Reinforcement and attraction specifying the effects of affective states

A multiplicative effect of magnitude and proportion of positive reinforcements on attraction and self-rated feelings was examined. Subjects (N = 270) rated their attraction toward persons associated with one of three reinforcement magnitudes (personality similarity, attitude similarity, and personal evaluations) and one of six proportions of positive reinforcements (.00, .20, .40, .60, .80, and 1.00). Results indicated that the slope of the linear attraction function increased and the Y-intercept decreased with increasing magnitude of reinforcement (p < .05). A similar interaction effect was found on the feelings of the subjects (N = 90) in another experiment. The results were interpreted as added support for Byrne's reinforcement-affect model of interpersonal attraction.     

Playgroup attractiveness studied with information integration theory

Playgroup attractiveness was studied in two critical tests of information integration theory. In Experiment 1, the ratio of good to bad members in the group, and the number of toys available to the group, were varied in a 4 × 4 factorial design. The results obeyed the parallelism prediction of the theory, thereby indicating that group attractiveness was a sum or an average of the two given pieces of information. Experiment 2 provided a critical qualitative test between the adding and averaging hypotheses. The results eliminated the adding rule, supported the averaging rule. These results illustrate the potential power that integration theory provides to the experimental study of group attractiveness in children.