Threats and promises: Reputational consequences and transfer of credibility

This study was designed to investigate the reputational consequences of making threats and promises and how they affect subsequent credibility. Eighty-eight high school girls were given predetermined information about the past behavior of their pairmates prior to receiving influence attempts from them. Each first learned that her pairmate had (1) threatened or promised in the past and then learned whether she had (2) fulfilled or failed to fulfill her threat or promise. The subject herself then received a threat or promise from her pairmate. As anticipated, threateners were viewed less favorably than promisers. These impressions were maintained when it was learned that commitments had been fulfilled, but altered decidedly when it was learned that they had not. Credibility or lack of it was found to generalize from threats to promises and from promises to threats only under some conditions. It was concluded that the fit between existing impressions and proclaimed future activity, not a person's record for past reliability, is often the critical determinant of whether or not she is judged to be credible.     

The effects of perceptual pretraining on concept identification and preference

The effects of perceptual pretraining on preferences and concept identification performance in five- and eight-year-old Ss were investigated. The results indicated that perceptual pretraining facilitated performance on a concept identification task with a non-preferred relevant cue for the five-year-olds, but not for the eight-year-olds. However, perceptual pretraining did not affect preference in either age group and Ss were as consistent in their preference responding before and after perceptual pretraining as was a control group that had not received perceptual pretraining. Preferences were highly consistent in both age groups over a one week period. Perceptual pretraining was interpreted to increase the usability of the less preferred dimensions for the younger Ss, and to leave the affective preference response unaltered in both groups.     

Developmental trends in children's component selection

A new method is introduced for assessing children's component selection—i.e., the disposition to attend to a single feature of multifaceted stimuli. Eight-year-old children were found to exercise component selection to a lesser degree than 4-year-olds; while children at both age levels attended primarily to one stimulus component (shape), the older children showed a moderate amount of attention to a secondary redundant feature (color) as well. However, a comparable age difference in attention deployment was not observed when a single stimulus dimension (shape) was “relevant” in two variant tasks. These results imply a developmentally increasing ability to distinguish between conditions in which attending to redundant stimulus information can and cannot be useful. That this ability undergoes little further development beyond age 8 was suggested in a second experiment with 8- and 12-year-olds in which the three tasks produced relatively similar developmental trends in performance.     

Social isolation as a punishment procedure: a controlled study

Contingent social isolation was investigated as a punishment procedure for the disruptive behavior of emotionally disturbed children in a classroom setting. The methodological limitations of previous studies were outlined, and alternatives adopted. Within a reversal and multiple baseline design, contingent social isolation was found to be an effective and relatively specific punisher. By introducing a new observation procedure, “pseudo-timeout”, it was determined that the punishing effect of social isolation was not attributable to observation artifact. A means for resolving the terminological confusion in the present use of timeout and social isolation was recommended.     

Interactive effects of deprivation in the albino rat

The interactive effects of feeding and drinking schedules were investigated in three experiments. Twenty-four hour water-deprived rats consumed their entire obligatory water intake prior to feeding, whereas 24-hr food-deprived rats consumed only small quantities of food prior to drinking. This drinking was apparently due to a shift of water stores rather than an actual negative water balance. Experiment 3 investigated the effects of 24, 48, or 72 hr of water, food, or total deprivation. Water-deprived rats did not adequately suppress food intake and became thirstier than totally deprived rats. The effects of total deprivation were essentially identical to those of food deprivation. These experiments indicate the degree to which deprivation schedules impose restrictions on the reinforcement parameters of behavioral experiments.