Specific Food Aversion Acquired During Restricted Environmental Stimulation

Two studies, one conducted in Australia and one in Canada, tested the effects of the Restricted Environmental Stimulation Technique (REST) on food preferences. Subjects undergoing 24 hours of darkness and silence were either permitted to take some of their favorite high-caloric foods to eat during the session or were given standard laboratory liquid diet food. In the second study, a social isolation condition (without sensory reduction) and a nonconfined control condition were also used. The results reliably indicate that preferred foods taken into the chamber were significantly less favorably rated after REST, while the same experience led to increased liking of previously less preferred foods. Some originally liked items were completely eliminated from the subject's diet after the experiment, while others were eaten significantly less frequently than before. REST has previously been useful in a weight reduction program; its effect in decreasing the attractiveness of highly liked problem foods may add to its impact in this context.     

The Role of Integrative Complexity in Military Leadership: Robert E. Lee and His Opponents1

Paragraphs selected from material written by Gen. Robert E. Lee between 1839 and 1867, and by Union generals who opposed him in six major battles, were scored for integrative complexity. This characteristic is defined by the degree of differentiation and integration that the individual demonstrates in processing information, ranging from low or simple (rigid, all-or-none, egocentric) to high or complex (flexible, information-oriented, integrated) on a 1–7 scale. Gen. Lee showed a high level of complexity as a stable characteristic, with changes downward in periods of particular stress. Lee was able to defeat superior enemy forces in battles where his level of complexity was substantially higher than that of the opposing commander; this was not the case when the levels were closer together or when (as with Grant) he faced an opponent whose complexity was actually higher than his own. These findings support previous research on the effects of stress, and emphasize the nature of information processing complexity as both a “trait” and a “state” variable.     

On relations among perceptual and cognitive measures of information processing

Tests of visual information processing and verbal information processing were administered to 178 Ss. Intercorrelations showed low positive relationships between two sets of two cognitive measures each, the Sentence Completion Test (Schroder, Driver, & Streufert, 1967) and the Interpersonal Topical Inventory (Tuckman, 1965), and the Interpersonal Topical Inventory and the Polarity Scale (1965), and a high negative correlation between preference for highly complex and for moderately complex visual stimuli. Factor analysis showed three reliable major factors. There was little evidence for a relationship between perceptual and cognitive processing characteristics, which indicates some danger for general theorists.     

Changes in the Hierarchy of Value References Associated With Flying in Space

ABSTRACT One hundred twenty‐five astronaut autobiographies, interviews, and oral histories were content analyzed and scored for references to values ( Schwartz, 1992 ). The current study extended methods tested in 2 pilot studies of space veterans from many nations, of both sexes, and with different experiences within the history of human spaceflight. Value references reflected a high degree of concern with individualism, with Achievement, Enjoyment, and Self‐direction ranked highest. There were relatively few value differences across demographic categories, demonstrating the impact of the spaceflight experience. After returning, the astronauts showed increased concern with Universalism, Spirituality, and Power (social recognition), a broadened set of references to values oriented toward the collective good.     

The cognitive processing of politics and politicians: archival studies of conceptual and integrative complexity

This article reviews over 30 years of research on the role of integrative complexity (IC) in politics. IC is a measure of the cognitive structure underlying information processing and decision making in a specific situation and time of interest to the researcher or policymaker. As such, it is a state counterpart of conceptual complexity, the trait (transsituationally and transtemporally stable) component of cognitive structure. In the beginning (the first article using the measure was published in 1976), most of the studies were by the author or his students (or both), notably Philip Tetlock; more recently, IC has attracted the attention of a growing number of political and social psychologists. The article traces the theoretical development of IC; describes how the variable is scored in archival or contemporary materials (speeches, interviews, memoirs, etc.); discusses possible influences on IC, such as stress, ideology, and official role; and presents findings on how measures of IC can be used to forecast political decisions (e.g., deciding between war and peace). Research on the role of IC in individual success and failure in military and political leaders is also described.     

Cognitive Management in an Enduring International Rivalry: The Case of India and Pakistan

Using integrative complexity scoring, the current study addresses how communications by leaders of India and Pakistan have revealed their information processing and decision-making strategies. The hostility between India and Pakistan started with the official creation of the two states and has lasted through more than a half-century. It has been marked by four full-scale wars and almost constant ethnopolitical, terrorist, and guerrilla violence. It is one of the most enduring and bloody binational rivalries of recent decades. Shared aspects of history and culture make the comparisons relatively free of confounding factors. In common with previous findings, complexity scores have shown reliable associations with impending war and with continued peace (or low-intensity conflict).