Family resemblances: Studies in the internal structure of categories

Six experiments explored the hypothesis that the members of categories which are considered most prototypical are those with most attributes in common with other members of the category and least attributes in common with other categories. In probabilistic terms, the hypothesis is that prototypicality is a function of the total cue validity of the attributes of items. In Experiments 1 and 3, subjects listed attributes for members of semantic categories which had been previously rated for degree of prototypicality. High positive correlations were obtained between those ratings and the extent of distribution of an item's attributes among the other items of the category. In Experiments 2 and 4, subjects listed superordinates of category members and listed attributes of members of contrasting categories. Negative correlations were obtained between prototypicality and superordinates other than the category in question and between prototypicality and an item's possession of attributes possessed by members of contrasting categories. Experiments 5 and 6 used artificial categories and showed that family resemblance within categories and lack of overlap of elements with contrasting categories were correlated with ease of learning, reaction time in identifying an item after learning, and rating of prototypicality of an item. It is argued that family resemblance offers an alternative to criterial features in defining categories.     

When stereotypes hurt: Three studies of penalties for sex-role reversals

Three studies that demonstrate penalties for sex-role reversals are reported. In each study, subjects evaluated men and women who behaved either in line with sex-role stereotypes or counter to them. The results show that popularity ratings and perceived psychological adjustment of both passive-dependent men and aggressive-assertive women were adversely affected. The findings are discussed in terms of their contribution to recent theories about women's achievement motivation.     

The effects of increasing familiarity on infants' reactions to adult strangers

The influence of the presence and novelty of an adult stranger on the reactions of 12-mo-old infants was investigated. Subjects were placed near their mothers in a room containing a new toy and either the same, a different, or no adult stranger for 8 4-min trials. Results indicated that the Same-Adult Group spent more time near the adult, less time near and touching their mothers, and more time near and touching the toys than the Different-Adult Group. These trends emerged as the trials progressed, and evidenced the Same-Adult Group's growing familiarity with the adult. The No-Adult Group spent less time near or touching their mothers and more time near or touching the toys than the Different-Adult Group, but did not differ from the Same-Adult Group on these responses. The findings suggest that fearful or cautious reactions to adult strangers disappear rapidly as the adult becomes familiar and point to the value of studying the process whereby the infant becomes familiar with new people.     

The effects of a memory aid on three types of conservation judgments

Twelve boys and 12 girls at each of 3 ages (4, 5, and 6 years) were tested on three types of conservation judgments (qualitative, quantitative, and equivalence) on both continuous and discontinuous substances. Half of the subjects were provided a memory aid while the other half were not. Conservation ability was determined both with and without verbal justification. The memory aid increased the number of equivalence conservation responses only when verbal justification was not required. The number of subjects conserving on each of the three tasks varied as a function of the scoring criteria used. Type of materials, sex, and age effects were found. The role of transitive inferences and memory in the equivalence conservation task was discussed. Inconsistencies in previous research due to different scoring techniques were noted.     

The meaning of before and after for preschool children

Preschool children's understanding of temporal relationships was examined in terms of their comprehension of sentences containing clauses linked by before and after. The relative importance of order of mention and main-subordinate relations strategies in children's interpretation of temporal order information was also evaluated.Divergent error patterns emerged on the tasks; omissions prevailed on the two tasks involving response to commands, reversals prevailed on the other. Further examination revealed that omissions reflected ambiguity in the linguistic structure of commands. Thus the effect of main-subordinate relations was confounded with directness of command. On all comprehension tasks, however, performance was superior on sentence forms in which order of mention and order of occurrence correspond.     

Developmental changes in predicting one's own span of short-term memory

Developmental changes in the accuracy of predicting one's own recall were studied, using preschool, third grade, and college subjects in Experiment 1 and third grade and college subjects in Experiment 2. Experiment 1 showed that prediction accuracy increased from the preschool to the college years, subjects were not influenced by a potential “expectancy” bias in the procedure, and only third grade subjects were influenced by the presence of norms about peer performance. Experiment 2 showed that third graders and college subjects lower their predictions in the face of “false” norm information, with college subjects being the only group to under predict actual recall in both experiments. Thus, although adults are significantly more accurate than elementary shool children in estimating short-term recall, their susceptibility to norm information suggests that even they have uncertainty about their exact capabilities.