Book reviews

Fu, K. S. Syntactic Methods in Pattern Recognition. New York: Academic Press. 1974. Pp. 295. £11.30.

CHAPANIS, A. Ethnic Variables in Hitman Factors Engineering. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins. 1975. Pp. xii + 290. £9.60.

TOATES, F. M. Control Theory in Biology and Experimental Psychology. London: Hutchinson Educational. 1975. Pp. 274. £6.50.

GREGG, L. W. (Ed.). Knowledge and Cognition (Symposium on Cognition 9th Carnegie Mellon University). Potomac, Maryland: Erlbaum Associates. 1974. Pp. 300. £8.20.

POULTON, E. C. Tracking Skill and Manual Control. London: Academic Press Ltd. 1974. PP. 427 £13.90.

COLE, M. and SCRIBNER, S. Culture and Thought: A Psychological Introduction. New York: John Wiley and Sons. 1974. Pp. 227. ISBN 0-471-16478-X. £5.15.     

What does a man do after he makes an error? an analysis of response programming

When people make errors during continuous tasks they temporarily pause and then slow down. One line of explanation has been that they monitor feedback to detect errors, that they may make incidental responses when errors occur (e.g. they may swear) and that they may pause to analyse their errors. In all these cases they may be assumed to act as single channel information processing systems of limited capacity, and to be unable to recognise any new signal until these processes have been completed.

Analysis of response after errors shows that this cannot be the case. Responses after errors are inaccurate, but are not slow when they require the subject to make the response which he should have made on the previous trial (i.e. to make an error correction response). Subjects thus must recognise new signals as soon as they occur. The present results require a new model of error detection and correction, and a model for response programming and priming.     

Self-Serving Attributions for Performance in Naturalistic Settings: A Meta-Analytic Review1

The study of self-serving attributions in sports settings is fertile ground for testing the validity of self-serving attributional phenomena. This paper reports the results of a meta-analytic review of research examining self-serving attributions in the context of sports events. A total of 91 distinct hypothesis tests were located, comprising five dimensions of attribution: ability (N= 21), effort (N= 21), task difficulty (N= 21), luck (N= 21), and a general internal-external dimension (N= 7). The meta-analytic combination of significance levels indicated that the combined results were unlikely to occur if the null hypothesis of no effect were true (for each of the five dimensions of attribution). The internal-external dimension and the ability dimension produced effects of moderate magnitude, whereas effort, difficulty and luck produced effects of small magnitude. Meta-anaiytic focused comparisons revealed that self-serving attributions (ended to be more extreme in the context of larger team sizes, and for attribution measures focused upon the team rather than the individual. Discussion considers the implications of these findings and develops and explanation for the finding that ability is the specific attribution dimension exhibiting the greatest self-serving attribution effects.     

Multivariate approaches to the identification of delinquency proneness in adolescent males

A sample of 337 adolescent male students were surveyed for demographic, individual, school, and familial functioning and delinquency status to investigate two questions relevant to prediction of adolescent delinquency proneness. First, three methods of scoring a delinquency self-report measure (frequency, variety, and seriousness) were compared to assess their differential relevance to the prediction of delinquency proneness. Second, a multivariate model was examined to assess its explanatory ability for identification of delinquency proneness. Findings, replicated through a series of regression analyses, demonstrate that age of onset is the best predictor. Other than family functioning, psychosocial indicators add little to the predictive model. Third, a specific factor model was preferable to a "risk count" method. Finally, the advantage of self-reports of delinquent behavior over official records is discussed as is the comparability of self-report scoring procedures. How self-reported delinquency is scored is not as critical as previously thought.     

Life stress and psychopathology: Progress on research begun with Barbara Snell Dohrenwend

This is a progress report on some of the research that was planned and begun with Barbara Dohrenwend before she died in 1982. The main focus is on two of the studies. One was conducted in New York City; the other is still underway in Israel. The New York study is a retrospective case/control study of social and psychological factors that may put people at risk for developing schizophrenic episodes and episodes of major depression. The Israel research consists of epidemiological, case/control, and family studies of these two disorders together with other types of psychopathology that are inversely related to social class. Preliminary findings from both studies are reported, and their implications for primary prevention are discussed.     

Gender roles,marital status,and urban-rural migration

The impact of gender and marital status on migration decision making and satisfaction with the relocation decision six months following the move, are examined. Previous research in the literature concerning gender role, quality of life, and environmental sociology provides the conceptual framework for the following hypotheses: (a) women are more likely to migrate for quality-of-life, rather than economic, reasons; (b) single migrants are more likely to experience satisfaction with the move than are couples; (c) among couples, satisfaction with the move will be greatest when the decision to move is an egalitarian one; and (d) migrants who relocate for economic reasons will be dissatisfied with the move if their economic aspirations are not satisfied. Data are from the first interview with a random probability sample of 390 recent migrants into the Gallatin Valley of Montana. The sample was identified through new telephone listings, and a combined questionnaire/interview format was employed. Log-linear analyses were utilized to test the hypothesized relationships between marital status, the migration decision-making process, subsequent satisfaction with the decision to move, and income change as a result of the move. Hypotheses (a) and (b) above were supported. The data did not support the hypothesized relationship between egalitarian decision making and subsequent family satisfaction with the move. There also was no support for the expectation that migrants seeking economic goals would experience lower levels of satisfaction if these economic aspirations were unmet. The implications of these findings are discussed and alternative hypotheses are suggested.     

Correlates of conformity in three cultures

The present study sought to investigate the correlates of conformity among two South African and an Australian sample. Employing paper and pencil measures, the following were found to be significant correlates of conformity across the three various groups: Conformers generally have a low level of education, are characterised by their authoritarian attitudes, but do not have authoritarian personalities as measured by the Ray (1976) Directiveness scale. Conformers can be of either sex. By contrast, self-esteem and patriotism were found to be unique correlates, that is, they reflect the cultural milieu of the individual.     

BEHAVIORAL MANAGEMENT OF EXERCISE: CONTRACTING FOR AEROBIC POINTS

Behavioral contracting was used to encourage physical exercise among college students in a multiple-baseline design. Subjects deposited items of personal value with the experimenters, which they could earn back on fulfillment of two types of contract contingencies. Subjects selected weekly aerobic point criteria, which they could fulfill by exercising in the presence of other subjects. In addition, subjects contracted to observe and record the exercise of other subjects and to perform an independent reliability observation once each week, with both of these activities monitored by the experimenters. Results indicated that the contract contingencies produced increases in the number of aerobic points earned per week for seven of eight subjects, that the aerobic point system possesses several advantages as a dependent variable for behavioral research on exercise, and that inexperienced observers could be quickly trained to observe exercise behavior and to translate those observations into their aerobic point equivalents. Finally, in a followup questionnaire completed 12 months after the end of the study, seven of the eight subjects reported that they were earning more aerobic points per week than had been the case during the baseline condition of this experiment.