Interpersonal comparison versus persuasive argumentation: A more direct test of alternative explanations for group-induced shifts in individual choice

One class of theories explains group induced shifts in individual choice in terms of interpersonal comparison process. By comparing himself with others a member finds out that his position is uncomfortably discrepant, e.g., he is overly “cautious” or overly “risky”. Knowledge of this discrepancy presumably is necessary and sufficient to induce him to change his initial choice. Another class of theories holds that merely knowing one is different from others is unimportant. Shifts in choice occur because during discussion a member is exposed to persuasive arguments which prior to discussion were not available to him. Thus, if in a factorial design one independently varied (a) the number of others' choices available for comparison and (b) the number of arguments others presented in support of these choices, interpersonal comparison theories would predict the magnitude of the shift to be a function of (a) and not of (b), while theories of persuasive argumentation would predict the opposite. When such an experiment was performed the only reliable main effects were based on the number of arguments, (b), as predicted by persuasive arguments. In no instance did effects involving (a) approach significance.     

Familiarity and attraction to stimuli: Developmental change or methodological artifact?

One hundred thirteen 7-, 9-, and 11-year-old children viewed a series of stimuli consisting of Chinese characters exposed a different number of times. Following exposure to the stimuli, children ranked the stimuli according to liking. Seven- and 9-year-olds preferred the more familiar characters to those seen less frequently, but the oldest children preferred novel stimuli. In rankings taken 3 weeks after original exposure, a subsample of 11-year-olds preferred the more familiar characters. These results suggest that discrepancies obtained in previous research on the affective consequences of mere exposure are of methodological rather than developmental origin. Possible critical differences in procedure are discussed.     

The effect of a commercial game on children's block design scores on the WISC-R IQ test

Two experiments investigated the extent to which 10-year old children's scores on the WISC-R Block Design subtest were affected by prior experience with a specific commercial game that involved blocks and matching patterns. Experiment 1 found that 12 10-year old children who happened to have experience with the particular commercial game scored approximately three scaled score points higher on the WISC-R Block Design subtest than 24 matched children without game experience. In Experiment 2, 24 children who did not have prior experience with this particular commercial game were randomly assigned either to a Game condition (involving two 15-minute sessions with the game) or to a No-Game condition (which involved no further game experience). Children in the Game condition subsequently increased their WISC-R Block Design scores more than children in the No-Game condition. Taken together, the experiments indicate that relatively brief interactions with a commercial game can cause a significant improvement in children's performance on an IQ subtest.     

Children's understanding of food and its functions: A preliminary study of the development of concepts of nutrition

Children's developing conceptions of how the body functions nutritionally were examined. Two different tasks provided converging findings. One task asked children to judge the causes of certain end states (e.g., why X is fat). The second task asked children to judge the result of certain contrasting diets (e.g., twin-1 eats twice as much candy as twin-2). The results evidenced; (a) systematic misconceptions on the part of kindergarteners that were overcome by sixth grade; and (b) other fairly sophisticated conceptions present even at the youngest ages tested. The research provides a needed first step toward describing the naive theories of nutrition possessed by children at different ages. Knowledge of childrens' theories of nutrition are essential for optimal planning of curricula and methods in nutrition education.     

Influence of stuttering therapy on clinicians'' disfluencies: Effects of client modeling

This study investigated whether student clinicians working with stutterers subsequently produce more disfluencies than student clinicians providing therapy to clients with other speech and language disorders. Seventeen graduate students working in a 6-wk summer camp setting were divided into two groups: eight who provided treatment for stutterers (group 1) and nine who provided therapy for clients with other communication disorders (group 2). All student clinicians were recorded during spontaneous speaking and oral reading tasks prior to camper arrival and following camper departure. An eight-category classification system was used to determine disfluency types. Findings revealed that Group 1 clinicians significantly decreased their total disfluencies between pre- and post-camp recordings on the spontaneous speaking task. Unexpectedly, this same group also substantially increased part-word repetitions and sound prolongations. The possibilities of incidental learning, reverse modeling, and overidentification with stuttering clients are discussed.     

Life and job satisfaction: Is the job central?

The nature of the causal relationship between life and job satisfaction in a sample of males and females working in a variety of jobs was investigated. Results suggest that the life satisfaction causes job satisfaction hypothesis is more tenable than the reverse.     

The informational basis of social judgments: Memory for informative and uninformative arguments

This study investigates the encoding and retrieval of arguments in an opinion formation task. It is based on a model of opinion formation that partitions the latter process into initial encoding, elaborative encoding, integration, and decision. According to this model elaborative encoding depends on two factors: (i) the informativeness of the arguments and (ii) their thematic relatedness. Since it is reasonably well established that the likelihood of retrieving an argument is an increasing function of the amount of elaboration performed on it, the first hypothesis is straightforward, namely, that the memory for an argument will increase with its informativeness and with its thematic relatedness to other arguments. The second hypothesis assumes that by dint of their closer association with the decision, informative arguments occupy a more central position in the representation of an opinion than uninformative ones. This implies that an informative argument should be accessed and reported prior to an uninformative argument, even when differences in retrievability (i.e., probabilities of recall) are controlled. The findings were consistent with such an analysis.     

Parents' reactions to finding out that their children have average or above average IQ scores

The parents of 41 children who had been given an individually-administered intelligence test were contacted approximately 19 months after testing. The sample included 20 parents who had learned their child had an Average IQ (children'smeanIQ = 100.8) and 21 parents who had learned their child had an Above Average IQ (children'smeanIQ = 130.0). Parents of Average IQ children were less accurate in their memory of test results, and they and their children experienced fewer positive consequences from IQ testing than Above Average children and their parents. Children with Above Average IQ experienced extremely low frequencies of sibling rivalry, conceit or pressure, and they and their parents experienced increased pride and/or self-confidence as a result of the IQ testing. The results as a whole suggest that parents of Average IQ children may need more psychological support during the parent informing process than parents of Above Average IQ children.