The role of performance-related similarity in social comparison of abilities: A test of the related attributes hypothesis

The hypothesis that individuals evaluate their abilities by comparison with others who are similar on nonability attributes that are related to performance has been supported in recent experiments. However, since these experiments did not include conditions in which attributes were unrelated to performance, they provide no evidence that it was the relationship of attributes to performance that explains why subjects compared with similar others. In the present experiment, 66 female undergraduates could choose to compare their test performance to the performance of women who were similar or dissimilar to themselves in physical attractiveness and the college they attended. In a 2 × 2 design these attributes were either related or unrelated to test performance. Results showed that only the performance relevance of college attended influenced comparison choices. Subjects compared with similarly attractive women even when attractiveness was unrelated to performance. These results indicate that identification of the conditions in which people do and do not consider the relevance of attributes to performance in selecting comparison others warrants attention.     

An experimental and theoretical investigation of the constant-ratio rule and other models of visual letter confusion

The constant-ratio rule (CRR) and four interpretations of R. D. Luce's (In R. D. Luce, R. R. Bush, & E. Galanter (Eds.), Handbook of mathematical psychology (Vol. 1). New York: Wiley, 1963) similarity choice model (SCM) were tested using an alphabetic confusion paradigm. Four stimulus conditions were employed that varied in set size (three, four or five stimulus elements) and set constituency (block letters: A, E, X; F, H, X; A, E, F, H; A, E, F, H, X), and were presented to each subject in independent blocks. The four interpretations of the SCM were generated by constraining one, both, or neither of its similarity and bias parameter sets to be invariant in across-stimulus set model predictions. The strictest interpretation of the SCM (both the similarity and bias parameters constrained), shown to be a special case of the CRR, and the CRR produced nearly equivalent across-set predictions that provided a reasonable first approximation to the data. However, they proved inferior to the least strict SCM (neither the similarity nor bias parameters were constrained; the common interpretation of the SCM in visual confusion). Additionally, the least strict SCM was compared to J. T. Townsend's (Perception and Psychophysics, 1971, 9, 40–50, 449–454) overlap model, the all-or-none model (J. T. Townsend, Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 1978, 18, 25–38), and a modified version of L. H. Nakatani's (Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 1972, 9, 104–127) confusion-choice model. Both the least strict SCM and confusion-choice models produced nearly equivalent within stimulus set predictions that were superior to the overlap and all-or-none within-set predictions. Measurement conditions related to model structure and equivalence relations among the models, many of them new, were examined and compared with the statistical fit results of the investigation.     

On the study of statistical intuitions

The study of intuitions and errors in judgment under uncertainty is complicated by several factors: discrepancies between acceptance and application of normative rules; effects of content on the application of rules; Socratic hints that create intuitions while testing them; demand characteristics of within-subject experiments; subjects' interpretations of experimental messages according to standard conversational rules. The positive analysis of a judgmental error in terms of heuristics may be supplemented by a negative analysis, which seeks to explain why the correct rule is not intuitively compelling. A negative analysis of non-regressive prediction is outlined.     

Illusory conjunctions in the perception of objects

In perceiving objects we may synthesize conjunctions of separable features by directing attention serially to each item in turn (A. Treisman and G. Gelade, Cognitive Psychology, 1980, 12, 97–136). This feature-integration theory predicts that when attention is diverted or overloaded, features may be wrongly recombined, giving rise to “illusory conjunctions.” The present paper confirms that illusory conjunctions are frequently experienced among unattended stimuli varying in color and shape, and that they occur also with size and solidity (outlined versus filled-in shapes). They are shown both in verbal recall and in simultaneous and successive matching tasks, making it unlikely that they depend on verbal labeling or on memory failure. They occur as often between stimuli differing on many features as between more similar stimuli, and spatial separation has little effect on their frequency. Each feature seems to be coded as an independent entity and to migrate, when attention is diverted, with few constraints from the other features of its source or destination.     

