The relationship of worker productivity to cognitive dissonance about wage inequities.

2 hypotheses derived from dissonance theory were tested: (a) when a person is paid by the hour his productivity will be greater when he perceives his pay as inequitably large than when identical pay is perceived as equitable, and (b) when a person is paid on a piecework basis his productivity will be less when he perceives his pay in inequitably large than when he perceives identical pay as being equitable. The first hypothesis was sustained (p     

Physiology as the antechamber to metaphysics: The young William James's hope for a philosophical psychology.

In the 5 years before 1878, when his career in psychology was becoming established, William James wrote a series of notes and reviews assessing the work of many of the pioneers in the new field. Adopting a public and confident voice, even while he was privately still uncertain and searching, James criticized the dogmatism of positivist and idealist claims to the study of the human brain and mind. In his short writings of 1873–1877, James started to formulate his own middle path. His first steps on that path show that he did not reject either scientific or philosophic inquiry; instead, he viewed scientific knowledge as a way to understand philosophical questions more deeply. Saving his sharpest critiques for positivism, James endorsed scientific investigation without materialist assumptions. While his career in psychology was still only a hope, James treated science as a means toward humanist insight. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of public and private self-consciousness on the public expression of personal beliefs.

Examined the joint effects of private and public self-consciousness (SC) on attitudinal consistency. 113 male undergraduates (categorized as high and low private and high and low public SC) reported their own attitudes toward punishment. Later, each S was asked to write an essay in which he restated his attitude. Immediately prior to writing the essay, S learned that he would also be discussing his opinion with either a partner who held an attitude opposite to his own or a partner whose attitude was unknown. As predicted, the attitudes expressed in the essays of high public SC Ss were more moderate than those expressed by low public SC Ss. One effect of this moderation strategy was to lower the correlation between privately held and publicly expressed beliefs among Ss high in public SC. In contrast, attitudinal consistency was substantial among Ss who were low in public and high in private SC. (14 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hans Hugo Selye (1907-1982).

Presents an obituary for Hans Hugo Selye (1907-1982). Hans Selye died on October 16, 1982, in Montreal, where he had worked for 50 years. Despite illness in his last years, he continued his writing and lecturing. Selye was unforgettable, even to people who heard him give only one of his superb lectures. Endowed with enormous energy, charm, intelligence, imagination, and a fierce determination to succeed in the course that he had set for himself, by the 1950s Selye was recognized as one of the driving forces in modern endocrinology, and he established what has become known as the field of stress research. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

David C. McClelland.

David C. McClelland is recognized for his achievements in psychology. This article provides a citation explaining his accomplishments, a biography and a selected bibliography. The citation is as follows: "For leading the vanguard of a new motivational psychology bridging the study of personality and society, beginning forty years ago with methodological innovations and empirical discoveries of lasting significance in pioneering studies of the Achievement Motive and the Achieving Society. By experimental arousal of achievement motivation, he established the validity of using a particular kind of imaginative thought content as its measure. Combining bold vision and practicality, he turned traditional arguments into testable hypotheses. His broad and indelible impact on the social sciences is amplified by seminal writings on personality, the power motive, motivation training—and by the productivity he inspired in his students." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Level of aspiration, or probability of success.

Level of aspiration (LA) may be valid index of S's feelings of success or failure in a situation where he is free to change his goal from one trial to the next; but if the goal he is trying to achieve is established and maintained by agencies over which he has no control, his estimate of the probability of success (Ps) is the prefered criterion of his feelings of success or failure. In the latter situation LA may rise continuously (usually taken to indicate feelings of success) but with a low rate of improvement or a rapidly approaching deadline Ps may decline. ? the Ss (24) in the experiment were told that the experimental task was a preliminary screening test to determine their fitness for a special science training program (high motivated—HM). The other 24 (low motivated—LM) were told only that the Es were interested in the task. All Ss volunteered in response to 1 of these announcements, all attempted to achieve the same level of performance within 10 trials, and were given controlled information about their "performance curves," which increased. HM Ss set higher overall LAs and lower Ps than did LM Ss. For both HM and LM conditions, the trends of LA and Ps were in opposite directions over the 10 trials: while LA increased, Ps declined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of marijuana on human physical aggression.

