Theft reduction in a grocery store through product identification and graphing of losses for employees

Shoplifting and employee theft constitute a major problem for retailers. Previous research has described techniques for effectively reducing either type of theft but has not addressed the problem of thefts of unspecified origin. In a grocery store we evaluated the effect of identifying for employees frequently stolen products from three groups of items and graphing, twice weekly in the lunchroom, losses for the separate groups. After the products were identified and losses graphed, thefts from the three groups dropped from eight per day to two per day.     

The effectiveness of different types of pragmatic implications found in commercials to mislead subjects

Statements concerning the truthfulness of claims made in 16 tape-recorded commercials about fictitious products were judged by 40 college students. In half of the commercials a claim was directly asserted while in the other half the claims were pragmatically implied. Pragmatic implications are statements that lead a person to believe something that is neither explicitly stated nor necessarily implied. As expected based upon previous research, subjects often responded to implied claims as if they had been directly asserted (particularly by subjects in the short delay group). In addition, differences were found in the effectiveness of four different types of pragmatic implications for misleading subjects.     

Different slopes for different folks: Process analysis of spatial aptitude

Adults differing in spatial ability were tested on problems involving the mental rotation of familiar alphanumeric stimuli and unfamiliar stimuli drawn from the Primary Mental Abilities Space Test. Individual differences in spatial ability were associated with speed rather than accuracy of mental rotation processes. Ability differences were correlated with the time to rotate familiar alphanumerics and the additional time to encode, compare, and rotate unfamiliar stimuli. The results are discussed in terms of differences in elementary information processes associated with the representation and transformation of visual information.     

Memory for movement in blind children: the role of previous visual experience

The role of previous visual experience in the reproduction of a criterion movement was examined in sighted, late-blinded, and congenitally blind children. Results showed that the congenitally blind reproduce movements at a low level of accuracy compared with the other two groups. Detailed analysis showed that although the congenitally blind could reproduce the extent of the movement accurately, the movement was poorly reproduced in terms of its orientation to the criterion movement and its orientation from a reference point. The role of prior vision in establishing a frame of reference is discussed.     

At the Crossroads: Racial and Womanist Identity Development in Black and White Women

This study explored the hypothesis that womanist identity and racial identity development are related. The racial identiy and womanist identity attitudes of 214 women were measured using the Black Racial Identity Attitude Scale, the White Racial Identity Attitude Scales (WRIAS), and the Womanist Identity Attitude Scale. Canonical correlation analysis was used to determine the nature of relationships among racial identity and womanist identity attitudes. Results showed that for Black women there was a significant relation between racial identity and womanist identity attitudes. Specifically, Internalization attitudes on the WRIAS were positively related to Level II (Encounter) and Level IV (Internalization) attitudes on the Womanist Identity Attitude Scale. Despite a larger number of White participants, no such relationship emerged for White women. Implications for theory, research, and counseling are discussed.     

Increased regional cerebral glucose metabolism and semantic memory performance in Alzheimer's disease: A pilot double blind transdermal nicotine positron emission tomography study

Nicotinic receptor dysfunction and impaired semantic memory occur early in Alzheimer's disease patients (AD). Previous research implied that nicotine's ability to enhance alertness, arousal, and cognition in a number of nonclinical populations was a function of its ability to stimulate CNS nicotinic cholinergic receptors. In this study it was hypothesized that transdermal administration of nicotine would increase both regional cerebral glucose metabolism (rCMRglc) and semantic memory (as assessed by verbal fluency). Two mild AD and two elderly controls underwent positron emission tomography scanning during a double blind nicotinic agonist verbal fluency challenge procedure. rCMRglc increases occurred in both AD patients, but not controls. In the two AD patients, verbal fluency scores increased by an average of 17%. One elderly control's verbal fluency increased, and the other decreased. These findings suggest that nicotine's effect on metabolism and verbal fluency is due to its ability to stimulate the cholinergic system.     

Increased theft as a side effect of sales promotion activities: An exploratory study

A combination of commonly used promotional activities, i.e., advertising, price reductions and increased exposure, was associated with increased thefts of six candy products. Thefts increased for each of the six products during the period the combination of promotional activities was used. Large increases in sales were observed for only two of the products. Sales of the other four products increased marginally or decreased in conjunction with promotional activities. When compared to normal sales conditions, the period of promotional activities produced less net profit per week for five of the six products. The results are of interest to retailers since they indicate that promotional activities for some products may produce a negative side effect, namely, increased theft. Further, promotional activities may not always produce increased sales.     

Gender schemas and the salience of gender: Individual differences in nonreversal discrimination learning

Sixty-seven 3–6-year-old children, identified as gender schematic and aschematic, completed a nonreversal discrimination learning task. This task permits examination of children's abilities to attend selectively to particular dimensions of a multidimensional stimulus. Gender typing and size of stimulus were the relevant target dimensions. Gender schematic children required significantly more trials to criterion when the shift was from sex type to size of stimulus, and significantly fewer trials to criterion when the shift was from size to sex type of stimulus, than did aschematic children. Gender aschematic children's performance was relatively unaffected by type of stimulus dimension. Results support predictions of the differential salience of the gender dimension to gender schematic and aschematic children.