When unexpected behavior is attributed to the environment

Two experiments were conducted to investigate a modification of the Jones and Davis (1965) analysis of attribution. Subjects were confronted with a situation in which there were two possible causes for an event, and differential information about these causes was provided such that subjects were much more informed about the nature of one potential cause than the other. This information also imparted to the subjects a definite expectancy about the forthcoming event. When the event disconfirmed subjects' expectancies, responsibility was attributed to the cause about which least was known. This result was found in both experiments. In addition, Experiment II offered some suggestive evidence that a disconfirmed expectancy will lead the person to direct his attention toward potential causes about which he is uninformed.     

Physiological and behavioral concomitants of mild stress: The effects of accuracy of temporal information

Sixty human subjects were exposed to a mild auditory stress after a fixed anticipatory period during which they performed a reaction time task. Suspense subjects were correctly informed of the time of onset of stress; Surprise subjects were told to expect the stress 10 min. later than it actually occurred. Subjects were provided with elapsed time information either automatically or on demand. Suspence subjects showed larger anticipatory electrodermal responses and smaller responses to stress than Surprise subjects but the two groups did not differ in their ratings of the unpleasantness of the stress. Female subjects showed greater anticipatory responses and consistently slower reaction times than males. The data are discussed in terms of explanations of the negative preception effect.     

Locus of control,perceived responsibility for prior fate,and helping behavior

One-hundred-and-sixty adolescents participated in two studies designed to investigate the relationship between $\text{I}\text{E}$ and helping behavior as mediated by the perceived cause of another's need. In the first study, Ss were given the opportunity to help, either “indirectly” or “directly,” a supervisor who had been over- or underpaid in a prior similar task. Internals helped more in the “direct” help than the “indirect” help conditions but their helping behavior and their perceptions of their supervisors were not consistent. The perceptions of the externals were relatively consistent with their greater help of the “overpaid” supervisor. In study 2, the Ss were given additional information to increase the possibility of their making causal attributions as a function of the supervisor's prior fate. Once again, the external subjects' helping behavior reflected their perception of their supervisor's merit. The internal subjects exhibited relatively little helping behavior regardless of their supervisors' prior fate or perceived competence.     

Mismatching the opponent's offers in negotiation

Mismatching in negotiation involves responding with high demands to the opponent's low demands and with low demands to the opponent's high demands. Prior research has shown that the opponent's demands are often mismatched but that this effect is attenuated when information is available about the outcomes achieved by the opponent from the available alternatives. The present research showed that mismatching was also attenuated when the negotiator knew the location of the opponent's limit (the alternative beyond which the opponent would not concede). Two new interpretations of the attenuation effect were suggested on the basis of this finding. In addition, women were found to engage in more mismatching than men, being particularly likely to exploit a soft opponent.     

Adaptation to work: An analysis of employee health, withdrawal, and change

J. Rosse and H. Miller (1984, in P. Goodman, R. Atkin et al., Absenteeism: New Approaches to understanding, measuring, and managing employee absence. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass) have proposed a model of employee adaptation that hypothesizes multiple withdrawal behaviors and attempts to change working conditions as alternative forms of adaptation to a dissatisfying work environment. Negative health outcomes are also hypothesized consequences of dissatisfaction with work. In this longitudinal study of 42 new hospital employees, intention to quit, turnover, absence, attempts to change the job, and heatlh disorders were negatively correlated with job satisfaction; lateness and self-report avoidance scale were not. Use of adaptive behaviors was also found to have remedial effects for employee health. Implications for a general model of adaptation are discussed.     

Perceptual asymmetries in face recognition

Four experiments were carried out to investigate perceptual asymmetries in face recognition. Perceptual asymmetries favoring the half-face on the observer's left were found under free viewing conditions for both unfamiliar faces (Experiment 1) and famous faces (Experiment 3). For unfamiliar faces, this asymmetry was not obtained when fixation was controlled by presenting faces tachistoscopically (Experiment 2). For famous faces, the perceptual asymmetry favoring the half-face normally seen on the left did not appear to be retained in memory (Experiments 3 and 4). Asymmetries in face perception have been explained in terms of a direct access model of laterally effects. However, these results raise the possibility that asymmetric scanning or attentional factors may be important.     

Latent inhibition and conditioning after preexposure to the training context

Experiment 1, using the conditioned suppression technique with rats, showed that the retardation of learning produced by prior exposure to a stimulus (latent inhibition) was more marked in subjects given an initial phase of preexposure to the training context. This effect was confirmed and extended in Experiment 2 in which an appetitive conditioning procedure was used. Experiments 3 and 4, again using conditioned suppression, found no effect of preexposure to the context on the acquisition of suppression when training was given with a novel stimulus, either immediately after preexposure or after a delay; but context preexposure was again found to be effective when exposure to the to-be-conditioned stimulus was given in the delay interval between context preexposure and conditioning. The implications of these findings for accounts of the role of contextual factors in latent inhibition are discussed.