Changing your mind

When individuals detect an inconsistency in a set of propositions, they tend to change their minds about at least one proposition to resolve the inconsistency. The orthodox view from William James (1907) onward has been that a rational change should be minimal. We propose an alternative hypothesis according to which individuals seek to resolve inconsistencies by explaining their origins. We report four experiments corroborating the explanatory hypothesis. Experiment 1 showed that participants’ explanations revised general conditional claims rather than specific categorical propositions. Experiment 2 showed that, when explanations did revise the categorical proposition, participants also tended to deny the consequences of a second generalization. Experiment 3 showed that this tendency persists when participants previously affirmed these consequences explicitly. Experiment 4 showed that, when participants could easily explain an inconsistency by revising a generalization, they were more likely to accept the consequences of a second generalization. All four results contravene minimalism but support the explanatory hypothesis.     

The production of gender among Black and White women and men: The case of household labor

Using the National Survey of Families and Households (N = 13,017; 11.09% Black, 79.99% White), we compare the household labor time of Black and White women and men, and assess the extent to which the time constraint, relative resource, and ideology explanations account for racial and gender differences in housework time. We find that although time constraint, relative resource, and ideology explanations account for some of the variation in housework time, they do not account for all of the gender and racial differences. We also find that paid work and housework trade off differently for Black men than for White men and also for women and men. Finally, a variety of relative resource, time constraint, and ideology factors are associated differently with women’s and men’s housework time. We argue that our findings lend support to the production of gender approach to understanding the division of household labor and that this approach can be used to help us understand racial differences in housework time as well. We would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments.     

Lateral preferences and writing hand posture in left-handers: A reply to Levy

In reply to the commentary from J. Levy about a recent article of ours (A. Searleman, C. Porac, & S. Coren, 1984, Brain and Cognition, 3, 86–93), we find that she has shifted the level of analysis from between-sex comparisons (as demanded by our original hypothesis) to within-sex comparisons. Since she is addressing a different set of questions, we therefore find no compelling reasons to alter any of our conclusions or the confidence that we have in these conclusions.     

Affiliative vocalizations in infant rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta).

In Experiment 1, infant rhesus monkeys (Macaca mulatta) were separated and then reunited with mothers, united with a male, or placed in an empty cage. Infants girned more when with mothers or the male than when alone. Girns declined over time when infants were united with the male. Coo rates were high when the infant was alone or with the male. Shrieks, barks, and fear-related behavior were higher with the male. In Experiment 2 the vocalizations of infants were examined during separation when alone or when mothers or a male were in the same room. Infants cooed more when mothers or a male were present. Cooing increased over time, with a greater increase in the mothers' presence. Girns were given to both mothers and males, but more were given to mothers. Coos and girns are both affiliative vocalizations but are differentially modulated as infants cease cooing when they receive contact comfort.     

Fear-Arousing and Empathy-Arousing Appeals to Help: The Pathos of Persuasion

An experiment tested the proposition that the components of a fear appeal which persuade us to protect ourselves are the Same components that persuade us to protect others. The results confirmed this hypothesis for the two components examined: noxiousness of the threatened danger and efficacy of coping response. Films showing noxious scenes of industrial whaling and films showing a pro-environmental action organization successfully saving whales from whalers strengthened intentions to help this endangered animal species. Taken together, available data indicate that fear appeals can persuade us to protect ourselves, other people, and even infrahuman animals. The social psychological paradigm used to investigate attitude change was merged with a paradigm employed to examine prosocial behavior. As predicted, an empathy-arousing appeal facilitated attitude change. Three implications for promoting ecological actions were discussed. First, empathy-arousing appeals can be applied to mass media campaigns. Second, the concept of response-efficacy in persuasive appeals can be extended from direct, individual action to activity requiring the mediation of social organizations. Finally, pro-environmental campaigns can be effective when the potential beneficiaries are not the ones shown, but who symbolize the many others in the same plight.     

Mirrors, Clocks, Maps, and Music: A South African Response to Family Therapy Supervision/Training

Once upon a time a training unit embarked upon a Journey. The Journey was to encompass a year's training and supervision in family therapy. Bags were packed to the brim with theory and training methods. One day the Unit left the bags behind to see what would happen if they travelled light and let the students bring their own luggage to the examination. Students were expected to describe their relationships with the interviewed families, and their training through a story. The great exam day came. Inspired students used innovative ideas and metaphors to describe the Journey. This article tells the story about these stories and the Unit's learning from them.     

Choice vs. Preference: The Effects of Choice and No Choice of Preferred and Non Preferred Spelling Tasks on the Academic Behavior of Students with Disabilities

The effects of choice and no choice of preferred and non preferred instructional activities on the academic behavior of 3 students with disabilities were investigated. Participant preferences for spelling tasks were assessed and an ABCDEF design was used to examine choice and preference within 6 experimental conditions: a) choice of preferred tasks, b) choice of non preferred tasks, c) no choice of preferred tasks, d) no choice of non preferred tasks, e) no choice of preferred tasks (yoked-control), and f) no choice of non preferred tasks (yoked-control). Results indicate that all 3 participants had higher levels of task engagement when working with preferred tasks, regardless of a choice or no choice format. The findings from this investigation contribute to the growing body of research that focuses on developing interventions that are responsive to individual student preferences.