verbal group, which received both additional experience and instruction; and a control group. Before and after training, all subjects participated in a similarity rating task involving beer flavors and flavor-related adjectives. Additional taste experience--but not increased experience with beer-flavor terminology--improved novices' ability to detect identical beer flavors. Results are discussed in terms of the trainability of flavor discrimination and the role of cognitive factors (both flavor-related and flavor-independent) in marketing beverages.     

The Multilevel Conception of Intentionality: Implications for counselor training

Counseling training programs have failed to differentiate between and among behavioral, cognitive, and unconsciousness dimesnsions. This omission has resulted in confusion and competition in many counseling curricula in that valuable programs are competing for space rather than being integrated systematically. This article proposes a multilevel model of intentionality which integrates the several aspects of the counselor-client relationship. In turn, this integration of behavioral, cognitive, and unconscious dimensions will have important applications in counselor daily practice.     

Hypermnesia using auditory input.

The author investigated whether hypermnesia would occur with auditory input. In addition, the author examined the effects of subjects' knowledge that they would later be asked to recall the stimuli. Two groups of 26 subjects each were given three successive recall trials after they listened to an audiotape of 59 high-imagery nouns. The subjects in the uninformed group were not told that they would later be asked to remember the words; those in the informed group were. Hypermnesia was evident, but only in the uninformed group.     

The Effects of Decision Outcome Dispersion Upon Organizational Decision Making

The effects of varying decision outcome dispersion on organizational decision making were investigated under individual and group decision making conditions. Thirty-six female and pg]36 male subjects made decisions for organizational decision scenarios in which outcomes affected primarily the decision maker, people other than the decision maker, or a group of which the decision maker was a member. Subjects rated their levels of perceived risk and confidence in their decisions and made decisions within a simulated context of either a small or a large organization. Results indicated that subjects perceived significantly less risk and more confidence in their decisions when outcomes affected primarily themselves rather than others regardless of whether the decisions were made individually or by a group. Males perceived their decisions as significantly more risky than females. Induced organizational size did not significantly influence decision making.

     

Affect and persuasion: Mood effects on the processing of message content and context cues and on subsequent behaviour

Two experiments are reported examining the impact of recipients' mood on the processing of simple, everyday persuasive communications and on subsequent behaviour. Consistent with the general assumption that affective states may inform an individual about the state of its current environment, it was found that positive (as compared to neutral or negative) mood reduced subjects' motivation to systematically process both content information and contextual cues. Specifically, Experiment I demonstrated that, in a field setting, the behaviour of subjects who had been put in a good mood was less likely to reflect differences in message content than the behaviour of neutral mood subjects. Experiment 2 replicated and extended these findings, showing that good mood subjects' behaviour was uninfluenced by content as well as context information, whereas bad mood subjects did make use of both types of information. Subject's cognitive responses and evaluations paralleled the behavioural data. The results are discussed in terms of their compatibility with contemporary models of persuasion, and their implications for future research on mood and persuasion and on the interplay of affect and cognition in general are considered.     

A simple and sensitive method for monitoring running-wheel movement

A running-wheel movement-detection method is described for use with a modified 1350 Commodore mouse and a Commodore 64, is described. The movement-detection method allows for the detection of partial revolutions and direction of movement, but requires no interface equipment. The modified running wheel is discussed as a new technique that may be useful for bridging empirical and theoretical differences between free-operant and discrete-trial runway procedures.