30 male undergraduates received intense provocation following their ingestion of a low dose (.1 mg/kg), a medium dose (.25 mg/kg), or a high dose (.4 mg/kg) of delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol. Each S was informed that he was competing in a reaction time (RT) task with another S in an adjoining room. At the beginning of each trial, he was told to select any 1 of 11 intensities of shock he wished his opponent to receive if his opponent lost the trial. If he lost, he would receive the shock his opponent had set for him. Regardless of who won, each S was able to see, following each trial, what level of shock his opponent had set for him. The frequency of wins and losses and the amount of shock received were programmed by the experimenter. Findings show that the Ss in the low-dose condition tended to respond in a more aggressive manner than the Ss in the moderate- and high-dose conditions. They set significantly higher shocks than Ss in the medium- and high-dose groups in a number of trials. Ss in the high-dose condition behaved in a relatively nonaggressive manner throughout the experimental session. Results support the consensus that marihuana does not instigate, precipitate, or enhance aggressive behavior. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obituary: Robert I. Watson (1909-1980).

Presents an obituary for Robert I. Watson who died on September 15, 1980, in Gainesville, Florida, where he was adjunct professor of psychology at the University of Florida. He had moved to Gainesville in 1975 after retiring from the University of New Hampshire, although the use of the term retire in reference to Bob Watson is clearly inappropriate. If anything, his scholarly productivity only increased after giving up his administrative and faculty responsibilities at New Hampshire. During those last five years he wrote two books, revised a third, and had at least two more in preparation at the time of his death. Bob Watson was an excellent model both in his scholarly and professional pursuits; he will be remembered as one of the founders of the history of psychology movement in the United States and one of the most significant contributors to its literature. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Politics and naturalism in the 20th century psychology of Alfred Binet.

Alfred Binet is internationally recognized as the "father" of the first intelligence test as well as the most faithful French representative of laboratory experimentalism. A historical analysis of his work is therefore necessary to get to a thorough comprehension of 20th century psychology. The present article, starting from Binet's intellectual path and from the suggestions of the previous historical literature, aims at providing fresh insights into Binet's work by trying to capture the intersections between Binet, his naturalistic culture and the political context in which he worked in the early 20th century, when he actively tried to apply experimental psychology to the pedagogical area. In fact, it is possible to underline, with reference to those years, an evident turn towards applications in Binet's psychological production. The article reconstructs the political and institutional background of Binet's research and shows how the naturalism and experimentalism he promoted were complementary to the solidarist conceptions that were particularly prevalent among those who supported his work during the Third Republic. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The attribution of similarity: The influence of success and failure.

"One subject in… [a] pair was informed that he had earned high percentile scores on… [tasks], while the other subject was told he had earned low scores. Each subject then received a partially completed Allport-Vernon-Lindzey test booklet designed either to be identical with or systematically dissimilar to the one completed by the subject 6 or more weeks earlier… . he was to complete the booklet as he believed his colleague had. Degree of similarity attributed was defined as the absolute difference between own and attributed score on a… scale… . The results revealed that failure subjects attributed greater similarity to their colleagues than did successful subjects, particularly with respect to presumably dissimilar colleagues." From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2GE19S. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Paracelsus and balneology

Starting from the words of Paracelsus, 'allein und fremd und anders'--alone and foreign and different--the influence of this important Swiss physician for the balneology of his time is outlined. Up to our days Paracelsus is honored as the real father of balneology, whereas other authors saw and probably still see hypotheses and in part utopias in his specific ideas. Paracelsus has described quite a number of thermal springs in Switzerland, Austria and southern Germany, some of them rather in detail. It is certainly questionable that he visited all of them personally. Bad Pf?fers, however, definitely belongs to them, since undoubted testimonies exist that emerged during his life time. His famous 'Baderbüchlin', though, has been printed after his death in 1562. His theoretical ideas about the effects of bathing are in part very modern, others originate from medieval alchemistic sources. He used this theory of 'Separatio' of the three basal elements sulphur, mercurius and sal, as well as the idea of the 'light of Nature', but beyond that he discussed also influences of personified forces, which he assumed in nymphs, melusins and others. Furthermore, in his balneology he expressed clearly his doctrine about the macro- and microcosmic relation, and he used in his balneotherapy vegetable and mineral compounds up to precious stones. Time, too, had a special importance for the effectiveness of the bath in his eyes.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)     

The attributional norm of internality and depressive sensitivity to social information.

