Self-perception theory and unobtrusively biased interactions: A treatment for heterosocial anxiety.

Assessed the effectiveness of a technique predicated on D. J. Bem's (1972) self-perception theory for reducing heterosocial anxiety in college males. 26 heterosocially anxious (as measured by the Situation Questionnaire), infrequently dating undergraduate males were randomly assigned to either an experimental or a waiting-list-control group. "Real life," pleasant, prearranged social interactions with females produced a highly significant change in self-perceptions concerning anxiety as measured by the Fear of Negative Evaluation Questionnaire, the Social Avoidance and Distress Scale, the Security–Insecurity Inventory, and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. When Ss later interacted with an attractive female coed in a separate setting, state anxiety was less, and behavioral performance improved on 2 conversational skills. When measured after a 6-mo interval, the reduction in perceived heterosocial anxiety maintained itself and resulted in Ss having a significantly greater number of dates. Results are discussed in terms of self-efficacy and self-regulation and control theory. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Can imagined interactions produce positive perceptions?: Reducing prejudice through simulated social contact.

The contact hypothesis states that, under the right conditions, contact between members of different groups leads to more positive intergroup relations. The authors track recent trends in contact theory to the emergence of extended, or indirect, forms of contact. These advances lead to an intriguing proposition: that simply imagining intergroup interactions can produce more positive perceptions of outgroups. The authors discuss empirical research supporting the imagined contact proposition and find it to be an approach that is at once deceptively simple and remarkably effective. Encouraging people to mentally simulate a positive intergroup encounter leads to improved outgroup attitudes and reduced stereotyping. It curtails intergroup anxiety and extends the attribution of perceivers’ positive traits to others. The authors describe the advantages and disadvantages of imagined contact compared to conventional strategies, outline an agenda for future research, and discuss applications for policymakers and educators in their efforts to encourage more positive intergroup relations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development and validation of a heterosocial skills inventory: The survey of heterosexual interactions for females.

Describes the development of a self-report heterosocial skills inventory for females (SHI-F) based on C. T. Twentyman and R. M. McFall's Survey of Heterosexual Interactions. The new test, used with 256 female undergraduates, was found to have satisfactory test–retest reliability, excellent internal consistency, and significant correlations with self-reported assertiveness and anxiety measures. An initial validity study compared 15 high and 15 low SHI-F scorers in analog situations in which self-report, behavioral, and heart rate measures were taken. Although heart rate did not differ between groups, some behavioral and all self-report differences were significant. Additional data suggest that the SHI-F is more a measure of social skills and general negative self-evaluations and less a measure of interpersonal anxiety. (5 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

With a little help from my cross-group friend: Reducing anxiety in intergroup contexts through cross-group friendship.

The authors induced cross-group friendship between Latinos/as and Whites to test the effects of cross-group friendship on anxiety in intergroup contexts. Cross-group friendship led to decreases in cortisol reactivity (a hormonal correlate of stress; W. R. Lovallo & T. L. Thomas, 2000) over 3 friendship meetings among participants high in race-based rejection sensitivity (R. Mendoza-Denton, G. Downey, V. J. Purdie, A. Davis, & J. Pietrzak, 2002) and participants high in implicit prejudice (A. G. Greenwald, B. A. Nosek, & M. R. Banaji, 2003). Cross-group partners' prior intergroup contact moderated the relationship between race-based rejection sensitivity and cortisol reactivity. Following the manipulation, participants kept daily diaries of their experiences in an ethnically diverse setting. Implicitly prejudiced participants initiated more intergroup interactions during the diary period after making a cross-group friend. Participants who had made a cross-group friend reported lower anxious mood during the diary period, which compensated for greater anxious mood among participants high in race-based rejection sensitivity. These findings provide experimental evidence that cross-group friendship is beneficial for people who are likely to experience anxiety in intergroup contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ecological validity of role plays for assessing heterosocial anxiety and skill of male college students.

