Big fish in small ponds: a social hierarchy analysis of intergroup bias

High- and low-self-esteem group members received feedback about their individual performance as well as that of their own group and an out-group. They then evaluated both groups. Yoked-control observer individuals also provided group evaluations. In the in-group success/out-group failure condition, in-group enhancement tendencies were attenuated by individual failure feedback and augmented by individual success feedback. Low-self-esteem group members who received individual failure feedback showed favoritism toward the unsuccessful out-group over their own successful in-group. In the in-group failure/out-group success condition, in-group enhancement tendencies were attenuated by individual success feedback and augmented by individual failure feedback. Thus individuals' position in a social hierarchy mediates upward and downward social mobility strategies.     

Learned helplessness in Black and White children identified by their schools as retarded and nonretarded: Performance deterioration in response to failure.

20 Black and 20 White children who had been identified as retarded and nonretarded but were similar in MA (110.2–214.3 mo) were administered concept formation problems designed to reveal use of strategies. When feedback was veridical the groups did not differ in their use of effective strategies, but when feedback became consistently negative the groups diverged markedly. Under negative feedback, retarded Ss showed striking deterioration in strategy usage, but nonretarded Ss showed no deterioration. Consistent with these findings, teachers rated retarded Ss as significantly more helpless than their nonretarded peers on a checklist of relevant school behavior. Additional findings suggest that Black retarded Ss may be more susceptible to helplessness than are their White counterparts. Finally, group differences in verbalizations during problem solving bore little relation to group differences in actual performance. Findings point to helplessness deficits in retarded children that may interfere significantly with expression of their actual abilities. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-evaluation and assessments of performance by self and others.

Explored the relationship between self-esteem, the perception of competence, and actual competence when performance is attributed to oneself or to someone else. 44 male and 43 female undergraduates with high and low self-esteem performed a concept-formation task and evaluated their performance; 1 wk later they either rerated their own performance after watching a videotape of their previous session or rated the videotaped performance of "another S," actually a model who mimicked their previous performance. High-self-esteem Ss perceived themselves as doing better on the task than low-self-esteem Ss, although their performance was actually comparable. The 2 groups' evaluations differed only when they thought they were assessing themselves and not when they felt they were evaluating someone else. Potential mechanisms accounting for the differences in self-evaluations are explored. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of social comparison direction, threat, and self-esteem on affect, self-evaluation, and expected success.

Two studies explored the conditions under which social comparisons are used to manage negative affect and naturalistic threats. Study 1 examined induced mood and dispositional self-esteem as determinants of affective responses to upward and downward comparisons. Consistent with a mood repair prediction, only low-self-esteem Ss in whom a negative mood had been induced reported improved mood after exposure to downward comparison information. Study 2 examined the impact of naturalistic threats on responses to comparison information. Relative to a no-comparison baseline, low-self-esteem Ss who had experienced a recent academic setback reported more favorable self-evaluations and greater expectations of future success in college after exposure to downward comparison information. These results remained significant after controlling statistically for general distress. Implications for downward comparison theory are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relinquishment of control and the Type A behavior pattern: The role of performance evaluation.

Investigated the role of information processing in the control relinquishment decisions of individuals with Type A (coronary prone) and Type B (noncoronary prone) personalities. Pairs of undergraduates (N?=?147) who had previously completed the Jenkins Activity Survey worked independently on a task and received feedback indicating that their partner had performed at a comparable or superior level. On a 2nd task, Ss combined their efforts and made decisions concerning who would work on different parts of that task. One-third of the Ss made this decision before completing an evaluation of the initial performances. Another third completed the evaluation without knowing that they would subsequently make a control decision. The final third of the Ss completed their evaluations knowing that a control decision would follow. Results indicate that when the evaluations were completed last, or when the evaluations were completed first but without knowledge of the impending decision, Type A's relinquished less control to a superior partner than did Type B's. When evaluations were completed with knowledge of an impending control decision, Type A's and B's did not differ in their decisions. Results suggest that under certain conditions, Type A's use an automatic or mindless decision style with potentially maladaptive consequences. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of feedback of physiological information on responses to innocent associations and guilty knowledge.

Investigated the effects of providing Ss with feedback concerning their physiological responding while they were questioned about (a) innocent associations varying in degree of personal involvement and (b) innocent associations vs guilty knowledge. In Exp I, 48 undergraduates were divided into 3 groups—electrodermal, heart-rate, or no feedback. Ss were then questioned separately about a list of geometric figures, containing one that they had chosen beforehand, and about a list of Social Security numbers, which included their own. Results, based on the relative amplitude of electrodermal responses, indicate that feedback significantly augmented responses to the relevant item as did personal involvement. In Exp II, 26 undergraduates were provided with guilty knowledge about a mock crime while another 26 Ss received innocent associations. Half of each group received electrodermal feedback and half no feedback. Results show significant differences in the responding of guilty and innocent Ss. Feedback increased responding to relevant items in both groups. (5 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effectiveness of study counseling and desensitization in alleviating test anxiety: A two-year follow-up.

