Experimenter effects on responses to explicitly sexual stimuli

Experimenter effects on responses to explicitly sexual stimuli were investigated in 63 single undergraduate males and 89 single undergraduate females. A completely factorial design with sex of subject, sex of experimenter, and experimenter's style of interacting (informal vs formal) as the independent factors was employed. While the variables under investigation did not have an overriding effect on the outcome measures, at least one experimenter attribute was discovered to significantly influence a large percentage of the variables assessed: The data suggest that informal experimenters permit less socially desirable responses and more generalized arousal than formal experimenters. In addition to replicating earlier work on experimenter effects, the present study serves to delineate a possible set of cues by which experimenters may influence their subjects' arousal to explicitly sexual stimuli.     

The development of analogical reasoning processes.

Two experiments were conducted to test the generalizability to children of a theory of analogical reasoning processes originally proposed for adults (R. J. Sternberg, Psychological Review, 1977a, 84, 353–378; R. J. Sternberg, Intelligence, information processing, and analogical reasoning: The componential analysis of human abilities, Hillsdale, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1977b) and to examine the development of analogical reasoning processes in terms of five proposed sources of cognitive development: (a) availability of component operations; (b) strategy for combining multiple component operation; (c) strategy for combining multiple executions of the same component operation; (d) consistency in use of strategy; (e) component-operation latency and difficulty. Between 15 and 21 subjects in each of grades 2, 4, 6, and adulthood (ages 8, 10, 12, and 19 years, respectively) were tested in their ability to solve analogies of systematically varied difficulty. Performance was measured in terms of latencies for items solved correctly, latencies for all items solved, and error rates. A slightly modified version of the Stenberg, 1977(a), Stenberg, 1977(b) theory was found to be applicable to the data for each of the age levels tested. In analogies with perceptually separable attributes, change over age was found in sources (d) and (e) noted above. In analogies with perceptually integral attributes, change over age was found in sources (a), (c), (d), and (e). Developmental trends were discussed in terms of past theory and findings, and possible reasons for differences in developmental patterns between the two kinds of analogies were suggested.     

Thematic elaboration and proximity in childrens recall, organization, and long-term retention of pictorial materials.

Preschool and fifth-grade children were asked to learn and recall lists of nine pictures of common objects in which the thematic relationship and the physical proximity of subsets of items were varied. Five presentation conditions (lists) were employed: (1) subgroups of three items simultaneously presented with an explicit theme, (2) the same items as in (1) but randomly arranged in the subset, (3) unrelated items presented simultaneously in groups of three, (4) nine items presented successively but temporally blocked in subgroups of three, and (5) nine items displayed successively in a random arrangement. Recall and clustering scores indicated that the older children spontaneously elaborated pictures when subsets of items were presented simultaneously and when these items formed a natural theme. The preschool children failed to elaborate, responding more on the basis of the proximity of the items. Proximity was a potent recall cue for both age groups. Long-term tests, carried out after one week, showed good retention, the output organization of which closely paralleled that observed during original learning.     

Effectiveness of a brief counseling intervention in stimulating vocational exploration

The intervention procedures used in this study, a brief report of vocational interest scores and small group sessions on vocational planning, were designed to encourage girls to consider the full range of occupations, unrestricted by sex-role stereotypes. In each of three schools, ninth-grade girls with average academic ability or above were randomly assigned to an intervention group (N = 195) and a control group (N = 195). Analyses of 1- and 3-month outcome data indicated that the intervention stimulated occupational exploration and increased congruence between occupational preferences and measured interests. Outcomes differed according to interest type, thus suggesting that certain students may need more counselor attention than others.     

The cognitive and neurological basis of developmental dyslexia: a theoretical framework and review.

It is argued that developmental dyslexics have difficulty in accessing the meaning of written words via phonological recoding, although they can successfully access meaning by a direct visual route. This difficulty with phonological recording is explained in terms of a short-term memory deficit. It is suggested that developmental dyslexia is a genetically-based dysfunction of the inferior parietal lobule and evidence is reviewed that this region is important in both reading and short-term memory. Implications for remedial instruction are discussed.     

Semantic and acoustic processing in free and cued recall by educable mentally retarded adolescents

The abilities of educable mentally retarded adolescents to encode and retrieve words with semantic and acoustic cues were investigated in a free and cued recall task. On each of three trial blocks, seven groups of subjects were presented 20 unrelated stimulus words. Groups received either semantic, acoustic, or no encoding cues along with the stimuli. Free recall was requested from all subjects, followed immediately by a second period of either free recall or cued recall with the semantic or acoustic cues. Semantic cues were most effective when presented both at encoding and retrieval. The subjects were unable to use acoustic information as effective retrieval aids. Results were discussed in terms of encoding dimension dominance and mediational deficiencies.     

The effect of stimulus person valence on divergent self-other attributions for success and failure

Two experiments investigated self-other attributions for success and failure. In Experiment 1, high and low achievers completed a modified IAR scale either for themselves or another. Regardless of achievement motives, more personal attribution for failure was assigned to oneself than to a neutral other. In Experiment 2, additional scales for liked and disliked others were administered and scale item importance was varied. On global and individual causal measures, neutral and liked others were credited more and disliked others less for success than oneself, and liked others were blamed less and disliked others more for failure than oneself and neutral others. Item importance produced few effects. Results were interpreted in terms of informational considerations in self-other attribution.     

Affective state and preference for immediate versus delayed reward

Fifty-two 9-year-olds were randomly assigned to success and failure treatment conditions involving acceptance or rejection of a drawing made for an art show. In a pilot study, this treatment was shown to influence significantly subjects' affective states. Just after treatment, subjects were presented with choices between pairs of small immediate and large delayed rewards. As predicted, subjects who had experienced success chose more often the large delayed reward than those who failed (p < .02). Prior expectancy for success and sex were not significantly related to choice behavior. The influence of affective state on various parameters of the choice paradigm was discussed, and other evidence was cited indicating that affective state is a major determinant of self-gratification behavior.     

The motive to avoid success: A further examination

Horner's (1968) “fear of success” study was replicated and expanded. One hundred seventy-seven high school (HS) and college students wrote stories in response to the following cues: “After first-term finals, John (Anne) finds himself (herself) at the top of his (her) medical-school class.” Results indicated similarity of response of HS men, HS women, and college men, all of whom expressed more fear of success imagery in response to the Anne cue than to the John cue. College women did not conform to this pattern.