Bargaining strength and group polarization in intergroup negotiations

In the context of a labour-management simulation study, three-man union teams were made to believe that they had either a very strong or a very weak bargaining position vis-à-vis the other party. In half of each of these conditions, a cooperative and a competitive orientation toward the other group was induced. In preparation for the intergroup negotiations, the subjects were first asked to indicate their individual aspirations for three negotiation issues. After a group discussion, their collective aspirations were obtained. Regardless of the experimental conditions. groups set significantly higher aspiration levels than individuals on the most important issue but were more conservative and cautious on less important issues. In general, for all three topics, significant or near-significant interactions were found between bargaining strength and the direction of the group-induced shift. In the strong bargaining condition, groups set higher aspiration levels than the average of prior individual judgments; in the weak bargaining condition the opposite trend occurred. An effort was made to relate these findings to the various theories developed in the ‘risky-shift’ literature.     

An aftereffect to discrete stimuli producing apparent movement and succession

After observing the sequential flashing of two lights that produced either the perception of apparent movement or the perception of the succession of two stationary lights, the presentation of the lights in the opposite direction produced the perception of a more rapid apparent movement or of a more rapid succession of the light flashes. These aftereffects suggest the presence of neural structures for the discrimination of sequential changes in spatial position which are subject to adaptation and respond with decreased sensitivity to the repetitive presentation of the two lights in a given spatial direction. The results are interpreted to support the hypothesis that the perception of apparent movement involves the excitation of specific neural mechanisms selectively responsive to sequential changes in stimulus position. An alternative hypothesis is that the perception of apparent movement involves an inference based on the separate registrations of the position of a stimulus at one point in time and the position of that stimulus at an earlier point in time.     

Catamnestic studies of patients with writer's cramp following inpatient psychotherapy

The paper gives the results of a follow-up study of 58 patients after psychotherapeutic treatment as in-patients for writer's cramp. Where as immediately after discharge 74.1% of the patients felt an improvement in their condition, at the time of the follow-up study only 17.2% were demonstrably improved, with 37.9% subjectively feeling an improvement over their state before treatment as in-patients. These results suggest that the customary psychotherapeutic methods employed have less effect on the evidently multifactorial extrapyramidal-motor basic complaint but rather have the effect of improving the patient's ability to cope with this in daily life.     

Familiarity with proverbs and performance of a black population on Gorham's Proverbs Test

The Gorham Proverbs Test was administered to 278 black participants residing in a large metropolitan area in Southern California. Respondents were also asked to indicate whether they were familiar with each of the 40 proverbs in the test. Scores were significantly affected by respondents' ages, education, and perceived childhood socioeconomic status. Familiarity with a proverb increased the probability of its correct interpretation. Familiarity of proverbs and attempts to interpret them were significantly associated, that is, respondents tended not to attempt interpretation of unfamiliar proverbs. The number of familiar proverbs per test was not significantly associated with respondents' test scores. The mean Abstract score obtained in this study was comparable to mean scores previously reported in the literature, suggesting that ethnic differences do not significantly affect performance on the Proverbs Test.     

Comment on Holloway and McNally's (1987) "Effects of Anxiety Sensitivity on the Response to Hyperventilation"

Holloway and McNally (1987) found that normals with high scores on the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI), an instrument developed to assess beliefs regarding the adverse consequences of anxiety, reported more anxiety and more frequent and intense somatic sensations following hyperventilation than did normals with low scores on the ASI. They concluded that this result provides support for the construct validity of the ASI and thus for the construct of anxiety sensitivity. Nevertheless, we argue that (a) the developers of the ASI have conflated beliefs regarding the adverse consequences of anxiety with fear of these consequences, (b) the accumulated evidence for the construct validity of the ASI is weak, and (c) Holloway and McNally's design and analyses do not permit them to exclude the more parsimonious explanation that trait anxiety accounts for their findings. Implications for research on anxiety sensitivity are discussed.     

The impact of spouse monitoring on target behavior and recorder satisfaction

The objectives of this study were (a) to determine the impact of a spouse monitoring procedure on the target's (husband's) behavior and the recorder (wife's) view of the marriage and (b) to assess the relationship between the target's positive behaviors and the recorder's marital satisfaction rating. In one condition, husbands were informed that their behavior was being observed, whereas in a comparison group, husbands were kept unaware of the observation procedure. In both conditions, wives kept daily recordings of (a) positive behaviors emitted by their husbands and (b) perceptions of their marital relationships. No differences were found in rates of husbands' behavior or in wives' perceptions of their marriages as a function of the awareness manipulation. Analyses examining the relationship between spouse behavior and daily satisfaction ratings indicated a statistically reliable association, although the majority of variance in satisfaction ratings was attributable to unique subject variables.This article is based on a thesis submitted by the first author to the Department of Psychology of the University of Pittsburgh. The described research was supported in part by a Faculty Research Grant from the University of Pittsburgh awarded to the second author.