Examined the ecological validity of role-played dating interactions. 45 male undergraduates, categorized into low-, medium-, and high-frequency dating groups (Social Activity Questionnaire), participated in 4 heterosexual social (heterosocial) situations in a laboratory. Two situations were role plays simulating dating interactions, and 2 were more naturalistic waiting-period interactions. Controls for confederate familiarity and role-play order were used. Judges rated Ss as more skillful in role plays than waiting periods and rated low-frequency daters as more anxious than high-frequency daters. High-frequency daters rated themselves as more skillful than did low-frequency daters. Ss rated the waiting-period interactions as more like "real life" and their behavior in waiting periods as more representative of everyday heterosocial interactions. However ANOVAs did not result in major differences between role plays and waiting periods, and correlational analyses indicated that the relative ranking of Ss was similar in role plays and waiting periods. Implications for the use of role-play assessments in the heterosocial skill area are discussed. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Drive theory and manifest anxiety.

A considerable bibliography of experimental studies using the Manifest Anxiety Scale (MAS) has accumulated since its initial introduction to the research literature. The purpose of this article is to critically examine this research as it relates to drive theory and the original purposes of the scale. Experiments concerned with the relationships between the MAS and classical conditioning, stimulus generalization, maze learning, and verbal learning are presented. In addition, the relationship between anxiety and stress and the MAS and clinical measures of anxiety are explored. In general, the experimental evidence supports the notion of an interaction between anxiety level and task complexity but additional research is necessary to determine if the theory can be successfully expanded to include more complex situations than originally seemed appropriate. 49 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reducing alcohol consumption through television advertising.

Regular drinkers from the general public whose drinking behavior was known to be unaffected by a previous antidrug advertising campaign were involved in a field experiment to assess the impact of a television commercial based on controlled-drinking principles. In a 2?×?2 factorial arrangement of exposure to the advertising campaign (advertisement, no advertisement) and exposure to a letter announcing the campaign (letter, no letter), 96 subjects from two cities in tropical North Queensland provided baseline and posttreatment details of alcohol consumption and alcohol-related attitudes. Baseline measures were taken approximately 12 months prior to the state of the campaign, and posttesting occurred 3 weeks after the campaign. Results were consistent with the proposition that the advertisement reduced intake provided that subjects also received the standard letter alerting them to the start of the campaign. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reducing infant immunization distress through distraction.

Infant procedural distress is largely understudied, and there is a dearth of empirically supported interventions in the child health psychology literature. This study examined nurse-directed distraction for reducing infant immunization distress. Ninety infants and their parents were randomly assigned to a distraction condition (i.e., nurses used stimuli to divert infants' attention) or a typical care condition. Outcome measures were an observational scale, parent and nurse ratings, and infant heart rate. Results indicated that infants engaged in distraction and that distraction reduced their behavioral distress; however, ratings and heart rate were inconclusive. Analyses of procedural phases indicated that infants exhibited elevated distress immediately prior to and during an injection, but this distress was fleeting. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Awareness and self-perception: Verbal reports on internal states.

Two self-attribution experiments with 217 undergraduates were performed that included both self-report and behavioral measures of internal state change. As predicted, behavioral evidence for state change was generally found, but Ss reported the existence of new internal states only when induced to explain the reasons for their actions. It is argued that awareness of internal states in attribution research is limited, although self-report effects will occur at the group level of analysis when Ss focus on the reasons for their behavior. Correlational evidence is presented that suggests a further limitation on awareness of internal states. Even when self-report effects are found at the group level of analysis, these reports may be the result of an inference by an explanatory system and not the result of direct access to internal states. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Simulated organizational choice: Postdecision dissonance reduction and self-perception.

