Persistence and change in sex-role stereotypes

Persistence and change in sex-role stereotypes were examined by replicating in 1978 a study of sex-role conceptions published by Sherriffs and McKee in 1957. Results suggested that in many particulars sex-role stereotypes have changed little over the intervening two decades. Respondents of both sexes continued to view men as more forceful, independent, stubborn, and reckless than women; and women continued to be viewed as more mannerly, giving, emotional, and submissive than men. On the other hand, many changes in sex-role conceptions were also found to have occurred. Especially for female respondents, results suggested that stereotypes have changed in the direction of greater favorability toward women and less favorability toward men. The relevance of these findings to the psychological understanding of social change is discussed.     

The effect of a masked stimulus on the response to the masking stimulus

Four experiments are reported in which the subjects had to respond to a target that masked a preceding prime via metacontrast masking. In one part of Experiment l, the subjects discriminated the target's shape (square or diamond) by a motor-choice reaction, and in another part they had to respond with a simple reaction. The prime was neutral (circular) with respect to the target's shape. The data showed a facilitation effect. In both tasks the reaction time was reduced by the masked prime. However, the reduction was more pronounced with simple reaction than with choice reaction. In the other experiments, additional primes were used with the same angular shapes as the targets. In Experiments 2 and 3, after discriminating the target's shape by a choice reaction, the subjects had to judge the prime's shape in a signal-detection task. While neither the d' value for discriminating the angular primes from the circular ones (Exp. 2) nor the d' value for distinguishing between the angular primes (Exp. 3) was different from zero, the choice-reaction data showed a congruency effect. With a congruent prime (i.e., a prime that had the same shape as the target), the reaction times were reduced. With an incongruent prime, the reaction times grew. In Experiment 4 the errors were investigated. The facilitation effect was present in the RT, but not in the number of errors, whereas the congruency effect was present in the number, but not in the RT of errors.While the facilitation effect can be attributed either to an unspecific activation by the masked prime or to an influence of the prime on attentional processes, the congruency effect can be explained by the assumption that the masked prime directly activates the specific response, which corresponds to the prime's shape.     

Intuition in the context of implicit memory

Summary Most recent work concerned with intuition has demonstrated that people can respond discriminatively to coherence that they cannot identify. Specifically, in a gestalt-closure task subjects were shown slides of paired drawings. One of the drawings represented a fragmented picture of a common object, whereas the other was constructed by rotation of the elements of the coherent gestalt. When the subjects were unable to name the object, they were urged to make a forced-choice decision regarding which of the two drawings represented a real object. The results showed that the proportion of pictures not correctly identified, that were nevertheless correctly selected as coherent, was significantly higher than chance. The current experiment replicated these findings. In addition, it was shown that a study phase with either coherent or incoherent picture primes can bias intuitive judgments in the test phase in accordance with a processing view. Incoherent-picture primes reduced the forced-choice decisions to a level of chance. Moreover, priming was found to be dependent on the similarity between the study and the test stimuli. We argue that a more fluent reprocessing of coherent, or primed, stimuli may be a basis for intuitive judgments. Intuition may go wrong when priming has favored an incoherent solution.     

The phonological loop model of working memory: An ERP study of irrelevant speech and phonological similarity effects

The phonological loop model for retention of auditory verbal material in working memory, developed by Baddeley, assumes that irrelevant speech and phonological similarity influence only one and the same element of the system—that is, the phonological short-term store. We tested this idea by recording eventrelated potentials (ERPs) to auditorily presented letters that were phonologically similar or dissimilar and were to be memorized in the presence of more or less disturbing irrelevant speech. Irrelevant speech and phonological similarity caused ERP effects with clearly different scalp topographies, indicating that these factors influence different brain systems and hence probably different cognitive elements. Moreover, ERPs indicated that the phonological similarity effect might involve processes at the level of phonological analysis. Our data also support recent suggestions that the irrelevant speech effect is not based on the phonological similarity between relevant and irrelevant material, but on the phonological variability within the irrelevant stream.     

