The effect of cuing after backward conditioning trials

Rats were given backward pairings of a tone (CS) and shock (US) and were then tested for response to the CS in a lick suppression test. Animals given a cuing or reminder treatment prior to the test exhibited enhanced suppression in the presence of the tone relative to a variety of control conditions. The cue-induced suppression enhancement did not appear to result from sensitization or short-term motivational changes nor did it seem to depend on second-order conditioning of the test context. The effect appeared more robust as the number of backward conditioning trials preceding the cue increased. The results were discussed in terms of current explanations of backward conditioning effects.     

Picture superiority in free recall: The effects of organization and elaboration

A conception of semantic memory structure is presented in which elaboration is considered to vary both between and within items. Pictures and their verbal labels are suggested to activate common abstract memory representations, but these activations will differ in their degree of within-item elaboration. However, pictures and words should show comparable between-item elaboration properties, such as might be revealed by the category-recall relationship and clustering in free recall. Children were presented pictures and words in either a category-recall situation, where between-item elaboration was emphasized, or in a control situation where between-item elaboration was minimized. No differences between pictures and words in either recall or clustering were found in the category-recall task. However, when the same items were presented in the control situation the typical picture superiority effect in free recall was found. The results are interpreted as consistent with a two-factor theory of semantic elaboration, and indicate that these basic properties of memory encoding hold even for young children.     

Affect as a mediator of attributional egotism

A three-stage model of the relationships among achievement outcomes, outcome-related affect, attribution, and emotion is tested in two studies. It is suggested that success and failure elicit positive and negative affective states due to prior conditioning. These affective states then lead to an attribution process that serves to defend and enhance self-esteem. Next, emotional labels are chosen that are consistent with the affective states and the attributions. Two studies were designed to test the proposed relationships among achievement outcomes, affective states, and attributions. In the first study, subjects received information indicating that they were strongly or mildly aroused as a result of receiving outcome feedback on an achievement task. The results indicated that low arousal reduced egotistical attributions to internal factors. In the second study, subjects either succeeded or failed on an achievement task. Half of the subjects were provided with an opportunity to misattribute the arousal elicited by their outcomes to an irrelevant source. Subjects in the misattribution condition made less egotistical attributions to external factors than subjects who were given no opportunity to misattribute their arousal. The results of both studies suggest that outcome-related affect mediates the relationship between outcomes and attributions in achievement situations.     

Sex-role aspects in the development of children's vocational knowledge

Recent research suggests important age and sex differences in the sex-typing of children's vocational interests. The present study adds to this area by examining several dimensions of job choices in children of four age groups (early and late preschool, second and fourth grade). The 120 children interviewed were asked three fixed-choice questions regarding nine jobs, along with open-ended job choice items. Analysis of age effects on several predetermined dimensions showed that older children were more selective in personal job choice, especially in regard to jobs attributed to the opposite sex. Avoidance of choices associated with the other sex was stronger in boys, but other sex differences were dependent on mode of inquiry rather than on sex. Girls were less limited than boys in job interests when asked about specific jobs but expressed more restricted choices on open-ended items. Implications of these findings both for further research and educational practices are considered.     

The effects of setting similarity on children's learning of the transverse patterning problem

A group of 15 fourth-graders were given training on the transverse patterning problem, a task consisting of three different geometric forms presented in pairs. Three other groups of 15 fourth-graders each received training on problems containing the same geometric forms, along with either one (color or size) or two (color and size) additional nonspatial dimensions varying among the settings comprising the different cue-cue patterns. Contrary to a prediction derived from Croll's (1967) extension of Spiker's (1963) theory of discrimination learning, none of the Ss solved the basic transverse patterning problem, nor was there any improvement in performance on this problem after 90 trials. Consistent with predictions derived from Spiker's theory, it was found that the addition of one nonspatial dimersion resulted in solution, and that the greater the number of nonspatial dimensions present, the better the learning.     

The effects of perceptual pretraining on concept identification and preference

The effects of perceptual pretraining on preferences and concept identification performance in five- and eight-year-old Ss were investigated. The results indicated that perceptual pretraining facilitated performance on a concept identification task with a non-preferred relevant cue for the five-year-olds, but not for the eight-year-olds. However, perceptual pretraining did not affect preference in either age group and Ss were as consistent in their preference responding before and after perceptual pretraining as was a control group that had not received perceptual pretraining. Preferences were highly consistent in both age groups over a one week period. Perceptual pretraining was interpreted to increase the usability of the less preferred dimensions for the younger Ss, and to leave the affective preference response unaltered in both groups.     

Playing hard-to-get: A two-determinant model

Walster, Walster, Piliavin, and Schmidt (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1973, 26, 113–121) found that a hard-to-get woman was liked only if she was hard-to-get for other men but easy-to-get for the subject. They suggested that the subjects liked this type of woman because of the socially desirable personality characteristics they attributed to her. A second determinant of liking is proposed in the present study. It concerns the effect of a person's evaluation of a subject on the subject's self-esteem. It was predicted that there would be a positive relationship between changes in the subject's self-esteem and liking for the evaluator. The results demonstrated that this determinant, as well as the one that Walster et al. suggested, is important in understanding the type of opposite-sex person that men and women find most attractive. These results, and the differences between the Walster et al. and the present studies, were discussed in terms of the relative impact of the two determinants in laboratory and real-life situations.     

Equity judgments in hypothetical,four-person partnerships

Subjects' ratings of the fairness of a set of suggested allocations in hypothetical, four-person partnerships demonstrated that an ordinal relationship between inputs and outcomes is not a sufficient definition of equity. Subjects' suggestions for fair distributions of outcomes failed to conform to G. W. Walster's (Representative Research in Social Psychology, 1975, 6, 65–67) increasing-profits and profit-sign criteria, and were better fit by R. J. Harris' (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 1976, 12, 194–209) linear formula than by any other formula thus far proposed.     

The relationship of limb apraxia severity to motor and language deficits

Ipsilateral motor and symbolic/linguistic skills were examined in normals and three left hemisphere damaged groups with no, mild, or moderate-severe limb apraxia. When the two apraxic groups were pooled they demonstrated poorer response inhibition and reading relative to the nonapraxic group. There were no significant group differences on motor or language tasks when the three brain damaged groups were separately compared. These results indicate there is a limited relationship between limb apraxia and some motor and linguistic skills, but the relationship was not greater for motor than linguistic skills.     

A serendipitous field experiment in job design

A longitudinal study over a 5-month period of changes in several jobs was conducted among 244 employees of a federal agency. Seventy-one employees at a single location constituted an experimental group in which the changes were made. An additional 173 employees at scattered field locations formed a comparison group. Data were obtained on perceptions of job content and a number of job attitudes. The data indicated a temporary positive influence of the changes in one set of jobs. People in a group of clerical jobs, however, experienced a “deenrichment” of their jobs as a result of the changes with an accompanying negative effect on their job attitudes and motivation.