Tested the subsequent effect of choice between 2 equally attractive organizations on changes in their overall attractiveness and in the attractiveness of their instrumentality for the attainment of job goals (motivators and hygienes). Exp. I tested predictions from dissonance theory with 34 adult male students. Mean attractiveness of the chosen organizations increased and that of the unchosen organizations decreased significantly from before to after choice. Motivators, as compared with hygienes, significantly increased in attractiveness for the chosen organizations. Results make the motivation-hygiene taxonomy untenable in terms of its instrumentality for postdecisional accommodation to organizational choice. Exp. II enlisted an additional 74 Ss and controls to test the self-perception model as an alternative interpretation of dissonance phenomena. Results parallel dissonance predictions for changes in attractiveness of the chosen but not the unchosen organization. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reduction of test anxiety through cognitive restructuring.

This collaborative clinical outcome study with 36 18–49 yr old Ss compared 2 procedures for reducing test anxiety with a waiting list control. In the first, systematic rational restructuring, the participants were trained to realistically reevaluate imaginally presented test-taking situations. In the second, a prolonged exposure condition, Ss were presented the same hierarchy items but with no instructions for coping cognitively. Ss were administered the following measures of test anxiety; the S-R Inventory of Anxiousness, Achievement Anxiety Test, Test Anxiety Questionnaire, Fear of Negative Evaluation, Social Avoidance and Distress Scale, and the Trait Scale of the Stait-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Results show greater anxiety reduction in the systematic rational restructuring condition, followed by the prolonged exposure group, with no changes for the control. Only those in the rational restructuring condition reported a significant decrease in subjective anxiety when placed in an analog test-taking situation. Ss in the restructuring condition also reported greater generalized anxiety reduction in social-evaluative situations. Within the broader context of cognitive behavior therapy, these results indicate that the cognitive reappraisal of anxiety-provoking situations can offer an effective treatment procedure for the reduction of anxiety. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A resource exchange theory approach to interpersonal interactions: A test of Foa's theory.

Employed U. G. Foa and E. B. Foa's (1974) resource exchange theory to examine the types and patterns of exchanges involved in 57 college students' interpersonal interactions. Two judgment tasks were used to test both the functional and structural aspects of this theory. The dimensions of particularism and concreteness were hypothesized to underlie the 6 resource categories of love, status, information, money, goods, and services. In addition, resources perceived to be in the same category were expected to be exchanged with a higher probability than resources in different categories. Support for both the structural and the functional relations among the resource categories was consistent not with the initial classification of the behaviors used to represent the 6 resource categories but with the meaning associated with the behaviors. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The spyglass self: A model of vicarious self-perception.

Self-perception theory posits that people sometimes infer their own attributes by observing their freely chosen actions. The authors hypothesized that in addition, people sometimes infer their own attributes by observing the freely chosen actions of others with whom they feel a sense of merged identity--almost as if they had observed themselves performing the acts. Before observing an actor's behavior, participants were led to feel a sense of merged identity with the actor through perspective-taking instructions (Study 1) or through feedback indicating that their brainwave patterns overlapped substantially with those of the actor (Studies 2-4). As predicted, participants incorporated attributes relevant to an actor's behavior into their own self-concepts, but only when they were led to feel a sense of merged identity with the actor and only when the actor's behavior seemed freely chosen. These changes in relevant self-perceptions led participants to change their own behaviors accordingly. Implications of these vicarious self-perception processes for conformity, perspective-taking, and the long-term development of the self-concept are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A test of the Taylor-Spence theory of anxiety.

"The present studies tested the Taylor-Spence theory under 2 conditions: (a) Competing and noncompeting materials were equated in difficulty for a nonanxious group. The prediction from the Taylor-Spence theory that the anxious Ss would perform more poorly on the competing than on the noncompeting material was not sustained. (b) Anxious and nonanxious Ss were tested on easy competing and difficult noncompeting materials. The prediction from the Taylor-Spence theory was that anxious Ss would do more poorly (relative to nonanxious Ss) on the easy competing than on the difficult noncompeting material. The results were opposite from those predicted and significant at beyond the .05 level." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Standing up for a change: Reducing bias through interpersonal confrontation.

