Transfer between downshift in reward magnitude and continuous delay of reward

Two separate experiments were conducted to investigate transfer of persistence between delay and a downshift in reward magnitude. In the first experiment, experimental rats were initially downshifted in reward magnitude and later tested for persistence to continuous delay of large reward. It was found that these rats were more persistent to the effects of delay than control rats which did not receive prior experience with a downshift in reward magnitude. In the second experiment, experimental rats were first trained to receive large reward under delayed conditions and then tested for persistence to a downshift in reward magnitude. Compared to control rats which received no prior experience with delay, the experimental rats showed a significantly smaller negative contrast effect. The results were interpreted as supporting Amsel's theory of persistence as well as Capaldi's recent interpretation of contrast effects.     

The eyes have it: Exposure times and saccadic movements in visual half-field experiments

Several tachistoscopic visual half-field experiments using exposure times in excess of 150 msec have been reported and arguments have been put forth justifying this procedure. An experiment was done investigating visual field accuracy under conditions where eye movement was allowed, following parafoveal exposure. Two control experiments were done to evaluate the viewing conditions. When eye movement is permitted, accuracy in both visual fields reaches 100%. It is concluded that visual field differences found with exposure times greater than 150 msec are due to the active cooperation of the subjects and not due to the justifications advanced by experimenters using long exposure times.     

The group attribution error

There is a parallel between our tendency to infer the attitudes of an individual on the basis of his or her behavior, regardless of the external constraints (Jones & Harris, 1967; Ross, 1977), and our tendency to infer the attitudes of a group on the basis of the group's decision, regardless of the group decision rule. The present research focuses on this latter process. What we term the group attribution error consists of the tendency to assume that group decisions reflect members' attitudes. This assumption can be erroneous because group decision rules, in addition to members' attitudes, can influence group decisions. In Experiment 1, members of a community in which a water conservation law was or was not instituted were assumed to have correspondent attitudes, regardless of how the community decision was made. In Experiments 2 and 3, subjects inferred a greater correspondence between out-group decisions and out-group attitudes than between an in-group decision and in-group attitudes. The fourth experiment found that subjects committed the group attribution error because they attended as much to the outcome of a recall election as to the actual proportion of voters for and against the recall. Finally, Experiment 5 showed that subjects' inferences of jury members' attitudes were influenced not only by the final jury vote but also by the actual decision, which was determined by the vote plus the decision rule by which the jury was bound. The results are related to previous research on the fundamental attribution error, stereotyping, and polarized appraisals of out-groups.     

The effects of self-monitoring on the expressive display of masculinity-femininity

Do self-monitoring processes influence (1) the correspondence between assessed personality and expressive masculinity-femininity, and (2) the cross-channel consistency (face, body, voice) of expressive masculinity-femininity? To answer these questions, 36 male and 36 females completed the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) and Snyder's Self-Monitoring Scale, and then were videotaped as teachers. Five groups of naive judges rated these stimulus subjects on expressive masculinity-femininity, basing their respective ratings on: video pictures and voices, just pictures, just faces, just bodies, or just voices. A sixth group of judges rated subjects on physical attractiveness. The results indicated that judged physical attractiveness was significantly correlated with judged masculinity-femininity, with men being judged more masculine and females more feminine the more attractive they were. BSRI femininity correlated strongly with judged masculinity-femininity, and BSRI masculinity, less so. Finally, self-monitoring did prove to moderate the correspondence between personality and expressive behavior, and the cross-channel consistency of masculinity-femininity cues: however, these moderating effects were different for males and females.     

Symmetry,scale types,and generalizations of classical physical measurement

A review is presented of a number of recent results concerning fundamental measurement structures with a particular emphasis on generalizations of physical measurement. Relational structures are classified in terms of richness and redundancy of their automorphism groups (i.e., in terms of their symmetries). By means of this classification, the possible types of measurement scales are described, and the possibilities for structures with concatenation operations (either associative or nonassociative and either positive or intensive) and for conjoint structures whose automorphisms factor into component automorphisms are explicitly spelled out. Certain conjoint structures with concatenation operations on components are viewed as generalizations of classical physical measurement and some of their most important algebraic and representational properties are explored.     

Contextual effects in social judgment

Judges were asked to evaluate the overall performance of hypothetical students, given their scores on two examinations. The distribution of total scores was manipulated in order to investigate the loci of contextual effects. The interaction between the two exams was reversed by manipulation of the distribution. When the distribution of total scores was positively skewed, judgments showed a convergent interaction as a function of the two exams; when the distribution was negatively skewed, the interaction was divergent. The data were consistent with the hypothesis that the distribution of total scores affects only the transformation from integrated impressions to overt responses. This transformation (judgment function) was well-described by an extension of range-frequency theory. The finding that the interaction can be manipulated by changing the stimulus distribution has methodological implications for the popular interpretation of interactions or lack thereof. A good model may be improperly rejected or a bad one improperly retained through lack of attention to contextual effects.     

A mathematical analysis of a natural class of partitions of a graph

Any finite graph (nondirected, no loops) can be coupled with its complementary graph producing what we term a completed graph. This paper studies completed graphs in the context of a structural concept called stratification that is motivated by theoretical work in social psychology and sociology. A completed graph is stratified in case its node (vertex) set can be divided into two nonempty subsets with exactly one of the two types of ties holding between every pair of nodes from distinct sets. A completed graph is totally stratified in case every one of its nontrivial completed subgraphs is stratified. The first part of the paper relates the concept of stratification to the familiar graph property of connectedness. In particular, a completed graph is totally stratified if and only if it does not have a four point completed subgraph that is connected in both the original graph relation and its complementary relation. Using the concept of stratification, completed graphs can be decomposed uniquely into taxonomic structures, that is, nested sets of partitions. An algorithm for the decomposition based on the work with the concept of stratification is developed. The relationship between the notion of stratification and the ideas in balance theory is examined, and stratification is viewed as a generalization of Davis' notion of clustering. It turns out that the concepts of clique, status, and structural equivalence used throughout the social networks literature can be defined in an interesting way for completed graphs. Cliques are sets of nodes with similar internal links and statuses are sets of nodes with similar external links. Structurally equivalent sets are both cliques and statuses. The concepts of status and structural equivalence are closely related to the decomposition algorithm. In particular, for any totally stratified completed graph, the set of all statuses and the set of all maximal structurally equivalent sets can be generated by mathematical operations performed on the taxonomic decomposition of the completed graph. Finally some of our resuls are informally related to the blockmodeling approach to analyzing social network data discussed in several previous Journal of Mathematical Psychology articles.