Competitive behavior: A manifestation of motivation for ability comparison

Social comparison theory predicts that when the person is uncertain about the level of his ability, he may seek comparison information through competitive behavior. This derivation, however, has never been directly tested. An experiment is reported in which the level of the subject's uncertainty about his competence was manipulated and subsequent measures of his competitive motivation and behavior were obtained. The data indicate that higher levels of uncertainty do lead to higher levels of motivation and competition, but only under conditions that minimize threat to self-esteem.     

Effects of initial success or failure in a stressful or relaxed environment on subsequent task performance

Forty male and 40 female undergraduate subjects worked on anagram problems in either a stressful or a relaxed environment after having experienced either success or failure on a similar task. Internal arousal, which was expected to be minimal following success in a relaxed setting and maximal following failure in the stressful environment, was assumed to bear an inverted U-shaped relation to performance. Consistent with the implications of these assumptions, achievement in a stressful setting was lower following initial failure than following initial success, while initial failure in a relaxed environment facilitated subsequent performance. The interpretation of these results was supported by the effects of the experimental variables on indirect measures of arousal as well as by the relationship between direct measures of arousal and task performance. In addition, the achievement of female subjects tended to be facilitated by failure while the performance of males was consistently debilitated by it.     

The decrement in conditioned fear with increased trials of simultaneous conditioning is not specific to the simultaneous procedure

Three experiments using a conditioned punishment paradigm with rat subjects examined the possibility that the nonmonotonic acquisition function previously found to characterize simultaneous conditioning was due to the noninformative nature of the conditioned stimulus (CS). In Experiment 1 the suppressive effects of a CS previously presented with an unconditioned stimulus (US) in a simultaneous and forward (informative) manner were compared following 20 and an additional 60 conditioning trials. Excitatory conditioning similarly diminished with increased trials for both the simultaneous and forward procedures. Experiment 2 employed a between-groups design. Simultaneous, forward, and trace conditioning procedures were compared following 20 or 100 trials. Each of the three 100-trial groups showed less resistance to extinction than their 20-trial counterparts. Experiment 3 determined that the decrement in excitatory conditioning for the 100-trial groups was not due to the greater number of US presentations, per se, but rather to the number of CS-US pairings. The nonmonotonic acquisition function observed with all three conditioning procedures indicated that informational factors were not responsible for the decrement observed in simultaneous conditioning. The pattern of results suggested that subjects receiving extended conditioning trials were better able to discriminate between training and testing.     

The naive perception of masculinity-femininity on the basis of expressive cues

Groups of naive judges rated 18 videotaped stimulus persons on masculinity, femininity, “dominance, assertiveness,” and “compassion, sensitivity to others.” Stimulus persons were broken down by sex and sex-typing—half were male, half female—and within sexes one third were classified as masculine, feminine, and androgynous on the basis of their scores on the Bem Sex Role Inventory. Two experiments are reported in which groups of judges rate stimulus persons on the basis of such different expressive information as videotaped pictures and recorded voices, videotaped pictures alone, videotaped bodies, videotaped heads, recorded voices, and still photos. The results showed: (1) Judges reliably rated masculinity-femininity from largely expressive cues: (2) judgments of masculinity-femininity were not predominantly determined by judgments of sex role-related traits: (3) the naive judgment of masculinity-femininity significantly corresponded to stimulus subjects' assessed sex roles; (4) stimulus subjects (particulary males) showed a consistent display of masculinity-femininity across expressive channels; and (5) judges used different expressive cues in judging masculinity-femininity in males and females. These results are related to broader questions concerning the relation between expressive behavior and personality.     

Recognition memory of retrieved sequences of words

The subject was asked to retrieve words belonging to a given category, natural or artificially created. After n words were retrieved, a recognition task was given either immediately after or after a delay (4 hours, 7, 14, or 28 days). Several probe words were presented and the subject had to decide whether each had been retrieved or not. The length of retrieval sequence, n, was systematically varied. Results of three experiments showed that, in general, mean decision time was almost independent of n. Namely, recognition regarding self-generated lists of words seems to be due to a different information processing than recognition regarding lists of words presented by the experimenter to memorize. Implications of the findings for retrieval from long term memory were discussed.     