Three experiments examined the effectiveness of interpersonal confrontations as a means for decreasing stereotypic responding. After making stereotypic inferences about Black individuals, participants were confronted and reactions were measured across various intrapersonal and interpersonal response domains. Confrontations varied in level of hostility (Experiment 1) and whether they were expressed by a Black or White person (Experiment 2). Results indicate that although confrontations (and particularly hostile ones) elicited negative emotions and evaluations toward the confronter, participants also experienced negative self-directed affect. Furthermore, regardless of who did the confronting or how much hostility was expressed, confronted participants subsequently were less likely to provide stereotypic responses (Experiments 1-2), and the effect of the confrontation generalized to reporting less prejudiced attitudes (Experiment 3). (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The overjustification effect: A developmental test of self-perception interpretations.

Examined the self-perception explanations of the overjustification effect and their underlying assumptions about cognitive structures based on the operation of multiple-sufficient-causal schemata (MSCS). Two studies were carried out that initially identified the Ss as belonging to the additive, transitional, or discounting stage of MSCS according to the procedure of M. C. Smith (see record 1974-22388-001). A total of 94 5-, 8-, and 11-yr-old schoolchildren were selected as Ss. Half of the Ss were given a tangible reward for an interesting task in the usual overjustification paradigm. The results of both studies indicate that the rewarded groups showed a decline in intrinsic interest that was independent of the Ss' level of functioning on the schema. The author examines objections to the present research strategy and assesses the educational implications of the outcomes. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cicero and the state-trait theory of anxiety: Another case of delayed recognition.

L. T. Benjamin and R. Perloff (see record 1982-29251-001) quoted the work of F. W. Taylor as an anticipation of the Skinnerian principle of immediacy of reinforcement. The present author discusses the anticipation by Cicero, the Roman lawyer, orator, and political leader, almost 2,000 yrs ago, of the state-trait theory of anxiety proposed by R. B. Cattell and I. H. Scheier (1961). In his Tusculan Disputations, Cicero clearly distinguished between an anxious temperament (trait anxiety) and state anxiety. Cicero's anticipation of the modern reaction to psychiatry is also discussed. (6 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A test of a theory of anxiety about body integrity: Part 2.

Kolhberg (1966) suggested that uncertainty about body integrity was more plausibly explained by cognitive factors than by the psychoanalytic theory of castration anxiety. This hypothesis leads to the prediction that children who understand the concept of anatomical constancy would show less anxiety in relation to threats to the body's integrity than children who have not yet attained the concept. The results of this study are not consistent with Kolhberg's cognitive developmental prediction. Additionally, the results of this study also reveal significant relationships between children's level of anxiety in response to threats to the body's integrity and age (or stage of development). Those subjects showing the highest level of anxiety were in the 3 to 5-year-old age group, the period referred to by psychoanalysts as the phallic period. This finding is consistent with the prediction derived from Freudian psychosexual theory which posits that 3- to 5-year-old children would be particularly sensitive to threats to the integrity and unity of their bodies. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age and the self-perception of ability: A twin study analysis.

2,974 adults, including 678 monozygotic and 547 dizygotic twin pairs (aged 27–86 yrs), self-rated ability on 6 factors: Interpersonal Competence, Workplace Skills, Trade Skills, Intellectual and Cultural, Domestic Skills, and Athletic Competition. Age accounted for no more than 2% of the variance on any factor, and, although there were significant gender effects, no significant Age?×?Gender interactions were observed. Twin similarity did not vary significantly with age, and biometrical variance component estimates were statistically homogeneous across age, with talent factor variance being apportioned approximately equally to genetic and nonshared environmental factors. Consistent failure to find age effects as well as consistent observation of significant heritability support the conclusion that self-concept crystallizes early in adulthood and reflects genetically influenced psychological characteristics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)