Anchoring and relational judgments by young children and retardates

In five experiments using as dimensions brightness, texture, facial happiness, height, and weight, young children (ages 3.4 to 5.3 years) rendered bipolar judgments of stimuli intermediate in value between alternately given extreme anchors. Consistent relational shifts away from the anchors were found for all dimensions judged, and these effects proved virtually independent of children’s ages, the sequential orders of stimulus and anchor presentation, or the provision of overt visual memory props. Evidence of relational judgment within the narrower range of the test stimuli alone was also found. Essentially similar relational judgments were replicated with a sample of severe adult mental retardates.     

Visual discrimination learning in the killer whale (Orcinus orca)

Trial-and-error and errorless training procedures were used to train two killer whales on a simple visual discrimination problem. Both whales demonstrated difficulties in solving the problem under trial-and-error training. The relative effectiveness of the two training procedures is evaluated.     

Social Background Variables Related to Career Commitment of Women Teachers

Women professionals in teaching who had had substantially different experience in terms of certain social background variables were compared on the criterion of their commitment to a professional career. The results indicated that certain social background factors resulted in women teachers being significantly different on the criterion of career commitment. Mother's work orientation, social class background, source of financial support in college, and current marital status were all significantly discriminating background factors. Type of college attended was not a significantly discriminating factor.     

Helping: The Influence of Anticipated Social Sanctions and Self-Monitoring

ABSTRACT A field experiment was conducted to examine the influence of social sanctions and self-monitoring on willingness to help handicapped persons Compared to low self-monitoring individuals, those high in self-monitoring tendencies were more likely to offer help if told that significant social rewards were attached to the act of helping, but were less likely to help if led to believe that these consequences were weak Implications for research on helping and self-monitoring are considered with particular attention being given to the relationship between social sanctions and self-monitoring