Generating makes words memorable,but so does effective reading

In many experiments, memorial benefits have been found when subjects generate items from fragments rather than read items in their complete forms. Does generation cause-this-difference, or are subjects disposed to adopt different strategies when generating as opposed to reading? If generating causes the difference, items processed in the same way apart from a generative stage should therefore benefit from that generative stage. Our experiments did result in benefits for generating as opposed to reading, but only when the readers processed the words poorly—by pronouncing them. When the readers processed the items well, by imagining them, generating was no better than reading. A new generation effect was found in meta memory. Subjects thought they would remember more generated items than read items; however, the act of making the prediction entailed meaningful processing, and the generated items were not actually remembered better than the read ones.     

Hard-to-manage preschool boys: Family context and the stability of externalizing behavior

Preschool boys identified by their teachers as active, inattentive, and impulsive (N=42) were compared with matched classroom controls (N=43) and with parentidentified problem boys (N=27) on measures of family functioning often associated with children's problem behaviors, including family history of psychopalhology, stressful life events, and family composition. Teacher-identified and parent-identified problem boys did not differ on measures of family adversity, and both groups came from less well functioning families than comparison boys. Mothers of problem boys, regardless of referral source, were more negative and controlling toward their sons when observed in a compliance task. Children's problem behaviors were moderately stable over a oneyear follow-up period; initial symptom levels, maternal self-reported depression, and negative maternal control predicted follow-up ratings of externalizing problems.Thanks are expressed to Clea Angell, Clare Flanagan, Julie Hunt, Patricia Huszar, Andrea Lurier, Sarah McAuliffe, Jasmine Sardessai, and Teri Sobolik for help with data collection, coding, and analysis. We are grateful to the staff of the many preschools in the Pittsburgh area who facilitated our work. Special appreciation is expressed to the children and parents who participated in this study.Portions of these data were presented at the Rochester Symposium on Developmental Psychopathology, Rochester, New York, October 1988, and at the Society for Research in Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, Costa Mesa, California, February, 1990. This work was supported by grant R0I MH32735 from the National Institute of Mental Health to Dr. Campbell.     

The Situational Facilitation of Interpersonal Attraction: A Three-factor Hypothesis1

A theoretical analysis of observations of natural and man-made disasters, festive social events, and task-oriented crash programs led to a three-factor hypothesis of attraction facilitation. It was proposed that interpersonal attraction toward strangers is facilitated when there is emotional arousal, sharing, and out-of-role behavior. In a laboratory investigation (N= 120), postexperimental attraction toward a dissimilar stranger increased when all three factors were present but not when only two of the three factors were present (p < .01). Consistent with the reinforcement-affect model of attraction, increased attraction toward the stranger in the three-factor conditions was paralleled by more positive feelings about the experiment in the three-factor than in the two-factor conditions. Knowledge of the variables underlying facilitation effects could be utilized on a societal basis to create attraction-enhancing occurrences.     

INSTRUCTIONS,FEEDBACK, PRAISE,BONUS PAYMENTS,AND TEACHER BEHAVIOR1

The study was conducted within a training and demonstration center for teachers from several different school districts. The teachers staffing the center were employees of the host school district who volunteered to serve in the center. Unfortunately, these volunteers did not always use the program materials appropriately and therefore did not always provide clear models for visiting teachers. In particular, four of the volunteer teachers did not always instruct their students from the appropriate reading text, even when encouraged to do so by the principal of the school in which the center was located. Various procedures were employed to alter this situation. The experimenter, (associate director of the training and demonstration center) provided instructions, feedback, and praise regarding use of the appropriate reading text. These procedures had clear effects with only one teacher. Then, merit or bonus payments were provided for teachers who used the appropriate reading text for criterion periods of time; a procedure that was very effective with all four teachers. The problem worked on in this study is typical of those faced by workers in public institutions where change cannot be brought about by the researcher's authority. All teachers in the present study had the necessary skills to demonstrate accurately the prescribed program procedures, but they did not always do so until the bonus payment was used. Although the bonus payment procedure might be inappropriate in some school situations, the procedure could easily be adjusted to accommodate the established practices of many schools. For example, establishment of explicit performance criterion and use of in-service stipends for meeting criterion performance during school hours, rather than attendance at meetings after school, might well be comparably effective.     

Effects of initial request size and timing of a second request on compliance: the foot in the door and the door in the face.

A field experiment tested four separate procedures for influencing compliance to the second of two requests. Two factors--size of initial request and timing of the second request--were included in a 2 X 2 factorial design. Subjects were induced either to comply with a small initial request or to refuse a large initial request. They then received a moderate request either immediately (no delay) or 7--10 days later (delay). Compliance to the second request was the dependent measure. The results in the two delay conditions and the small-request--no delay condition supported a self-perception position in that the induction of one kind of behavior (compliance or noncompliance) carried over to affect subsequent behavior similarly. The large-request--no dealy condition supported a bargaining explanation, as initial refusal to comply led to an increase in subsequent compliance. Possible processes that could account for these results are discussed.     

Context effects and the recall of comparative sentences

Clark and Card (1969) have proposed that semantic components underlie memory for comparative (C) sentences. To test this hypothesis, six groups of 15 Ss each were given different sets of C sentences. In line with the theory, Ss tended to remember unmarked adjectives better than marked ones and positive constructions better than negatives. However, contrary to the theory, they also tended to bias their responding either toward the negative or the equative form. A two-stage theory of recall, based on the memory schema-memory trace distinction, is proposed to account for these data.     

The compensation for movement-produced changes of object orientation

When one moves forward, one views objects to the side of one’s path successively from different directions. In the mover’s visual field, such objects change their orientation; relative to him they undergo a partial rotation. Although this rotation is given in several ways, it is hardly ever perceived. This is due to a compensating process that takes O’s change in position relative to the object into account. We demonstrated the existence of this compensating process and measured the accuracy with which it operates by means of a device that made an object turn in response to O’s position change so that the normal rotation of a stationary object relative to the moving O could be augmented or diminished to various degrees.