Physical Distance and Helping: Some Unexpected Benefits of “Crowding In” on Others1

One hundred and sixty undergraduates (80 males, 80 females) participated in a field experiment designed to examine the influence of invasions of personal space and sex of requester upon subsequent helping. On the basis of previous research, it was predicted that helping would be markedly inhibited by invasions of personal space, and that the magnitude of these effects would be mediated by the sex of the individuals who perpetrated such intrusions. Surprisingly, however, results indicated that subsequent helping was actually facilitated by such invasions. A follow-up investigation replicated these results and suggested that they stemmed from a tendency on the part of subjects to perceive close physical approach by the requester as indicative of a high need for assistance.     

The Reduction of Human Aggression: A Field Study of the Influence of Incompatible Reactions1

One hundred and twenty passing motorists were delayed for 15 sec at an intersection by a confederate who failed to move his vehicle after the light turned green. Prior to such annoyance, subjects in three groups were exposed to experimental treatments designed to cause them to experience reactions incompatible with anger or overt aggression (i.e., empathy, humor, mild sexual arousal). Results indicated that individuals in these groups were more reluctant to honk their horns at the confederate and showed fewer overt sjgns of irritation than subjects in two control groups not exposed to such treatments. In addition, it appeared that subjects' willingness to honk at the confederate was enhanced by uncomfortably warm ambient temperatures. The implications of these findings for the control of overt aggression, as well as the usefulness of horn-honking as a dependent measure for such behavior in field settings, were discussed.     

Self-reinforcement

Self-reinforcement in operant situations generally refers to those arrangements in which the subject delivers to himself a consequence, contingent on his behavior. However, it is noted that the definition of all other types of reinforcement make its delivery contingent on the subject's behavior. What is actually at issue is the agent who defines whether or not the response required for reinforcement has been met. In self-reinforcement, the subject himself defines this. In the laboratory, this requirement is machine-defined; in school examinations, it is teacher-defined; and in many clinical self-control situations, it is also independently defined. A reinforcement contingency presupposes such independence, absent in self-reinforcement. Implications for research and practice are discussed and alternative formulations are offered.     

Where has hope gone? Toward an understanding of hope in pastoral care

This paper questions the lack of a conceptual model or psychology of hope for pastoral theology and proceeds to develop such a psychology by surveying the theology of hope, by reviewing the dynamics of hoping of some contemporary philosophers and psychologists, and by proposing a hypothesis that hope is difficult to conceptualize because the mode of hoping is nonabstract, relational, nonlinear, and imaginative, all right-lobe brain functions more characteristic of Eastern than Western consciousness. Six implications of this hypothesis for pastoral care are suggested.Research for this paper and work on hope as it relates to pastoral care and counseling was made possible by a year's sabbatical leave from St. Paul School of Theology.     

Correlation and prediction in ordinal test theory

Based on the test theory model for ordinal measurements proposed by Schulman and Haden, the present paper considers correlations between tests, attenuation, regressions involving true and observed scores, and prediction of test reliability.The population correlation between tests is shown to be related to the expected sample correlation for samples of sizen ₁ andn ₂. Errors of estimation, measurement and prediction are found to be similar to their counterparts in interval test theory, while attenuation is identical to its counterpart. The bias in estimating population reliability from sample data is compared for Kendall's tau and Spearman's rho.The author wishes to thank the referees for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper, and in particular, for the suggested alternative methods of establishing some of the presented results.     

Transformation of a three-mode multidimensional scaling solution to indscal form

Relations between Tucker's three-mode multidimensional scaling and Carroll and Chang's INDSCAL are discussed. The possibility is raised that it may be profitable to attempt to transform a three-mode solution to the general form of an INDSCAL solution. Operationally, this involves transforming the three-mode core matrix so that each section is, as nearly as possible, a diagonal matrix. A technique is developed for accomplishing such a transformation, and is applied to two sets of data from the literature. Results indicate that the process is both feasible and valuable, providing useful information on the relative appropriateness of the two models.     

A look,by simulation,at the validity of some asymptotic distribution results for rotated loadings

In the last few years, a number of asymptotic results for the distribution of unrotated and rotated factor loadings have been given. This paper investigates the validity of some of these results based on simulation techniques. In particular, it looks at principal component extraction and quartimax rotation on a problem with 13 variables. The indication is that the asymptotic results are quite good.     

Recognition memory for words and pictures at short and long retention intervals

In two experiments, subjects studied a long series of words and pictures for recognition. Retention intervals varied from several minutes to a few months. The complicated testing procedures in Experiment I required the use of a traditional correction for guessing to obtain estimates of subjects' memory performance. A comparable, but simpler, design in Experiment II permitted the calculation of sensitivity and bias measures. In both studies, pictorial memory was superior to verbal memory at all retention intervals tested, and this advantage was essentially constant over time. In addition, the experiments identified an increasing tendency to call verbal test items "old" over time. Bias scores in Experiment H revealed that subjects adopted a more lenient criterion in responding to words than to pictures, and increased leniency was noted for both item types over time. Explanations of the results are offered in terms of differences in initial encoding and of a loss of discrimination between experimental and extraexperimental materials.