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.     

Personality characteristics,parent behaviors,and sex of subject in relation to cheating

College students were given the opportunity to falsify self-reported scores on a task to gain course credit. Personality and perceived parent behavior data were obtained in a counterbalanced design. Male cheaters were significantly higher in Aggression, Exhibition, Social Recognition, and Harmavoidance but lower in Autonomy (PRF scales) and ACT scores. Female transgressors were reliably lower in harmavoidance and higher in Impulsivity than noncheaters. Among males, no parent scales differentiated transgressors and resisters. Among females, parent scales reflecting reports of lower father warmth and fewer maternal equalitarian interactions but higher Hostile Control significantly differentiated cheaters from noncheaters. These findings were discussed, particularly in terms of the sex differences which suggest that males and females may cheat for different reasons.     

Aphasics' comprehension of contextually conveyed meaning

Eighteen aphasics and seven normal controls were examined as to their ability to comprehend utterances when correct interpretation required integration of extralinguistic cues in a natural setting. Videotaped situations were presented in which the correct interpretation of an utterance was not the literal interpretation but was the meaning conveyed by the request in a particular context. The aphasics' performance with indirect requests was superior to their performance on a standard battery of auditory comprehension tasks. Standard tests of auditory language comprehension, therefore, offer a measure of aphasic breakdown in linguistic processing but do not adequately reflect aphasics' receptive abilities in natural communicative settings. When the aphasic subjects did demonstrate difficulties with natural settings, their difficulty was, in part, a function of their level of performance on the standard battery. In addition, when the linguistic element of the communicative setting conveyed negative intent, aphasics were further reduced in their ability to interpret a message correctly. Otherwise, the aphasic subjects performance resembled that of the normal controls in that they demonstrated the capacity to utilize extralinguistic cues to discern correctly the conveyed intent in many requests.     

Observing responses in pigeons

Pigeons were trained on an observing-response procedure in which periods of VR 100 and EXT alternated unpredictably during a white light (mixed stimulus). During VR 100, responses on a food-producing key (the first key) were intermittently reinforced. Responses on the observing key (the second key) produced a green light (positive stimulus) when VR 100 was in effect, and a red light (negative stimulus) for EXT. The birds did not respond on either key during the negative stimulus, but they responded on the food-producing key when the positive stimulus appeared. When observing responses produced the positive or negative stimulus on FR, observing responses were maintained until the FR reached a maximum; beyond this, only food-producing responses occurred. When observing responses did not produce either stimulus, the observing-response rates fell to zero. With prolonged exposure to an FR 20 schedule of observing, observing-response rates during EXT were higher than during VR 100. Chlorpromazine hydrochloride decreased the total response output but markedly increased observing-response rates except when it was administered before sessions of observing response extinction.     

A comparison of the precision of three experimental designs employing a concomitant variable

Three techniques are commonly employed to capitalize on a concomitant variate and improve the precision of treatment comparisons: (1) stratification of the experimental samples and use of a factorial design, (2) analysis of covariance, and (3) analysis of variance of difference scores. The purpose of this paper is to compare the effectiveness of these alternatives in improving experimental precision, to identify the most precise design and the conditions under which its advantage holds, and to derive, in the case of the factorial approach, recommendations as to the optimal numbers of levels.     

An IBM method for computing intraserial correlations

A method for computing intraserial correlations using a 602-A Calculating Punch, an 077 Collator, a 513 Gang Punch, and a 403 Tabulator is described. An example of the use of the procedure and an estimate of the time needed with each machine are given. This procedure is compared with another method, which makes use of a more powerful IBM machine.This research was supported in part by the United States Air Force under Contract No. AF 33(038)-25726, monitored by the Air Force Personnel and Training Research Center. Permission is granted for reproduction, translation, publication, use and disposal in whole and in part by or for the United States Government.     

Advance information in sensori-motor skills

Two experiments were carried out to demonstrate the effects of advance information. In both cases greater smoothness of performance was found to be possible when advance information was available. This effect was considered more important than the reduction in response time. Both effects were reflected in a reduction of the stopping times between successive responses.