Staring and Compliance: A Field Experiment on Hitchhiking

A field experiment was conducted in which a single male, a single female, or a male-female couple attempted to hitch rides at four different traffic locations, under conditions in which the hitchhikers either stared at or looked away from oncoming drivers. It was found that staring increased the probability of a driver stopping from .03 to .067 (z = 2.96, p = .003). The female was a more successful hitchhiker than either the male or the couple, (z = 2.215, p = .026; z = 1.861, p .063, respectively).     

On the self-fulfilling nature of apparent sex differences in behavior

A study was conducted to test the notion that a person's behavior conforms explicitly to the sex-role stereotype that attractive others have regarding the person's gender. In a 2 × 2 design, female subjects were induced to characterize themselves to a male partner who was either desirable or undesirable and whose stereotype of the ideal woman conformed very closely to the traditional female stereotype or its opposite. The results, which held for both an attitudinal and a behavioral measure of self-presentation, indicated that, when the partner was desirable, the subjects portrayed themselves as more or less conventional in terms of sex-role, depending upon whether the partner's stereotypic view of women was traditional or not. The implications of these findings for an analysis which stresses the self-fulfilling nature of apparent sex differences were discussed.     

Rehearsal and retrieval processes in free recall of categorized lists

The relationships between rehearsal and subsequent retrieval characteristics were examined in the context of free recall of categorized lists. The results indicated a direct correspondence between the frequency of rehearsal and the order and speed of retrieval within categories. The same relationship obtained for the categories themselves. It was suggested that both retrieval time and order effects can be predicted in terms of the organization of input processing and the resultant repetition frequency of categories and exemplars.     

Student Political Campaigners: Who Campaigns and What Effect Does It Have on Them?

What characterizes students who become involved in political campaigns and what effects does their campaigning have on them? During a 2-week election recess, about one-third of the students at Princeton University chose to campaign. Those students who did so were liberal rather than radical in their political orientation. Those who participated seemed predisposed to campaign because they thought campaigning was an effective way of bringing about the changes that they sought. Campaigners were more likely than their fellow students to have engaged in political activity before. Such efforts may be evidence of their beliefs that political activity causes change, or might have been the forming experience for those beliefs. If the candidate for whom the student campaigned won the election, the student by and large strengthened or maintained his original attitudes about the efficacy of campaigning. If his candidate lost, the student became more pessimistic about the efficacy of campaigners whose candidates won also changed in an internal direction on a personal-control subscale of Rotter's (1966) internal-external scale; those whose candidates lost tended to change in an external direction.     

Social Comparison and Bystander Intervention in Emergencies

In a 2 × 2 experimental design, male subjects were exposed to a "lady in distress" in the presence of a confederate who was either similar or dissimilar to the subject and who reacted to the situation with either passive unconcern or with apparent alarm. Consistent with a social comparison interpretation, the confederate's reactions markedly influenced whether subjects intervened. While degree of similarity was unrelated to probability of occurrence of an intervention response, it exerted a strong effect on intervention response latency. It is proposed that social comparison processes not only may influence an observer's interpretation of a situation, but may also contribute to situational ambiguity and affect the observer's degree of confidence in the validity of his interpretation of the situation. Any of these factors may, in turn, determine whether and how quickly an intervention response occurs.     

Intersensory effects in the psychological refractory period

Two experiments examined reaction time (RT) to each of two stimulus events separated by short interstimulus intervals (1SI). The essential contrast was RT to the second visual signal, RT₂, in auditory-visual (A-V) vs visual-visual (V-V) sequences. With response, certain pairings in Experiment 1, an effect apparently demonstrating a single-channel process (Welford, 1952), was noted. RT₂ was generally faster for A-V as opposed to V-V sequences especially when Ss were uncertain as to the sequence that would occur. At 0-msec ISI, the RT₂ difference between sequences approached the RT! difference. More rapid RT₂ to A-V sequences was also observed with go vs no-go pairings in Experiment 2 when the initial event was a go signal. However, the RT difference disappeared upon error correction, making the RT₂ sequence difference of questionable relevance to the hypothetical single-channel process. RT₂ was more rapid following a null no-go signal when the no-go signal was contrasted with a visual as opposed to auditory go signal. The latter effect was independent of error and is consistent with channel-switching theory (Kristofferson, 1967).