The effects of aggressive pornography on beliefs in rape myths: Individual differences

This experiment assessed the effects of media depictions that portray rape myths on men's beliefs in such myths. The study was conducted in two separate sessions. At the orientation session, measures of personality, motivation, experience, and aggressive tendencies were administered to 307 males. In the experimental session, 145 of these men were first exposed to one of eight audiotaped versions of a passage. One of these portrayed the myth that rape results in the victim's sexual arousal. Later, subjects listened to a second passage depicting either nonconsenting or consenting sex. Their perceptions of the second portrayal and their beliefs in rape myths were then measured. The findings provided support for the hypothesis that media depictions suggesting that rape results in the victim's arousal can contribute to men's beliefs in a similar rape myth. Moreover, analysis of the mediating role of individual differences indicated that men with relatively higher inclinations to aggress against women are particularly likely to be affected by media depictions of rape myths. It is suggested that these data may be explained best on the basis of information retrieval processes. In addition, it was found that power motives were consistently related to greater beliefs in rape myths.     

The development of spatial and class relations in four young children with right-cerebral-hemisphere damage: Evidence for an early spatial constructive deficit

This study followed the development of four children with right-hemisphere injury on a series of manipulative classification tasks to determine whether and how early brain injury affects the development of spatial and class relations. The children were first tested at about 2 years of age. Their data were compared with previously collected data from 18- to 42-month-old normal children, and with data from four young children with left-hemisphere injury. The results showed the children with right-hemisphere injury do not generate a particular spatial relation (next to) in their spatial groupings with the same frequency as normal or left-hemisphere damaged children, although they do generate in and on relations with normal frequency. An apparent deficit in the development of class relations is shown to be secondary to the spatial deficit, in that it is evident only in tasks that require spatial grouping.     

The linkage of work achievement to self-esteem,career maturity,and college achievement

This study tested whether self-esteem and mature career attitudes related to one another and complemented one another in predicting academic and work achievement for 174 college students. Analysis showed both constructs related to achievement and supported the thesis that self-esteem facilitates development of mature career attitudes, which in turn promote academic and work achievement. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for theory and practice.     

Moral outrage and pragmatism: Explanations for collective action

Two explanations for collective behavior were contrasted. The first, exemplified by relative deprivation theory, stresses the importance of feelings of moral outrage and perceived economic injustice. The second focuses on more pragmatic considerations, such as the availability of resources for mobilization. The present study examines these explanations for collective behavior in a laboratory setting. Subjects were members of a disadvantaged group. In a 3 × 2 factorial design two independent variables were manipulated. The magnitude of pay inequality between the disadvantaged group and a more advantaged group was manipulated to be large, moderate, or small. Mobilization resources available to the disadvantaged group were manipulated to be either present or absent. In accord with predictions based on relative deprivation theory, as the magnitude of the inequality increased, stronger feelings of deprivation were expressed. However, contrary to relative deprivation theory, larger magnitudes of inequality and stronger feelings of deprivation were not associated with greater willingness to engage in legitimate or illegitimate forms of collective behavior. Instead, as predicted by some critics of relative deprivation theory, willinginess to engage in illegitimate forms of collective behavior was affected only by a gragmatic consideration: the presence or absence of mobilization resources.     

Self-control and choice in humans: Effects of video game playing as a positive reinforcer

Participants chose between reinforcement schedules differing in delay of reinforcement (interval between a choice response and onset of a video game) and/or amount of reinforcement (duration of access to the game). Experiment 1 showed that immediate reinforcement was preferred to delayed reinforcement with amount of reinforcement held constant, and a large reinforcer was preferred to a small reinforcer when both were obtainable immediately. Imposing a delay before the large reinforcer produced a preference for the immediate, small reinforcer in 40% of participants. This suggested a limited degree of “impulsivity.” In Experiment 2, unequal delays were extended by equal intervals, the amounts being kept equal. Preference for the shorter delay decreased, an effect that presumably makes possible the “preference reversal” phenomenon in studies of self-control. Overall, the results demonstrate that video game playing can produce useful, systematic data when used as a positive reinforcer for choice behavior in humans.     

On data-limited and resource-limited processes

This paper analyzes the effect on performance when several active processes compete for limited processing resources. The principles discussed show that conclusions about the interactions among psychological processes must be made with caution, and some existing assumptions may be unwarranted. When two (or more) processes use the same resources at the same time, they may both interfere with one another, neither may interfere with the other, or one may interfere with a second without any interference from the second process to the first. The important principles are that a process can be limited in its performance either by limits in the amount of available processing resources (such as memory or processing effort) or by limits in the quality of the data available to it. Competition among processes can affect a resource-limited process, but not a data-limited one. If a process continually makes preliminary results available even before it has completed all its operations, then it is possible to compute performance-resource operating characteristics that show how processes interact. A number of experiments from the psychological literature are examined according to these processing principles, resulting in some new interpretations of interactions among competing psychological processes.     

Verbal-vocal integration as a function of sex and methodology

The process by which persons appear to combine content and intonation to form an impression of a speaker's friendliness may be a function of sex and the analytical techniques used to evaluate the models. Sixty subjects (half male, half female) from the campus population were asked to rate the content, tone, and total message of short sentences from male speakers. Analysis of variance and regression analysis were used to evaluate Linear, Multiplicative, Minimum, and Maximum models. Responses were essentially linear, although the multiplicative component was significant in some results, and the Minimum model received some support for males. More weight was given to tone than content, especially by females and for inconsistent messages. Idiographic analysis proved superior to normative analysis, and the ignored content method provided greater reliability and explanation than previously used filtered speech.