Social Comparison and Information Transmission in the Work Context

In the workplace, people can experience various types of failure and frustrations resulting in spontaneous social comparisons with other colleagues who are more (upward comparison) or less (downward comparison) successful. Upward comparisons especially have been shown to increase envy toward the outperforming benchmark colleague, which could negatively affect social interaction with this colleague. In line with this, our results consistently show that upward comparisons are associated with higher levels of experienced envy, as well as with a lower transmission rate of high-quality information. By contrast, type of social comparison had no impact on the amount of transmitted low-quality, work-relevant information. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

The effect of varying the number of response alternatives in rating scales: Experimental evidence from intra-individual effects

Despite a hundred years of questionnaire testing, no consensus has been reached on the optimal number of response alternatives in rating scales. Differences in prior research may have been due to the use of various psychometric models (classical test theory, item factor analysis, and item response theory) and different performance criteria (reliability, convergent/discriminant validity, and internal structure of the questionnaire). Furthermore, previous empirical studies on this issue have tackled the experimental design from a between-subjects perspective, thus ignoring intra-individual effects. In contrast with this approach, we propose a within-subjects experimental design and a comprehensive statistical methodology using structural equation models for studying all of these aspects simultaneously, therefore increasing statistical power. To illustrate the method, two personality questionnaires were examined using a repeated measures design. Results indicated that as the number of response alternatives increased, (1) internal consistency increased, (2) there was no effect on convergent validity, and (3) goodness of fit worsened. Finally, the article assesses the practical consequences of this research for the design of future personality questionnaires.     

Recollecting events associated with victimization

Subjects first completed social desirability and anxiety personality scales and then read a story about a woman meeting her brother for lunch. Some subjects were then told that the story involved sexual abuse. A week later all subjects took a multiple-choice memory test over the story. The results indicated that subjects categorized as repressors based on the personality scales had a lower proportion of negative than positive errors than did the nonrepressors, but only when they believed the story was about sexual abuse. However, repressors answered correctly as many items as did nonrepressors. The results were consistent with the idea that repressors remember as much about victimization experiences as do nonrepressors but are more likely to fill in the missing details of victimization experiences with positive reconstructions designed to reduce the over-all negative quality associated with victimization.     

A family/systems approach to illness-maintaining behaviors in chronically ill adolescents

A distressingly significant number of chronic, seriously ill adolescents demonstrate poor medical management of their illnesses through "illness-maintaining behaviors." These behaviors are defined in this article as any action that compromises chronically ill adolescents' care and prevents them from functioning optimally. Current conceptualizations of illness-maintaining behaviors offer explanations that view these behaviors as individually focused, using either psychodynamic or behavioral models. This article, however, presents a family systems model of illness-maintaining behaviors. A therapeutic framework leading to specific intervention strategies is also developed.     

Life history correlates of ministerial success

Life history or biodata correlates of ministerial success were investigated for a group of 92 Seventh-Day Adventist ministers. The criterion data reflected their current level of success and the predictors reflected their status as seminarians between the years 1940 to 1950. Two significant bivariate correlations indicated that successful ministers chose their career later than less successful ones and that earning college expenses was predictive of success. A stepwise multiple regression process was used to develop a weighted prediction model, but the model did not hold when cross-validated.     

The functional significance of autistic behaviors for the psychotic child

Physiological, cognitive, and emotional factors were examined throughout the treatment of a psychotic child. Heart rate, latency and accuracy in task performance, behavioral indices of stress (e.g., muscular tension, facial expression), and frequency of autistic mannerisms were measured concurrently. Both contemporaneous relationships and patterns of change suggested that autistic behaviors were organized and psychologically meaningful. Self-stimulation, conflict, and negativism (deliberate erroneous performance) occurred predictably, were intimately related, and were associated with specific patterns of heart-rate change. The changing function of self-stimulation across treatment and the centrality of negativism in this child's disturbance were discussed.This research was supported in part by a Program Project Grant from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development to the Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota (1 PO1 IID05027).     

Recall memory for visually presented chess positions

A series of three experiments replicated and extended earlier research reported by Chase and Simon (1973), de Groot (1965), and Charness (Note 1). The first experiment demonstrated that the relationship between memory for chess positions and chess skill varies directly with the amount of chess-specific information in the stimulus display. The second experiment employed tachistoscopic displays to incrementally "build" tournament chess positions by meaningful or nonmeaningful chunks and demonstrated that meaningful piece groupings during presentation markedly enhance subsequent recall performance. The third experiment tested memory for one of two positions presented in immediate sequence and demonstrated that explanations based on a limited-capacity short-term memory (Chase & Simon, 1973) are not adequate for explaining performance on this memory task.     

Unconditional stimulus characteristics in rabbit eyelid conditioning.

Three experiments employed aversive or positive subcortical electrical stimulation in an unconditional stimulus (US) role in rabbit eyelid conditioning. Conditional response (CR) development to a tonal conditional stimulus (CS) was examined when the intracranial stimulation was combined with a conventional cheek-shock US (Experiment 1) or with a lightflash US (Experiment 2). Our findings were consistent with previus observations that the affective impact of the US is important in the development of an overt motor CR. The complex pattern of our results, however, implies that intracranial stimulation has multiple effects on conditioning and argues against any unidimensional interpretation of these outcomes. Our analysis of CR-contingent intracranial stimulation presentation in Experiment 3 indicated that such stimulation does not act as a Thorndikian reward or punishment in rabbit eyelid conditioning.