Asked 46 participants in a program comparing study counseling and desensitization for reducing test anxiety to evaluate the effects of each procedure 2 yrs after termination of treatment. Ss who had been assigned to active psychotherapeutic conditions (including a placebo) maintained positive attitudes toward their respective treatments. A significantly larger proportion of Ss in the treatment groups showed individually significant improvement in grades during the 1st follow-up semester. Ss in both the treatment and control conditions achieved significantly better grades and reduced self-reported anxiety by semester of graduation, obscuring treatment effects reported originally. Results suggest that the deleterious effects of test anxiety may be alleviated by entry into courses which minimize formal test evaluations and by the easing of general grading standards which has occurred over the past several years. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitions of test-anxious children.

Compared the cognitions of 294 low, moderate, and high test-anxious (the Test Anxiety Scale for Children) 5th and 6th graders in an analog test situation. High test-anxious Ss reported significantly more task-debilitating cognitions than either moderate- or low-anxious Ss, including negative evaluations and off-task thoughts. High test-anxious Ss also reported fewer positive evaluations than low test-anxious Ss, whereas moderately anxious Ss did not differ significantly from either extreme group. It was unexpected that the moderate- and high-anxious groups reported significantly more on-task thoughts than the low-anxious group and did not significantly differ from each other. Both test anxiety and cognitions showed significant although modest relations with actual task performance after the effects of ability were partialled out. (20 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Probing suspicion among participants in deception research.

Seven introductory psychology students were led to believe they were participating in a study of the effect of practice task feedback on subsequent performance. When left alone by the experimenter, Ss compared the feedback they had received and discovered it was false. When the experimenter returned, Ss continued to participate as though nothing had happened. After announcing that the experiment involved deception, the experimenter asked on 3 separate occasions whether Ss were suspicious of the procedures or of anything that had happened in the experiment. Not only did Ss fail to divulge their knowledge of the deception, but their responses to manipulation check questions completed before the questioning provided little evidence that they were aware of the deception. Results indicate that investigators (in any field) who fail to adequately assess participant suspicions and perceptions are jeopardizing the tests of their hypotheses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of verbal and self-monitoring feedback on Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale performance in normal adults.

Hypothesized that feedback for correct and incorrect responses may be the salient feature in inducing test performance in adults. 60 undergraduates were administered an abbreviated form of the WAIS in 1 of 3 conditions--no feedback, praise for correct answers, or a self-monitoring condition in which Ss were given feedback and instructed to record their points. Results suggest that feedback coupled with self-monitoring feedback is effective in inducing IQ test performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Blood alcohol level discrimination by alcoholics: The role of internal and external cues.

Two groups of 4 chronic alcoholics lived in Rutgers' Alcohol Behavior Research Laboratory for separate 2-wk periods. During that time, Ss were taught to attend either to internal or to external cues to blood alcohol level (BAL). Mean age of the internal group was 36.2 yrs, and that of the external was 35.7 yrs. Internal Ss completed the Body Sensation Checklist and the Mood Adjective Check List. During a single training session, Ss received feedback on actual BAL following each of their BAL estimates. During pretraining and posttraining sessions, assessments of BAL estimation accuracy were obtained in the absence of feedback. Prior to training, both groups were equally inaccurate in estimating BAL. During training, when accurate BAL feedback was provided, estimation accuracy increased significantly for both groups. Once feedback of actual BAL was removed during the posttraining test session, however, only externally trained Ss maintained the ability to estimate BAL accurately. It is concluded that unlike the nonalcoholic Ss studied by H. Huber, R. Karlin, and A. E. Nathan (1976), the alcoholic Ss of the present study did not learn to discriminate BAL on the basis of internal feelings and sensations nearly as adequately as they did when they referred to external cues. It is suggested that these findings may have important implications for the clinical application of BAL discrimination training. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distancing after group success and failure: Basking in reflected glory and cutting off reflected failure.

Two image-maintenance processes by which people manipulate their association with others were tested: the tendency to bask in reflected glory as a means of increasing one's association with successful others and the tendency to cut off reflected failure as a means of decreasing one's association with unsuccessful others. 102 undergraduates were initially involved in a group task and were then assigned to 1 of 3 group-performance feedback conditions: failure, no information, or success. Self-report and behavioral (taking and wearing of team badges) dependent measures of distancing showed that Ss in the failure group manifested less association with their group than did Ss in the no-information feedback and success groups; there was a tendency on behavioral but not self-report measures for Ss in the success group to manifest more association with their group than for Ss in the no-information feedback group. Therefore, more support was found for the cutting-off-reflected-failure process than for the basking-in-reflected-glory process as an image-maintenance tactic. Because Ss truly identified with their group's relative sense of failure or success, it is suggested that it was this identification process that appeared to have driven Ss' distancing behaviors in relation to their groups. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of group identity on resource use in a simulated commons dilemma.

