SEX DIFFERENCES IN THE ATTRIBUTION OF SOCIALLY DESIRABLE AND UNDESIRABLE TRAITS TO OUT-GROUP MEMBERS*

One hundred and forty-four male and female Australian subjects rated an Australian or a Vietnamese target group on the possession of five socially desirable and five socially undesirable personality traits. As predicted, the out-group was perceived less favourably than the in-group, but only by the males, the females not making the distinction.     

Emerging independence in nursing graduates: An analysis of traditional-nontraditional value patterns

The study sought to determine whether current nursing graduates value assertiveness, independence, and achievement to a greater degree than had past graduates, and whether selection or socialization might account for such a change. Scores on the Allport Vernon Lindsey Scale of Values for 55 1974 graduates of a private baccalaureate school of nursing were compared with 66 1980 graduates. Only scores on the political scale were significantly higher for the 1980 class. 1980 graduates displayed a traditional value pattern of high social and low political scores upon entering the educational program. Longitudinal comparison of scores for the 1980 class showed a significant rise in scores on the political scale; graduating scores did not differ significantly from college norms. The results suggest a rise in nontraditional values which is the result of the educational socialization process.     

Sex-role orientation and depressive symptomatology

Sex Roles - The incidence of depressive disorders among women in our society is considerably higher than it is for men. Several investigators have suggested that this is due to traditional sex...     

Further evaluation of prompt density,rate of reinforcement,and the persistence of manding

Previous research has evaluated the effects of prompt rates on the rate of communicative behavior. More recent research has suggested that dense prompting can result in communicative behavior that is more resistant to change. However, existing research has not considered the impact that higher response rates had on reinforcement rate, a variable known to impact response persistence. The current study systematically replicated previous research by evaluating communicative responding in contexts associated with dense- and lean-prompt schedules and extended existing research by (a) holding reinforcement rates similar across the two prompting schedules (lean and dense), and (b) evaluating the persistence of communicative responding in the contexts associated with each prompting schedule. The results for Experiment 1 clearly replicated and extended previous research. The results for Experiment 2 were equivocal and suggested that previous reinforcement history and response class size impacted outcomes.     

A method for the precise switching of speech

A simple procedure by which a speech signal may be switched on or off (or from one ear to the other) at a precise instant of time is described. The speech sample is first recorded on a magnetic tape loop. A reference pulse is then recorded preceding the speech signal. This reference pulse triggers an adjustable time delay which in tum operates an electronic switch at an appropriate time.     

A device for the easy administration of volatile anesthetics to rats undergoing stereotaxic surgery

Conventional procedures do not provide a practical method for the administration of volatile anesthetics such as halothane to rats while they are undergoing stereotaxic surgery. This paper describes a device which meets this need and which is easy and inexpensive to construct. A two-piece cylinder cut from the mouth of a polyethylene bottle forms a closed system around the muzzle of a rat and does not interfere with the stereotaxic apparatus or with the operation itself. The cylinder is attached to any standard device for the dispension of volatile anesthetics. The immediate advantage is that behavioral assesaments can be made relatively soon after surgery.     

Selective eye movements to simultaneously presented stimuli during discrimination

Human Ss, when given a discrimination task whose stimuli varied in dimension and relevance, always chose and ftxated more frequently the stimulus they had been reinforced for choosing. Decreasing the brightness reduced the choice and ftxation preference for form stimuli over line stimuli and raised total ftxation frequency. Ss decreased fixation frequency to discriminanda with practice.     

Triadic consistency and false heart-rate feedback

Subjects viewed slides of the Rorschach cards while listening to heart sounds that were supposedly but not actually their own. For some of the subjects the heart rate increased when they were exposed to the five achromatic cards and for some subjects the heart rate increased when they were exposed to the five chromatic cards. In addition, some subjects were told that increased heart rate was a sign of mental health (positive condition), and some that the increased heart rate was a sign of mental abnormality (negative condition) Since the heart-rate increase (behavior) and Rorschach cards associated with the increase (attitude object) are connected by a positive causal relation, triadic theory predicts that the sign of the heart-rate increase should generalize to the associated cards (i e, be positive in the positive condition and negative in the negative condition) An analysis of variance revealed such an overall significant effect Closer examination of the data, however, revealed that the triadic effects were not unambiguously occurring when the increased heart rate was associated with achromatic cards It was suggested that in this condition the unique characteristics of the cards facilitated the generation of complicating anxiety. Supportive data for this interpretation were offered