Two experiments with 209 undergraduates examined the existence in an achievement-related context of a social norm favoring internal explanations for task performances. In Exp I, Ss' reactions to a male actor's high, moderate, or low self-attribution of causal responsibility for his negative performance outcome on an ostensibly standardized aptitude test were assessed. Results indicate that the actor was evaluated more positively to the degree that he accepted more personal responsibility for his performance. In Exp II, Ss were classified as depressed or nondepressed, based on their scores on the Beck Depression Inventory. Ss' reactions to an actor's high or low self-attributions of causal responsibility for his poor performance on a test of analytical ability were assessed. On the basis of the notion that the chronic lack of control and resultant uncertainty, presumably characteristic of depressed persons, motivates attributional information processing, it was expected that depressed Ss would be more sensitive to the actor's violation of the norm of internality and would respond with more social disapproval than nondepressed Ss. Results are generally consistent with this reasoning. Findings are discussed in terms of the interpersonal implications of expressed attributions. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ronald Ross: a century of the transfer of malaria by mosquitoes

Ronald Ross is a brilliant and polyvalent mind. When orientated towards medicine he took the training amateurishly and ended up with a limited qualification. After 2 years as a ship doctor, he attended the compulsory complementary training in order to be admissible in the IMS, the garrison life left him with plenty of time to engage in his hobby's: painting for a short while, writing, poetry and mathematics. By the end of his first term he questioned the sense of his medical activities and decided, with a view to his career, to acquire a Public Health diploma and some complementary bacteriology. During his second term the malaria problem drew his attention. As he was unable to detect the parasite of Laveran in the blood of patients with malarial fevers he concluded that the parasite had been some lucky microscopic finding without any value and turned this parasite into ridicule. During his leave in 1894 he met Manson, who showed him the technique to put the parasite in evidence and convinced him to search for its vector which, to his opinion, should be a mosquito. Ross decided to follow this lead. With his minimal parasitological knowledge and an entomological background limited to the external appearance of mosquitoes he endeavoured to establish the life cycle of the malarial parasites. Notwithstanding some service bounded transfers, he followed the fate of the filaments of the crescents and discovered the parasite on the stomachwall of dapled-winged mosquitoes. During his special mission in Calcutta and in the absence of suitable malaria infections in man he shifted to bird proteosoma (now P. relictum) with a grey mosquito (culex) as vector. He demonstrated the complete life-cycle ending in the salivary glands of the mosquitoes and succeeded in transmitting this infection by mosquito-bites in healthy birds. This climax in his research was crowned by the attribution in 1902 of the Nobel Prize for Medicine. In the mean time he resigned from the IMS and was appointed as "Lecturer on Tropical Diseases" at the Liverpool School. He reoriented his activities to the prevention of malaria by control of the vector in its aquatic larval stage, which he tried out and promoted during his journeys to the West African Coast and other countries. His current were variegated but without salient details. Through the survey of the parasite index and the assessment of the spleen rate in children he founded the malariometry as a epidemiological tool, focussed attention on the relation of malaria and the community and on the complexity of the transmission dynamics. By handing in his resignation at the Liverpool School and moving to London he hampered further his scientific productivity. The tardy foundation of the Ross Institute did not stimulate a new impetus. He suffered a stroke which left him partially crippled an he died in his Institute.     

Effects of public and private failure on self-evaluation.

This study "examined how variations in the strength of social pressures, acting upon a person in the direction of lowering his self-evaluation, affect the evaluations the individual assigns to the quality of his performance, and to his more or less closely relevant abilities, after he has failed on a task… . Ss who made low evaluations of their performances did not evaluate these abilities differently under different experimental conditions… " but those who made high evaluations did. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:1HJ23S. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology and the State Associations.

