Individual versus provided constructs, cognitive complexity and extremity of ratings in person perception

Abstract.— Bruner & Tagiuri's (1954) concept of implicit personality theory, and Kelly's (1955) theory of personal constructs were used as a basis for a hypothesis that an individual's own constructs mediate more differentiated perceptions of other people than constructs provided by the experimenter. The hypothesis was tested by using four indices of cognitive complexity and one index of extremity of ratings to measure differentiation. The individual constructs were derived by using Reptest. The provided constructs were Semantic Differential and Personality Differential scales. The subjects were 36 psychology students. Two experimenters were employed to control experimenter effects. The data did not support the hypothesis but showed that differences between individual constructs and provided constructs are dependent upon which criterion is chosen to contrast the two types of constructs, which indices are used to measure the chosen criterion, and what type of provided constructs are compared with individual constructs.     

Character and defense: Relationships between Oral, Obsessive and Hysterical character traits and defense mechanisms

The relationship between the Basic Character inventory (BCI) and Kragh's Defense Mechanism Test (DMT) was investigated. BCI is an inventory, measuring Oral, Obsessive and Hysterical character patterns, while DMT is a projective technique, measuring defense mechanisms by means of tachistoscopic exposures of pictures. Thirty-three pregnant women participated in the study. The results showed that the Obsessive character pattern was significantly related to the defense mechanism of isolation, the Hysterical character pattern was significantly related to introjection of the opposite-self role, and marginally to repression. The Oral character pattern was significantly related to sensitivity to oral stimulus themes in the DMT. The relevance of the findings for the psychoanalytic theory of phase specificity in charcter development is discussed.     

Effects of presence of mother versus preschool teacher on the behaviour of infants in a strange situation

Seventeen infants (10–24 months of age) were observed twice in a strange situation, once accompanied by mother and once in the company of a familiar preschool teacher. On basis of video-tape recordings a total of 13 behaviour items relevant to infant attachment were scored. The results failed to demonstrate definite differential effects of mother vs. preschool teacher on the infants' behaviors in this situation. In particular, the infants were just as ready to separate themselves from their companions and explore into an adjoining room when attended by the preschool teachers as when accompanied by their mothers. Implications for Ainsworth's and Bowlby's theory of infant attachment are briefly discussed.     

Assessment of the effects of brief separation from parent on infants

The purpose of the study was to answer 2 questions: (1) are children 12 to 24 months old able to interpret their parents' accessibility on the basis of previous separation, and (2) how long do the effects of a brief, experimental separation last? 20 children were observed with their parents for 3 min, were then left alone for 3 min, and were observed for 3 min following reunion; as controls 19 children stayed with their parents for 9 min. The children were later observed after 1 or 2 weeks, this time they were free to separate themselves from their parents in order to explore an adjoining room. Observations were made by scoring predefined behavior measures from videotape. Results showed effects 1, but not 2 weeks after separation, and suggest that separation chiefly affects behaviors which involve confidence in parents' physical accessibility.     

Attentional demands and recall of verbal and color information in action events

Two experiments addressed the influence of secondary task performance at encoding on recall of different features of subject-performed tasks (SPTs) involving objects (e.g., turn the wallet). In Experiment 1, memory for verbs and colors of objects was assessed, with object names serving as cues. In Experiment 2, object and color memory were assessed, with verbs serving as cues. Results from both experiments indicated a greater deterioration of memory performance under divided attention for verbal features than for colors. In addition, intention to remember did not affect performance for any feature in either experiment. The overall pattern of outcome is discussed relative to the view that encoding of verbal features of SPTs is more attention-demanding than encoding of physical task features, such as color.     

Maturity of personality and family communication

The psychodynamic and the communication/systemic perspectives are commonly considered as two entirely different approaches to psychopathology. The current study is an effort to bridge these opposing perspectives empirically. Maturity of personality, measured according to psychoanalytic principles by the Consensus Couples Rorschach, and relationship control in family communication, as measured by a new coding system (RCC) in an observational study, were related. The results indicate that low level of maturity is associated with egocentric and self-disqualifying communication in situations of conflict, but not in situations involving no or moderate conflict. Additionally, mature wives were prone to react to situations involving perceptual conflict by communicating dominantly, whereas immature wives communicated in more submissive ways. Reversely, the more mature the husbands were, the more they displayed a submissive style of communicating when in conflict.     

Social Discrimination in a Personnel Selection Context: The Effects of an Authority's Instruction to Discriminate and Followers' Authoritarianism1

Social discrimination in a personnel‐selection context was studied using an in‐basket exercise. West German participants had to select personnel from an applicant pool that included West German applicants (in‐group members) and East German applicants (out‐group members). As predicted, we found a main effect for an authority's instruction to discriminate against out‐group members. This main effect was, as predicted, qualified by an Instruction Right‐Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) interaction effect. Only high scorers on RWA discriminated against out‐group members when instructed to do so.