Commitment to Justice in Conflict between Unequal Status Persons

Possible determinants of a high-status person's conformity to the norm of justice and the consequences of this conformity on conflict resolution were explored. Ninety-six college students were induced to be high-status bargainers. Subjects believed that their partner was committed either to their group's self-interest or to justice in the conflict. Subjects negotiated with an opposing low-status bargainer who made a self-advancement appeal, an appeal based on an equity concept of justice, or an appeal based on a responsiveness to needs concept of justice. As predicted, subjects who believed that their partner was committed to justice as compared to the group's self-interest agreed more often to the low-status person's request for improved outcomes and indicated that they had a higher level of motivation to be just, more seriously considered the low-status person's position and situation, and were more willing to compromise. Contrary to expectations, subjects who were targets of the justice appeals did not agree significantly more often to the low-status person's request nor did targets of the self-advancement appeal. The data suggest that the norm of justice may elicit conformity when invoked by a group member, though it may induce little conformity when invoked by an opposing bargainer. Results were also interpreted as suggesting that seeking to do justice induces compromises toward the other bargainer's position by reducing egocentric biases.     

The development of children's mental tracking strategies on a rotation task

In two experiments, 5- to 13-year-old children were required to mentally track the rotation of a pointer around a circular backdrop, and to indicate the pointer's imagined position on the backdrop at the sound of a signal. In Experiment 1, children imagined the pointer rotate around its end point. In Experiment 2, children imagined the pointer rotate around its midpoint, and indicated the position of one of its two ends at the time of the signal. The end to be indicated was not specified by the experimenter until the time of the signal. Thus, children were required to use an imaging strategy that could keep track of the changing positions of both ends of the pointer. In both experiments, children older than 8 years of age generated linear distance × time functions indicating mental tracking, but younger children did not. In Experiment 2, the proportions of children at each grade level using holistic or part-to-part strategies to mentally track the pointer were comparable, as were mental tracking rates. The results were discussed in relation to both recent research on children's counting, and Piagetian and information-processing views of metal imagery development.     

Laterality differences in sensitivity to line orientation as a function of adaptation duration

Since available evidence indicates that the two cerebral hemispheres are differentially sensitive to different types of stimulus information, and that they also utilize different strategies in processing information, is it possible that the two hemispheres are differentially sensitive to adaptation? Three groups of four subjects each were adapted to black and white gratings using three adapting durations: 500, 1,000, and 5,000 msec. Immediately following adaptation, a test grating was presented in either the left or right visual field. The task of the subject was to determine whether the lines of the adapting and test gratings had the same orientation or not. Analysis showed that in the 5,000-msec and 1,000-msec conditions, more errors occurred with left visual field presentations, responses to left visual field presentations took longer, and a bias-free measure showed that subjects were more sensitive to right visual field presentations. For the 500-msec group, there were no apparent differences between left and right visual fields presentations. The results indicate differential effects of adaptation on the two hemispheres, suggesting sensitivity differences between the two halves of the brain.     

Cerebral lateralization and reading dysfunction

The laterality preference patterns and types of oral reading errors were examined for 90 seventh-grade males. Specifically, scores on a self-report measure of lateral preference for 30 readers with adequate decoding skills but low comprehension and 30 readers who lacked decoding skills were compared with each other and with 30 good readers. As predicted, poor readers with grade appropriate word recognition scores were found to be generally more confused in their lateral preference than were good readers or poor readers who lacked decoding skills. Results of oral reading errors confirmed a visual integration problem for the more bilateral reader. Poor comprehenders with word recognition skills also reported significantly greater mixed lateral patterns for their fathers than did other readers. The results were interpreted as supporting the initial argument that difference-poor readers fail to comprehend because of problems in organizing visual input, which seems intimately tied to a bilateralization of functions.     

The effects of thematic context and presentation mode on memory for sentence voice

A sentence in discourse may appear in the passive voice to emphasize the logical object rather than the logical subject when it is thematically more important. Two experiments are reported that explore the impact of this textual function of voice on sentence memory. The first experiment required subjects to listen to prose passages and then recall them. Sentences were recalled predominantly in the active voice regardless of voice or thematic focus in the prose passage, showing that the English-language bias for the active voice was a more important determinant of sentence reconstruction than was the experimental manipulation of thematic context. The second experiment required subjects to listen to or read either prose passages or lists of unrelated sentences and then to try to recognize key sentences that were either unchanged or changed lexically, semantically, or in voice. Recognition, both overall and specifically for voice, was better for sentences that were read than for those that were heard, and recognition for semantic change was consistently higher than for any other. Only when passages were read was there evidence in support of a thematic textual influence on memory for sentence voice.This research was supported in part by NIMH Grant 32063.     

Reviews of current books

Pastoral Psychology -     

Predictive validity of the WISC-R with Mexican-American children

The reliability and predictive validity of the WISC-R was investigated with 46 Mexican-American children. Approximately a year and a half after the administration of the WISC-R, scores on the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS) were collected. Internal consistency estimates for WISC-R subtests and composites were found to be comparable to those reported in the WISC-R manual. Correlations between WISC-R subtests and those of the ITBS ranged from modest for verbal subtests to mild when performance subtests were used as predictors. The best single predictor proved to be that of Verbal IQ, which accounted for some 40% of the variance in future achievement when measured by the ITBS. It was concluded that the WISC-R meets minimum requirements of reliability and predictive validity with Mexican-American children.     

A note on temporal relations between language and gestures

The initiation of the spontaneous gestures of Wernicke's aphasics was analyzed in relation to shifts in semantic content between the syntactic boundaries of main clauses and embedded clauses. Gestures proved more likely to arise at the initial boundaries of embedded clauses when these were semantically discontinuous with the main clause than when these were semantically related to the main clause. Spontaneous gestures may signal underlying shifts in semantic intention, thereby reflecting the difficulties encountered by Wernicke's aphasics in maintaining a coherent stream of thought across syntactic boundaries.     

Assessment of the aftermath of rape: Changing patterns of fear

In order to test a social learning theory model which states that fear and anxiety responses are classically conditioned by a terror-inducing rape experience, 46 recent rape victims and 35 nonvictims matched for age, race, and neighborhood of residence were assessed with the 120-item Modified Fear Survey at four postrape intervals: (1) 6–10 days, (2) 1 month, (3) 3 months, and (4) 6 months. Victims were significantly more fearful than nonvictims, and victim fears declined somewhat over time but remained at high levels at the 6-month postrape period. Content analysis of highly feared situations revealed that most fears were rape related in that they were rape cues, rape-precipitated concerns, and/or cues signaling vulnerability to subsequent attack. Patterns of fear appeared to change such that attack vulnerability cues were most feared.This research was supported by NIMH Grant No. 1 RO1 MH29602 from the National Center for Prevention and Control of Rape.An earlier version of this article was presented at the Twelth Annual Convention of the Association for Advancement of Behavior Therapy, Chicago, November 18, 1978.