Aging: Downward,upward, or forward?

Life views are dominated by an iconic illusion that forces the span of life into a low-high-low sequence of stages. Aging is seen as loss, decline, a downhill course. But while there are losses in aging, there are also gains, and empirical observations show that many persons enjoy getting older. From a psychodynamic viewpoint the losses in aging, though painful, are made bearable by considerable gains that afford new pleasures. Aging's gains and losses are described, leading to the conclusion that the life course is neither upward nor downward, but a forward movement full of new discoveries.     

Resolving contradictory findings on sex and social class differences in children's responses to reinforcement

Contradictory results have been reported on the effectiveness of various reinforcers with children of different ages and socioeconomic classes. The present study considered the relative effectiveness of two types of verbal and one type of tangible reinforcement on a two-choice discrimination task (marble-in-the-hole) for preschool children. IQ and operant level were treated as covariates and accounted for the observed differences in performance between the 24 middle-class and 24 lower-class children and between the 24 males and 24 females. Disparate findings of previous studies regarding sex and social class differences might have been reconciled if baseline and IQ had been considered.     

Semantic memory for metaphor: The conceptual base hypothesis

The idea that people can encode and use an extremely abstract and general form of a complex linguistic (proverb) input-a conceptual base-was examined in two experiments. In Experiment I, each proverb was accompanied by either a conceptually related (good, mediocre, or poor) or an unrelated interpretation. The related interpretations were more effective recall prompts than were the unrelated interpretations, but only for high-imagery proverbs. In Experiment II, subjects wrote interpretations of the proverbs and then received either the proverb subject-noun or a brief story as a prompt. As was the case for the interpretations in Experiment I, the stories did not share any major vocabulary or propositional structure with their proverb source. Nonetheless, the stories were as effective as the nouns. Also, quality of proverb interpretation and of recall performance were positively related, with the correlations involving low-imagery proverbs, and stories, tending to be higher. Both experiments provided support for the conceptual-base notion, and underlined the importance of interpretive context, but more definitive evidence is needed.     

Interpersonal attraction as a joint function of primacy and recency effects

Memory & Cognition - Empirical primacy-recency inconsistencies between Byrne’s reinforcement affect model of attraction and Anderson’s information integration model of personality...     

Brightness contrast effects in a pupillometric experiment

The effect of depth displacement of test bars from the induction wedge of the Ponzo illusion was investigated in two experiments. Either two wedges of opposite orientation were presented simultaneously, one at a near and the other at a far distance, or only one wedge was presented at either the near or the far distance. The test bars were stereoscopically either in the plane of the wedge or displaced from the wedge in distance. When the two wedges were presented simultaneously, the direction of the Ponzo illusion was determined by the wedge at the same perceived distance as the test bars. When only one wedge was present, stereoscopic displacement of the bars in front of, but not behind, the wedge decreased the magnitude of the illusion. The results are interpreted in terms of the adjacency principle.

     

An investigation of relative preference for consistency motivation

The present experiment was designed to determine relative preference for fulfillment of consistency motivation. Ninety-two students rated their attraction to, identification with, and idealization of a hypothetical stimulus person who was represented as having fulfilled particular social motives such as approval, power, achievement and consistency. Results confirmed that subjects prefer persons who have satisfied traditional needs more so than others whose consistency desires have been fulfilled. Implications for the role of consistency motivation in social behavior are considered.     

Obedience as a function of experimenter competence

The purpose of this study was to investigate obedience to an E’s commands as a function of E competency. Based upon Orne’s (1962, 1969) discussion of the demand characteristics inherent in the typical aggression study, it was hypothesized that E incompetence would decrease S obedience. Competence was manipulated by: (1) presenting some Ss with a nervous and inexperienced E, and (2)“accidentally” killing the victim (a rat) midway through the experiment. Thirty-two undergraduate female Ss participated in the experiment—supposedly a study on the physiological effects of stress. Obedi6nce was operationalized as the difference, in simple reaction time, between trials on which Ss were told that their response might result in shock to the rat and trials on which they were told that their response might save the rat from shock. Significant differences in obedience were obtained between competent and incompetent E conditions, and a significant “kill” effect was found in the competent E conditidn. The results of this study suggested that the extreme acts of obedience observed in the laboratory (e.g., Milgram, 1963) occur only when E is perceived as competent. This finding imposes limits on the generalizability of laboratory studies of obedience.     

Social comparison,attraction, and choice of a comparison other

The effects of attitudinal similarity and task-relevant affiliative status, together with three situational factors (presence or absence of a monetary reward, choice of information source or work partner, and choice made before or after Ss completed preliminary work on the task), on the choice of comparison others were examined. The most significant determinant of the comparison other chosen was attitude similarity (p < .01). There was also a significant interaction between attitude similarity, task-relevant affifliative status, and time of choice (p < .05). The nature of the interaction suggested that general impressions such as conveyed by general attitudinal information may be more important in the selection of referent others than comparability on situation-specific factors.     

Prior induced affect and sex differences in attraction

Male (N = 90) and female(N = 90) Ss were shown either 12 humorous or 12 serious TV commercials and were asked to rate each commercial on six 7-point personal feelings scales as well as on a 6-point evaluative (like-dislike) scale. The Ss were then shown the purported evaluative responses of a same-sex stranger which were .17, .50, or .83 similar to their own. Analysis of the personal feelings scales indicated expected differences (p < .001) in affect associated with the two sets of commercials. Females who viewed the serious commercials evidenced greater attraction toward the stranger than did females who saw the humorous commercials (p < .05). The similarity attraction function for males in the humorous condition had a greater slope and a lower y intercept than the similarity attraction function for males in the serious condition. A factor analysis of female affective responses to five socially relevant commercials in the serious set suggested the operation of two affective dimensions, one of which appeared to reflect feelings of social concern.