Context effects on the perceived physical attractiveness of faces

Four experiments were conducted to study the nature of context effects on the perceived physical attractiveness of faces. In Experiment 1, photos of faces scaled on attractiveness were presented in sets of three, with target faces appearing in the middle flanked by two context faces. The target faces were of average attractiveness, with the context faces being either high, average, or low in attractiveness. The effect of the context was one of assimilation, rather than contrast, regardless of whether the persons in the photos were portrayed to be associated. This result was interpreted in terms of a “generalized halo effect” for judgments of the physical attractiveness of stimuli within a group. Presenting the persons of a set as friends enhanced the perceived attractiveness of the target face but only when the context did not contain a face of low attractiveness. In Experiment 2, the assimilation effect was observed to carry over to influence ratings of the target faces several minutes after the context faces had been removed. Experiment 3 showed the assimilation effect to be robust regardless of whether the context was composed of two faces or one, but Experiment 4 showed the assimilation effect to be evident only when the context faces were presented simultaneously with the target.     

Investigations of the reinstatement of extinguished fear

In two experiments, fear was conditioned to the situational cues in one compartment of a hurdle-jumping apparatus and was then extinguished. Subsequently, either one shock (Experiment 1) or three or nine shocks (Experiment 2) were given in a situation distinctively different from that in which conditioning and extinction had taken place. Although some associative strength between the situational cues and fear was shown to have remained after extinction, in neither experiment did the postextinction-shock treatment increase the fear elicited by these cues: Escape-from-fear performance was no better in the shocked groups than in control groups given no additional shock. Thus, the nonassociative hypothesis which postulates that inflating the value of the representation of the UCS with shock-alone presentations can reinstate the extinguished fear of a stimulus was not supported. Rather, the results showed that, after extinction, an increase in fear of a simulus depended on further conditioning to that stimulus. The data also indicated that the nonvisual components of the situational cues predominated over the visual component.     

An ecological study of the reliability of clinical judgment in executive appraisal

This research was a study of the reliability of clinical judgment findings (multitrait) across three different information sources (psychometric tests, structured interview, and psychometric tests and interview). Subjects (N = 74) were middle and senior executives of Western Canadian technical companies; clinicians (N = 3) were trained and experienced industrial psychologists. The study investigated the similarity of clinical evaluation of personological characteristics (based on an 18-factor multitrait paradigm) across the three different information sources. Subjects were independently rated by a single clinician on 18 criterion factors in each of the three information source categories. Test information source categories required the administration of approximately 12 hrs of standardized psychological assessment questionnaires to each of the 74 subjects. Interview source category involved a 1.5-hr structured interview per subject. Combined condition pooled both test and interview conditions. Generalizability of the findings was maximized by the undertaking of the experiment in a natural situation thus increasing ecological validity. Statistical treatments used were designed to assess the similarity of a clinician's evaluation of a subject based on the different category of information available about that client. Convergence (intrarater reliability) indexes range from a high of .64 to a low of .05. Results indicate a varying degree of convergence of multitrait clinical ratings dependent on clinician and trait being rated. Results are discussed in terms of implications for practitioners involved in executive personnel selection.     

The universal nature of human intelligence: Evidence from games

Mentally retarded individuals have relatively greater difficulty in dealing with strategic games and puzzles than with many other tasks. Consequently, it is of interest to find that strategic games have been played since ancient times, are played throughout the world, and that players who excel are frequently considered wise. Hidden within the more obvious differences between cultures, strategic games are an invariant expression of certain universal intellectual traits.     

Augmentation of eating following a signal for feeding in rats

Previous studies have shown that a CS for feeding produces increases in some measures of excitation, but effects on other behaviors have not been examined. Two experiments examined effects on eating. In each experiment, one group of rats was presented with a CS preceding feeding, while control groups had no anticipatory signal. Ss with signaled feeding learned to eat more than control Ss, and their body weights were relatively higher. These results indicate that conditioned incentive stimuli may have broader effects than have classically been attributed to them. It is also suggested that learned factors may mediate the effects of deprivation operations on eating and play a significant part in the regulation of feeding.     

The ironic detachment of Edward Gibbon

Edward Gibbon, the author of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, has been widely recognized as a master of irony. The historian's early life with parents he found self-serving and unreliable, his reaction to the events surrounding the death of his mother at the age of 9 and the decline of his father, left an impact on his personality and played a role in determining his choice of his life work. Irony has been approached from a psychoanalytic perspective as a mode of communication, as a stylistic device, as a modality through which one might view reality and as a way of uncovering the linkage between pretense and aspiration, between the apparent and the real. Gibbon's ironic detachment can be understood as rooted in his life history. He felt detached from his family of origin, in need of a protective device which would enable him to deal with passion. Sexual and aggressive impulses mobilized defensive postures that were later transformed into an attitude of skepticism and an interest in undercutting false beliefs and irrational authority, positions he attributes to religious ideation which served to instigate historical decline.     

Where is the facilitation of media violence: The effects of nonexposure and placement of anger arousal

The present study examined the conditions under which media violence would “facilitate” aggression in angered individuals. It was noted that previous research has lacked support for facilitation due to improper control groups. It was predicted, based upon evidence that aggressive and neutral films are capable of both arousing a subject and shifting his attention away from previous anger instigation (attentional shift), that only under a condition where an aggressive film is viewed prior to anger arousal will increased aggression occur if compared to a no-film control. It was found that when subjects were angered prior to film exposure, netural films reduced aggression, with aggressive films not differing from a no-film control. Under subsequent anger arousal, however, there was a facilitation for aggressive film exposure. The implication of this, and other recent media violence studies, for past and future research in the area of media violence and aggression is discussed.