Triadic consistency and false heart-rate feedback

Subjects viewed slides of the Rorschach cards while listening to heart sounds that were supposedly but not actually their own. For some of the subjects the heart rate increased when they were exposed to the five achromatic cards and for some subjects the heart rate increased when they were exposed to the five chromatic cards. In addition, some subjects were told that increased heart rate was a sign of mental health (positive condition), and some that the increased heart rate was a sign of mental abnormality (negative condition) Since the heart-rate increase (behavior) and Rorschach cards associated with the increase (attitude object) are connected by a positive causal relation, triadic theory predicts that the sign of the heart-rate increase should generalize to the associated cards (i e, be positive in the positive condition and negative in the negative condition) An analysis of variance revealed such an overall significant effect Closer examination of the data, however, revealed that the triadic effects were not unambiguously occurring when the increased heart rate was associated with achromatic cards It was suggested that in this condition the unique characteristics of the cards facilitated the generation of complicating anxiety. Supportive data for this interpretation were offered     

Scaling clinical judgments of symptom pathology by means of the psychophysiological method of magnitude estimation

Summing scores across heterogeneous symptom items without consideration of their differing psychopathological significance has been criticized as producing an inadequate picture of an individual's clinical status. The purpose of this study was to derive symptom item weights representing clinically judged seriousness of each symptom through the application of Stevens's psychophysical method of magnitude estimation. A nationwide sample of 129 clinicians rated the pathological significance of 221 symptom items in a design such that every rater rated 121 items, 21 of which were rated by all raters and 100 of which were rated only by the A or B subgroup to which each rater was randomly assigned. Each item was rated as to the seriousness of the pathology it would represent if manifested by either a boy child, girl child, boy adolescent, or girl adolescent, with one-fourth of the raters assigned to each condition. The results of 211 two-way analyses of variance revealed that age and age and sex in interaction, but not sex alone, significantly influenced the clinical ratings. The resulting magnitude estimation ratings of symptom pathology ranged from 1.0 to 9.9. They were demonstrated to have satisfactory reliability and convergent validity and to have the psychophysical characteristics of a prothetic continuum.A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the 85th Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, August 1977. The research was supported by HEW grant MH24886. The authors wish to express appreciation to Walter W. Wengel for his work in developing the median quotient ratings used in the study, to Terrance Auger for making available unpublished raw data, and to Merton S. Krause for helpful suggestions regarding the interpretation of results.     

Some deterministic models of concept identification

It is shown that deterministic models can compete effectively with stochastic models in summarizing concept identification behavior. Three groups of deterministic models are examined. Examination of individual learners' trial by trial behavior in a concept experiment shows: (1) One person exhibited behavior consistent with a Hypothesis Permutation (HP) model despite being a nonlearner who showed no evidence of improvement over a period of 24 trials. However, when all 50 persons studied in each of two treatment groups were examined, only 22 members of one group and 10 of the other showed no inconsistencies with deterministic local consistency assumptions. (2) Certain deterministic computer programs could find at least one satisfactory order for predicting all responses by 18 of the 22 consistent solvers and 6 of the 10 consistent solvers, respectively, in the two groups just mentioned. For these 24 persons, then, a less restrictive deterministic model is adequate than for the others. (3) Those 38 original members of the first treatment group who met a stringent learning criterion were compared with respect to predictions generated by stochastic and mathematized deterministic models. One deterministic model (RSS-U 9-state) is in some respects the best of the models examined, but this success is a partial reflection of estimating eight parameters from the data.     

Rational Selective Exploitation Among Americans and Chinese: General Similarity, With One Surprise

A cross-cultural experiment tested predictions regarding reward allocation decisions among subjects in the United States and Taiwan. The experiment included five independent variables—two between-subject factors (American vs. Chinese; instrumental vs. unspecified vs. social-emotional allocator orientation) and three within-subject factors (high vs. low employee competence, social skill, and mobility). In general, Americans and Chinese distributed rewards quite similarly: In both cultures, allocators distributed greater rewards to employees who were more competent and possessed greater social skill. In both cultures, instrumental allocator orientation induced stronger tendencies to base allocations on competence; social-emotional allocator orientation induced stronger tendencies to base allocations on social skill. In both cultures, subjects engaged in competence-based "rational selective exploitation"—among highly competent employees, those with greater professional mobility received larger portions of the reward pool than did counterparts with constrained mobility. In both cultures, subjects also evidenced an unexpected social-skill-based rational selective exploitation—among employees with good social skill those with greater professional mobility received larger portions of the reward pool than did counterparts with constrained mobility. However, there were a number of interactions with culture that ran contrary to our a priori predictions: We hypothesized that Americans would exhibit greater individualism by focusing on competence in allocating outcomes, and that Chinese would exhibit greater collectivism by focusing on social skill. Although Americans did attend to employee competence more than Chinese, Americans also attended to employee social skill more than Chinese. These findings are discussed in terms of an expanded conceptualization of the nature of individualism and collectivism.