Comments upon Robert Perloff's comment (1964) on state associations. The author mentions some things that Perloff might discover if he approached the problem as a psychologist. It is noted that the status and support of any science or profession depends upon public understanding and appreciation. In simple self-interest, any psychologist who takes the trouble to be informed in these matters, and who wants to support himself rather than live on the efforts of his colleagues, will join his efforts with theirs to insure professional standards and status for those who serve the public in the name of psychology. This means support and utilization of state associations, for there is no other organ so well adapted to deal with professional problems and the public's interest. Also, aside from the important questions of standards and competence, state associations are ideally situated to deal constructively with the divisive forces in American psychology. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reconciliation of Owner and Contractor Views in Heavy Construction Projects

Delay and loss of productivity are the two main types of damage experienced by the contractor when the owner issues a change order. Courts have recognized critical path method schedule analysis as the preferred method of identifying and quantifying critical delays. As for the inefficiency damages, there is no direct way of measuring inefficiency due to its qualitative nature and the difficulty of linking the cause of the productivity loss to the damage. Most of the scholarly work published in this area was based on data supplied by the contractors; and that explains why there are discrepancies between what the contractor asks for and what the owner believes the contractor is entitled to. This study addresses the need for a statistical model to quantify the productivity loss from verifiable site data such as owner’s daily reports, change orders, drawings, and specifications, rather than rely solely on contractor surveys. A model is developed and validated to quantify the productivity loss in pipe work in roadway projects due to the change orders. The productivity loss study analyzed two sets of data that include: (1) variables that predict which of the two parties, the owner and the contractor, contributed to the productivity loss; and (2) variables that predict, from the legal viewpoint, productivity losses which only the owner is responsible for. The study showed the difference between what the contractor asked for and what he/she is actually entitled to. This model can be used by both the owner and the contractor to quantify the productivity loss due to change orders, and to offer an objective approach to reconcile their differences. This study concludes with an example to demonstrate the use of the model.     

Transform Schemes Applied on Non-Finish-to-Start Logical Relationships in Project Network Diagrams

Critical path analysis on a project network having non-finish-to-start (FS) logical relationships with lags is generally referred to as precedence diagram method (PDM). A PDM-based scheduling analysis is facilitated by mainstream project scheduling software (such as P3). However, PDM compounds total float determination and interpretation, potentially causing anomalous effects on critical path identification. In the present research, we generalize those particular circumstances that entail applying non-FS logical relationships on construction projects. We then propose generic transform schemes such that non-FS relationships in a PDM network can be detected and transformed—automatically—into equivalent FS. Moreover, we provide analytical proofs for the transform schemes being proposed to justify the logical equivalency between the original PDM network and the transformed activity-on-node (AON) network only having FS logical relationships. A PDM network example demonstrates that confusions would arise in interpreting P3’s critical path analysis results, but not in the case of the transformed AON counterpart. In conclusion, the transform schemes being proposed lead to better understanding of the scheduling results when critical path analysis is performed on a PDM network. This also paves the way for conducting further sophisticated scheduling analysis (such as resource loading or Monte Carlo simulation) on a PDM network.     

Mechanics of translation in the fosbury-flop

The mechanics of the translations involved in the Fosbury-flop technique of high jumping were examined in the light of appropriate experimental data, generated using a 3-dimensional cinematographical method. The curved run-up was found to cause the athletes to lean toward the center of the curve at the start of the take-off phage (TD). The center of gravity (c.g.) of all the jumpers had a negative vertical velocity at TI). The lateral deviation of the path of the c.g. during the take-off phage was small, implying small centripetal forces. The initial trajectory of the parabolic path of the c.g. after the take-off made an angle of between 40 degrees and 48 degrees with the horizontal plane. During the take-off phase the take-off leg was found to flex at least as much as previouslyreported for athletes using the straddle style. One of the subjects in the study was able to clear the bar although the peak height of the parabolic path followed by his c.g. was at the same level as the bar.