The development of alertness

Two experiments explored variation in the alerting process across age and warning interval as well as the effects of alertness on subsequent processing. Experiment 1 obtained alertness functions for a group of 5-year-olds, 8-year-olds, and adults. Results revealed strong age differences in speed of alerting and in maintenance of alertness over a 1-sec interval. Five-year-olds alerted more slowly than older groups and sustained optimal alertness less well. Both groups of children showed more variability in alerting functions compared with adults. Experiment 2 examined the degree to which age differences in processing speed were attributable to differential speed and maintenance of alerting. Masking functions obtained across variations in the alerting interval revealed that when level of alertness was optimal in both 5-year-olds and adults, minimal age differences in processing speed were observed. During short, nonoptimal alerting intervals, speed of processing in adults was faster than in 5-year-old children. The pattern of results across studies suggested that alertness can fluctuate over time in young children, that level of alertness affects subsequent perceptual processing speed, and that developmental variation in speed and maintenance of alertness can partly explain observed age differences in processing speed. The potential role of alertness in more complex cognitive tasks is discussed.     

Associative and categorical hypotheses of organization in the free recall of adults and children

Associative and categorical explanations for the organization children and adults display in free recall were tested. It was expected that young children would show output clustering as a function of associations between individual items within categories rather than relationship to the taxonomy itself. Kindergarten, fourth-grade, and tenth-grade subjects were presented with pictures representing the four factorial combinations of high and low interitem association and high and low category relatedness. Each set of pictures could be divided into four taxonomic categories of six items each. Kindergarteners displayed greater category clustering of highly associated items than weak associates. Older subjects showed sensitivity to both organizational dimensions. These data support a hypothesis that young children cluster in recall as a function of associations while older individuals show organizational flexibility which serves to facilitate greater recall.     

Social group salience and interethnic cooperation

This research was designed to test the adequacy of H. Tajfel's (1978, Differentiation between social groups: Studies in the social psychology of intergroup relations, New York/London: Academic Press) theory of social identity for predicting cooperative behavior among members of ethnically mixed groups. Equally divided by sex, subjects were 24 Anglo-American and 24 Hispanic undergraduate students attending the University of California, Riverside. Subjects were exposed to cooperative and competitive feedback in four-member, same-sex groups which varied in the ratio of Anglo to Hispanic subjects to create two conditions—a 3 to 1 versus a 1 to 3 in-group to out-group composition. Results showed that members of both ethnic groups were equally cooperative when their own group was in the numerical majority (low-salience condition). In the high-salience condition, however, when their own group was in the numerical minority, Hispanic subjects were significantly more competitive than Anglo subjects. In addition, while Hispanics were significantly more competitive in the minority than in the majority condition, Anglos showed a slight tendency to be less competitive in the minority than in the majority condition. These results are discussed in light of social identity theory and its application to the study of interethnic cooperation/competition in heterogeneous groups.     

The roles of event contingencies and reinforcement in human autoshaping and omission responding

Four experiments were conducted to test those features deemed to play an important role in the acquisition and/or maintenance of autoshaping and omission responding with human subjects, viz., event contingencies, reinforcement, stimulus generalization, the type of CS employed, conditioned reinforcement, and response topography. One important aspect of these studies is that the boundary conditions were made to resemble those pertaining to the majority of nonhuman animal studies, i.e., magazine training followed by paired CS-US presentations. The results demonstrated the importance of CS-UR or, alternatively, CS-US contiguity together with generalization and a response-reinforcer contingency for autoshaped response initiation and maintenance, respectively. The conditioned reinforcing effect of CS offset appears to play a part in generating and maintaining some responding during omission training, especially during a response-terminated CS procedure. Similar response topography was observed when the form of the UR was compared to that of the CR or autoshaped response. Taken as a whole the results of these experiments with humans are directly comparable to results previously reported using a wide variety of nonhuman animals.