Careers,contingencies, and locus of control among White college women

This study examined social-psychological antecedents of the sex type of occupational preferences and expectations of White college women. High sex-role contingency orientation (SRCO)—attitudes and explanations for occupational choices which reflect a primary and explicit concern with marriage and family—was associated with expectations and preferences for occupations in which females predominate and with the tendency to have more traditionally feminine expectations than preferences.SRCO was significantly related to locus of control (I-E) with women high or intermediate in SRCO being primarily internal or external; women with low SRCO being primarily intermediate in I-E.This study was supported by a Faculty Research Grant from the Graduate Research Council of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.     

Social theory without wholes

Language is the tradition of nations; each generation describes what it sees, but it uses words transmitted from the past. When a great entity like the British Constitution has continued in connected outward sameness, but hidden inner change, for many ages, every generation inherits a series of inapt words — of maxims once true, but of which the truth is ceasing or has ceased. As a man’s family go on muttering in his maturity incorrect phrases derived from a just observation of his early youth, so, in the full activity of an historical constitution, its subjects repeat phrases true in the time of their fathers, and inculcated by those fathers, but now true no longer.     

Effects of same-modality interference on immediate serial recall of auditory and visual information.

Two studies investigated the effects of same-modality interference on the immediate serial recall of auditorily and visually presented stimuli. Typically, research in which this task is used has been conducted in quiet rooms, excluding auditory information that is extraneous to the auditorily presented stimuli. However, visual information such as background items clearly within the subject's view have not been excluded during visual presentation. Therefore, in both the present studies, the authors used procedures that eliminated extra-list visual interference and introduced extra-list auditory interference. When same-modality interference was eliminated, weak visual recency effects were found, but they were smaller than those that were generated by auditorily presented items. Further, mid-list and end-of-list recall of visually presented stimuli was unaffected by the amount of interfering visual information. On the other hand, the introduction of auditory interference increased mid-list recall of auditory stimuli. The results of Experiment 2 showed that the mid-list effect occurred with a moderate, but not with a minimal or maximal, level of auditory interference, indicating that moderate amounts of auditory interference had an alerting effect that is not present in typical visual interference.     

Components of syllogistic reasoning

The present research sought to understand the components of syllogistic reasoning used in a syllogistic evaluation task. In this task, subjects must indicate whether a conclusion such as “Some Yale professors are humbugs” is definitely true, or never true of a set of premises such as “Some humbugs study syllogistic reasoning; some Yale professors study syllogistic reasoning”. A modified form of componential analysis (Sternberg 1977, 1978) was used to decompose the syllogistic evaluation task with abstract content into encoding and encoding plus combination subtasks. The response-choice data from these subtasks were used to provide (a) direct tests of a proposed theory of syllogistic reasoning, and in particular, of its assumptions about sources of error in syllogistic reasoning; and (b) direct inferences regarding the representation of relations between the subject and predicate of the premises as encoded and combined. The results supported a proposed transitive-chain model of syllogistic reasoning.     

Fear of failure in males: A more salient factor than fear of success in females?

Sex differences in self-attributions following winning or losing in a highly competitive achievement-type situation were investigated. Subjects competed in same- or mixed-sex pairs on an anagram task which was prearranged in difficulty so that one subject would clearly defeat his/her partner. A significant sex of subject × outcome interaction emerged. Males were more likely to attribute their successes to skill and failures to luck. Females attributed both their successes and failures to a relatively equal amount of skill. This self-defensive bias in males was interpreted as indicating a greater fear of failure in males. The relatively rational and objective attributions of females did not support a female fear of success hypothesis. No significant interactions with sex of partner on this variable were found. Finally, subjects were asked to rate their opponents on a series of personality, attractiveness, and happiness dimensions. Neither males nor females were differentially evaluated as a function of winning or losing.The research reported here was partially supported by a grant to the first author from the California State University, Fresno Foundation.     

Social comparison and social identity: Some prospects for intergroup behaviour

Recent studies have reported that the variable of social categorization per se is sufficient for intergroup discrimination. This paper presents an explanation of these findings in terms of the operation of social comparison processes between groups based on the need for a positive ingroup identity. The relationship between perceived social identity and intergroup comparison is elaborated theoretically, and it is argued that social comparisons give rise to processes of mutual differentiation between groups which can be analyzed as a form of ‘social’ competition. Social competition is distinguished from realistic competition (conflict of group interests). New data is reported which strengthens this interpretation of the ‘minimal’ categorization studies. It is found that minimal intergroup discrimination takes place in the distribution of meaningless ‘points’ as well as monetary rewards and that social categorization per se does not lead to intergroup behaviour where the subjects can act directly in terms of ‘self’. Other studies on intergroup biases are reviewed to argue for the generality of social competition in intergroup situations.     

The generalization of newly acquired behaviors by parents and child across three different settings

The generalization of newly learned behaviors to different settings on the part of an autistic child and his parents was investigated by means of a multiple baseline design. Contingency management techniques were taught to the parents while they interacted with their child in a training apartment equipped with observation facilities. In order to assess whether the parents generalized the use of these techniques, data were gathered at their own home. Data were also gathered in the child's school in order to ascertain whether changes brought about in the child's behavior in the training apartment generalized to the school situation. It was concluded that the child's behavior was responsive to the contingencies of each particular environment. Generalization did not occur until the contingencies and stimulus cues were specifically designed to promote a change in behavior in each setting.