A heuristic method for the comparison of related structures

By extending a technique for testing the difference between two dependent correlations developed by Wolfe, a strategy is proposed in a more general matrix context for evaluating a variety of data analysis schemes that are supposed to clarify the structure underlying a set of proximity measures. In the applications considered, a data analysis scheme is assumed to reconstruct in matrix form the given data set (represented as a proximity matrix) based on some specific model or procedure. Thus, an evaluation of the adequacy of reconstruction can be developed by comparing matrices, one containing the original proximities and the second containing the reconstructed values. Possible applications in multidimensional scaling, clustering, and related contexts are emphasized using four broad categories: (a) Given two different reconstructions based on a single data set, does either represent the data significantly better than the other? (b) Given two reconstructions based on a single data set using two different procedures (or possibly, two distinct data sets and a common method), is either reconstruction significantly closer to a particular theoretical structure that is assumed to underlie the data (where the latter is also represented in matrix form)? (c) Given two theoretical structures and one reconstruction based on a single data set, does either represent the reconstruction better than the other? (d) Given a single reconstruction based on one data set, is the information present in the data accounted for satisfactorily by the reconstruction? In all cases, these tasks can be approached by a nonparametric procedure that assesses the similarity in pattern between two appropriately defined matrices. The latter are obtained from the original data, the reconstructions, and/or the theoretical structures. Finally, two numerical examples are given to illustrate the more general discussion.     

Skin temperature biofeedback in children and adults

Skin temperature biofeedback performance was studied in 38 children, ages 6 to 10, and 38 of their parents, across two sessions of audio biofeedback segments in which the participants alternately attempted hand-warming and hand-cooling. Skin temperature from each hand was monitored throughout, but only one hand at a time was in the feedback loop. The major finding was that children were superior to adults in controlling skin temperature in the presence of biofeedback (p < .001). Adults showed no skin temperature control. For children, temperature changes were greater for the hand in the feedback loop as compared to the contralateral hand (p < .001). Children were equally successful in increasing and decreasing skin temperature. The results are consistent with earlier studies and suggest that children have considerable potential for neuropsychological self-regulation.     

On the scales of measurement

Let $\text{X}$ = 〈X, ≧, R₁, R₂…〉 be a relational structure, 〈$\text{X, ≧}$〉 be a Dedekind complete, totally ordered set, and n be a nonnegative integer. $\text{X}$ is said to satisfy n-point homogeneity if and only if for each x₁,…, x_n, y₁,…, y_n such that x₁ ? x₂ ? … ? x_n and y₁ ? y₂ … ? y_n, there exists an automorphism α of $\text{X}$ such that α(x₁) = y_i. $\text{X}$ is said to satisfy n-point uniqueness if and only if for all automorphisms β and γ of $\text{X}$, if β and γ agree at n distinct points of $\text{X}$, then β and γ are identical. It is shown that if $\text{X}$ satisfies n-point homogeneity and n-point uniqueness, then n ≦ 2, and for the case n = 1, $\text{X}$ is ratio scalable, and for the case n = 2, interval scalable. This result is very general and may in part provide an explanation of why so few scale types have arisen in science. The cases of 0-point homogeneity and infinite point homogeneity are also discussed.     

Asymmetries for the categorization of kanji nouns, adjectives, and verbs presented to the left and right

Kanji is one form of written Japanese in which the symbolic/analytic characteristics of language are dissociated from systematic phonetic characteristics; as such, it makes possible a more careful test of which aspect of language is responsible for the frequently observed superior left-hemisphere performance. In this study, subjects were asked to categorize tachistoscopically presented kanji as nouns, adjectives, or verbs. The previously reported (Hatta 1977, Neuropsychologia, 15, 685–688) left-visual-field advantage for kanji was found only in the case of nouns. Adjectives and verbs were processed more rapidly and correctly in the right visual field.     

Hierarchical structure in perceptual representation

A theoretical framework for perceptual representation is presented which proposes that information is coded in hierarchical networks of nonverbal propositions. The hierarchical structure of the representations implies selective organization: Some subsets of a figure will be encoded as integral, structural units of that figure, while others will not. A context-sensitive metric for the “goodness” of a part within a figure is developed, corresponding to the probability that the subset will be encoded as a structural unit. Converging evidence supporting this position is presented from four different tasks using simple, straight-line figures. The tasks studied are (a) dividing figures into “natural” parts, (b) rating the “goodness” of parts within figures, (c) timed verification of parts within figures, and (d) timed mental synthesis of spatially separated parts into unitary figures. The results are discussed in terms of the proposed theory of representation, the processes that operate on those representations, and the general implications of the data for perceptual theories.