Community-Based Interventions: A Return to Community Mental Health Centers' Origins

Consultation services offered by community mental health centers (CMHC) have gone through several significant changes since the signing of the Community Mental Health Center Act of 1963 (The President's Commission on Mental Health, 1978). Initially, consultation and education services were an integral part of the CMHC mission. With the passage of additional legislation that promoted a shift in focus, consultation services declined. By 1981, with the passage of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (Cutler, 1992) national mental health policy was adrift. Consultation and education were no longer seen as central components of mental health services, which increasingly were tied to acute care hospitalization. With a renewed focus on consultation and education, a coherent mental health policy can be reintroduced at the community level.     

Book reviews

Facets of Buddhism Shotaro Iida, 1991 Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass 166 pp., Rs. 150 hb

Li Ao: Buddhist, Taoist, or Neo‐Confucian? T. H. Barrett, 1992 London Oriental Series, Vol. 39 Oxford, Oxford University Press x + 178 pp. £20

Spirituality & Emptiness Donald W. Mitchell, 1992 New York, Paulist Press, xvi + 224 pp. $12.95     

BIOFEEDBACK OF EVENT-RELATED SLOW POTENTIALS OF THE BRAIN

A biofeedback paradigm was developed for self-regulation of cortical DC-shifts. Subjects received continuous visual feedback of their actual DC-shift during six sec. intervals. Feedback trial series alternated with transfer test trial series. Several studies demonstrated that subjects are able to achieve cortical self-regulation which is maintained and even improved in transfer test trials. This method is used to investigate the covariation of DC-shifts and performance in reaction time tasks, mental tasks and signal detection by varying DC-shifts systematically. The procedure was also applied to different patient groups to test the functional significance of distinct brain regions and to explore deficits in patient groups.     

Divergent Perceptions of Jail Inmates and Correctional Officers: The “Blame the Other-Expect to Be Blamed” Effect1

Inmates and correctional officers in a Lwnty jail made attributions of responsibility and predicted each other's attributions in response to four hypothetical stimulus incidents varying in severity of the inmate's intentional misbehavior and the severity of the officer's intentional retribution. When the misbehavior and retribution were moderate, subjects blamed both participants about equally. However, both over- and underreactions to the stimulus inmate's misbehavior elicited defensiveness, with both officers and inmates more likely to attribute responsibility to their opposite role character. In addition, both inmates and officers appeared to respond defensively to severe but equitable retributions. Subjects blamed each other, and, anticipating the other's defensiveness, expected to be blamed. Examination of the data suggested that subjects may have responded stereotypically rather than empathetically, and that defensiveness impeded rather than facilitated predictive accuracy. Results were consistent with previous research, increasing the generality of the “blame the other-expect to be blamed” effect. Additional analyses indicated that inmates were more likely than officers to notice mitigating circumstances when considering the inmates' responsibility. Three recommendations were made which may help to forestall inmate reactivity to retributions: (1) Jail personnel should have objective and clear definitions as to what constitutes major and minor infractions; (2) inmates should be aware of these criteria; and (3) jail personnel should be sensitive to mitigating circumstances and moderate their retribution or anticipate possible reactivity from inmates.     

Impression formation and repeated measures: The design as a stimulus

This study investigates the possibility that results of within-subjects studies tend to be design-specific. In a study of impression formation 3×3 row-by-column designs were presented to two groups of judges. The first design (standard-design) included high. Medium, and low levels of the independent variables. The second design (comparison design) included a high/medium/low variation of one independent variable and a high/medium/high variation of the second variable. The judges were asked to reproduce informations. They received relevant informations (which should be reproduced) and additional informations (which were irrelevant for their task). The pattern of results is different within the two designs. While the standard-design reveals a significant main effect for the relevant information, the comparison-design reveals an additional interaction effect between relevant and irrelevant information. The results are attributed to the fact that the design itself is a stimulus.