Disinhibition of aggression through diffusion of responsibility and dehumanization of victims

The present study tested derivations from social learning theory on the disinhibition of aggression through processes that weaken self-deterring consequences to injurious conduct. Subjects were provided with opportunities to behave punitively under diffused or personalized responsibility toward groups that were characterized in either humanized, neutral, or dehumanized terms. Both dehumanization and lessened personal responsibility enhanced aggressiveness, with dehumanization serving as the more potent disinhibitor. Escalation of aggression under conditions of dehumanization was especially marked when punitiveness was dysfunctional in effecting desired changes. The uniformly low level of aggression directed toward humanized groups, regardless of variations in responsibility and instrumentality of the conduct, attested to the power of humanization to counteract punitiveness. Results of supplementary measures are consistent with the postulated relationship between self-disinhibiting processes and punitiveness. Dehumanization fostered self-absolving justifications that were in turn associated with increased punitiveness. Findings on the internal concomitants of behavior performed under different levels of responsibility suggest that reducing personal responsibility heightens aggressiveness more through social than personal sources of disinhibition.     

Storage and retrieval processes in sentence memory

Two experiments investigated how much time Ss take to verify a sentence with respect to a set of subject-verb-object (SVO) propositions they had learned. Three triplets of SVOs provided differing degrees of equivocation, including (1) unique SVOs, (2) a V with 3 SOs, and (3) an SV with 3 Os. A general class of models was proposed regarding the representation of prepositional trees in memory and an algorithm by which a probe tree might be verified against a set of trees in memory. In Expt I, verification times were least for Condition (1), slower and equal for Conditions (2) and (3). In Expt II, a fourth condition, an SO with 3 Vs, produced verification times as slow as those in Condition (3). Of several models considered, the closest-fitting one assumed parallel search processes proceeding simultaneously from S, V, and O positions of the probe, scanning through memory trees structered according to the HAM (Human Associative Memory) theory of Anderson and Bower.     

Comparison of reinforcement and punishment functions produced by the same contingent event in the same subjects

The same event, forced running, was used to reinforce the lever-pressing of six rats in one component of a multiple schedule and to punish their drinking in another component. When the durations of running were converted to probabilities that Ss would not be running at t + n sec, given that the run gegan at t = 0 sec, both reinforcement and punishment were found to be linear (inverse) functions of the probability of not-running. A high concordance (0.90) between slopes of the reinforcement and punishment functions indicated that individual Ss were either sensitive to both reinforcement and punishment or sensitive to neither.     

Asymmetries in the acquisition of polar adjectives: Linguistic or conceptual?

This study was designed to determine whether the asymmetry in children's acquisition of polar adjective pairs is based on linguistic factors related to differences in adult usage and frequency or on an underlying conceptual difference. 24 children, aged 3;7–4;11, took part in a concept-learning task in which nonsense syllables replaced English words for the positive and negative ends of four dimensions: size, height, length, and thickness. The data indicate that the syllables for the negative end of each dimension have a longer learning period and a greater prelearning error rate. These results support the hypothesis that the asymmetry observed in the acquisition of polar adjectives is based on an underlying conceptual asymmetry.     

Classes and collections: Internal organization and resulting holistic properties

This work presents an analysis of a type of concept, the collection, not readily characterized by class inclusion models. Collections, the referents of collective nouns (e.g., pile, family, bunch), are argued to differ from classes in (a) how membership can be determined, (b) part-whole relationships, (c) internal structure, and (d) the nature of the higher order units they form. From this analysis, it is hypothesized that the psychological integrity of collections is greater than that of classes. Collections and objects, in contrast to classes, both require specified relationships among the parts and both result in a coherent psychological unit. It was suggested that objects form a relatively more stable unit than collections. Corresponding to this analysis the degree of psychological integrity is hypothesized to lead to different degrees of difficulty in making part-whole comparisons for objects, collections, and classes in modified Piagetian class-inclusion paradigms. The hypothesized difference in performance was found for collections and classes and an alternative linguistic explanation for the greater success with collections was eliminated. However, children performed equally well on tasks involving collections and objects, raising the possibility that when elements are organized into collections, they form psychological units which are as coherent as objects.     

Beliefs,personality, and person perception: A theory of individual differences

The hypothesis tested was that we attend to aspects of our interpersonal environment that correspond to prominent features of our own personality. One hundred fifty-four men and women rated the way in which they typically communicate and interact with significant other people (e.g., mother, father, lover) on 11 bipolar adjective scales and the way in which those other people interact with them. An individual differences multidimensional scaling analysis of interstimulus distances among the significant other people based on the ratings of the subject's interaction with those other people indicated that subjects who weighted a particular dimension tended to think they possessed a personality trait corresponding to the dimension. Reasons for the individual difference hypothesis were given.     

Constraints on the visual accuracy of drawings produced by young children

Errors made by young children when they are asked to draw a model were investigated in two studies. In the first study, the experimenter asked 5- and 8-year-old children to draw a cup that had a flower decal (transfer) attached to its outside surface, attached to its inside surface or positioned beside it. The 8-year-old children in all conditions produced visually accurate drawings. The 5-year-old children produced visually accurate drawings when the flower decal was positioned beside the cup and when the flower decal was attached to the inside surface of the cup but not when the flower decal was attached to the cup's outside surface. In the second study, 5- and 8-year-old children were asked to draw a cup that had either an intact or a broken handle. The handle area of the cup was either in view or not in view. The 5- and 8-year-old children performed comparably in this experiment. The children had difficulty producing accurate copies of the model only when the cup had a handle and the handle was not in view. Taken together, these studies indicate that 5-year-old children are more likely to produce visually accurate drawings than has previously been supposed. Difficulty in producing accurate drawings occurred when drawing rules and drawing conventions interfered with the task.