Effects of timing and justification of witnessed aggression on the observers' punitiveness

Sixty university men who had been treated harshly by the experimenter's accomplice were distributed evenly among four conditions comprising a 2 × 2 factorial design and a “control” group. All of the men watched a moderately aggressive segment from a TV program but in the former case they were given a story summary which depicted the witnessed aggression as either justified or less justified and this summary was provided either immediately before or just after the scene was shown. The fifth group did not have any story synopsis. When the men had an opportunity to punish the confederate at the conclusion of the film, they were nost punitive if they had heard the justified aggression summary after the movie just before they shocked the confederate, and were least punitive if they had been given the nonjustified aggression version before they watched the aggressive incident. These results extend the generality of the findings obtained by other research in this area and also suggest that the violent scene had elicited as well as disinhibited aggression-facilitating reactions in the viewers.     

Conditioning,learning and psychopathology

The total of all conditioning and learning may be summed up as part of the adaptive patterns for survival. Adaptive learning is the person's way of discovering how to live successfully. He is not just sick or well. In one fashion or another, he learnshow to be sick orhow to be well within a certain milieu. Personality function signifies the integrant of this learning as the individual tries to realize his potentials, live effectively, and achieve gratification. Should his learning be deficient or distorted in any area proportionate difficulties in his total function will afflict him. Such areas of insufficiency or distress expose the psychopathologic process.

The ever-changing patterns of conditioning and adaptive learning continually modify mental function and create a feedback; the learning is used adaptively and adaptation, doubling back, adds to the learning. As the person adapts according to what he is and what he has learned, his ensuing patterns, still in the process of being conditioned, further change him and make him what he will be.

     

Needed: Standards for Occupational Licensing

Occupational licensing in the states constitutes a growing public problem from the legislator's point of view. No standards exist to permit sound judgments on specific proposals, and the operation of licensing acts tends to be in the hands of the occupation itself, operating with the sanction of the state. No groups exist to act as counter-lobbyists or disinterested public representatives to protect the public interest. Licensing sometimes closes off employment opportunities to young people entering the employment market. Standards for occupational licensing and the administration of licensing acts must be developed. Those involved in guidance and personnel work could perform a valuable public service by taking an interest in occupational licensing both from the theoretical standpoint and by actively providing advice to legislatures considering occupational licensing proposals.     

Induced autokinesis

The egocentric location of a fixated visual stimulus was shifted away from the apparent median plane through induced movement. When the stimulus appeared to lie in the periphery of vision, the inducing frame was occluded resulting in autokinesis toward the phenomenally straight-ahead position. This effect was termed “induced autokinesis.” It was used in demonstrating that apparent egocentric displacement is sufficient for initiating autokinesis.     

The effect of meaning on the allocation of visually induced movement

The directional characteristics of a meaningful target were found to affect its apparent motion when it was displaced relative to a neutral object. The effect was destroyed, however, when the target was surrounded by a frame. This was because the frame imparted a meaning which tended to override that conveyed by the target.     

A LABORATORY INVESTIGATION OF SOCIAL CLASS AND NATIONAL DIFFERENCES IN HELPING BEHAVIOR

Etude au laboratoire des différences dans le comportement d'entraide selon la nationalité et la classe sociale. —Le même plan d'expérience a été réalisé à Madison (Wisconsin) et à Oxford (Angleterre) pour déterminer si les adolescents appartenant à différentes classes sociales obéissent aux mêmes principes dans l'aide qu'ils apportent aux camarades qui dépendent d'eux. Les adolescents de Madison appartiennent à des families de la classe moyenne ((I) petits industriels, commerçants, artisans, (2) employés de bureau) ou de la classe ouvrière. Les adolescents d'Oxford proviennent seulement de la classe moyenne des employés ou de la classe ouvrière. Dans les deux échantillons, le sujet est d'abord amené à croire qu'un camarade lui a apporté beaucoup ou peu d'aide quand lui-même en avait besoin pour gagner un concours. Dans la phase suivante qui est supposée impliquer un concours sans rapport avec le premier, le sujet a l'occasion d'aider la personne qui a été son partenaire ou une tout autre personne. Les résultats de Madison montrent, conformément à l'hypothèse, que les sujets appartenant à la classe des petits industriels, commerçants et artisans ont plus tendance à agir selon une conception de simple échange. Plus que les adolescents de la classe des employés ou de la classe ouvrière, ils croient que les gens s'attendent à ce qu'ils travaillent dur pour une autre personne seulement dans la mesure où ils ont eux-mêmes bénéficié d'une telle situation et ils font des efforts au profit du camarade qui dépend d'eux, dans l'attente d'une réciprocité de type « donner et recevoir ». A Oxford, les sujets de la classe ouvrière sont plus orientés vers la réciprocité que les fils d'employés. Quelques difficultés d'ordre méthodologique sont discutées, mais l'A. pense que les tentatives actuelles pour analyser l'interaction sociale en termes d'échange économique ne peuvent être également appliquées à toutes les classes sociales.     

On the handling of heavy bias in a self-paced task

Following an earlier observation that systematic variations in performance on a task with heavy frequency imbalance was correlated with fluctuations in the amount of bias in the input programme, an experiment was carried out to establish the roles of long and short term sampling. Two groups of subjects were trained on a self-paced, five-choice task. One group's input had an average of 68 per cent. bias on one source, the other had 44 per cent. on the same source. Analysis of data was carried out on three levels of local bias for each condition, one level being identical for both conditions. It was found that responses to the biased stimuli were determined by the average bias in each input sequence and not by moment to moment variations in that bias. The effect observed originally can therefore be accounted for in terms of a relatively simple additive model which includes the “repetition effect” first described by Bertelson.     

Perceptions of Rehabilitation Counselor Behavior

A comparison of perceptions held by selected rehabilitation subgroups toward counseling behavior was conducted. As expected, rehabilitation counselor educators were most different from state agency personnel in rehabilitation. State agency personnel appeared to value active counselor behavior more than educators. However, the predicted similarity between educators and trained counselors in state agencies and in other settings did not materialize. Differences between subgroups are discussed with respect to possible environmental and group influences. Some implications for communication between subgroups and training programs for rehabilitation counselors are also presented.