Used 172 undergraduates in 3 experiments to assess the effects of making salient either a superordinate (collective) or subordinate (differentiating) group identity in heterogeneous groups. In Exp I, 22 male and 36 female Ss were assigned to either a superordinate-group identity (small community resident behavior vs other areas) or a subordinate-group identity (behavior of young people vs elderly people) condition and were asked to perform a computer task individually; Ss were led to believe they were interacting with 5 other persons (2 real and 3 bogus Ss) in their group in accumulating as many points as possible while making the resource last as long as possible. Bogus feedback about group behavior was given. In Exp II, 29 male and 19 female Ss were told that the bogus Ss were economics majors and were asked to perform as in Exp I. In Exp III, the level of social-group identity for 40 male and 26 female Ss was manipulated by varying the common fate of the group members. Results of all 3 experiments show support for the hypothesis that individual restraint would be most likely when a superordinate group identity was made salient and under conditions in which feedback indicated that the common resource was being depleted. A sex-response difference found in Exp I was not sustained in subsequent experiments. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of prior group memberships on subsequent reconnaissance activities.

1,134 college freshmen completed an orientation questionnaire assessing their experiences in high school groups and expectations about college groups. 220 Ss were also interviewed later about their behavior toward campus groups at an activities fair. Ss whose experiences in high school groups were more positive tried harder to identify potentially desirable college groups, primarily because they believed that belonging to such groups would be useful for achieving personal goals. Ss with prior experience in relevant high school groups used that experience to evaluate similar college groups and thus made more realistic (less optimistic) evaluations of those groups than did Ss without prior experience. Among Ss who wanted to join a college group, those who had belonged to a relevant high school group behaved differently at the activities fair than did those who had not. Ss with prior experience were more likely to approach their chosen group at the activities fair and to avoid other groups there of a similar sort. (52 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of marathon group therapy on trait and state anxiety.

Administered the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory to 84 institutionalized female narcotic drug addicts (mean age 25.6 yrs). Ss then participated in marathon-directive, marathon-nondirective, or no-therapy (control) groups. Combining all groups of Ss, State Anxiety (A-State) declined significantly from pretherapy to posttherapy, with the 2 therapy groups showing a far greater decline than the control group. Trait Anxiety (A-Trait) was unchanged from pre- to posttherapy when the scores for all groups were combined. Ss receiving nondirective therapy declined in A-Trait, directive therapy Ss increased, and control Ss showed virtually no change in A-Trait. Results support C. D. Spielberger's notion that trait anxiety reflects a dispositional tendency to respond with anxiety in ego-threat situations and suggest that personality trait measures may be more relevant outcome indicators than measures of transitory mood states in marathon therapy research. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rewarding pinball wizardry: Effects of evaluation and cue value on intrinsic interest.

Examined the effects of rewards for pinball competence on subsequent interest in the game in 3 studies with 219 Ss in which 3 components of performance-contingent reward structures—an evaluative contingency established before playing, performance feedback, and the receipt of a reward—were identified. The symbolic cue value of the reward may affect interest independently of evaluation and competence feedback. To isolate its effect, groups receiving a performance-contingent reward were compared with groups that experienced the same evaluative contingency and feedback and with feedback-only controls (Studies 1 and 3). Results show that evaluation reduced intrinsic motivation, compared with controls, whereas reward enhanced intrinsic motivation relative to evaluation. In Study 2, groups receiving rewards for attaining competence but differing in whether the evaluation was anticipated before playing were compared. Results indicate that unexpected performance-contingent rewards enhanced interest, compared with expected rewards. Findings suggest that the 3 reward properties have separate effects on intrinsic motivation. Anticipation of evaluation was responsible for negative reward effects, whereas competence feedback and due value had independent positive effects (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sex role identity and sex-stereotyped tasks in the development of learned helplessness in women.

80 undergraduate females participated in a study investigating the relation of sex-role identity and sex-stereotyped tasks to the development of learned helplessness in women. Half of the Ss from 4 sex-role identity groups received bogus feedback and were forced to fail on a concept formation task described to them as either a male- or female-stereotyped task; the other 40 Ss succeeded on the task. Failure on the concept formation task produced by dysphoric mood (as measured by the Depression Adjective Check Lists) in the Ss, regardless of their sex-role identity and regardless of how the concept formation task was described. However, cognitive/motivational symptoms of helplessness were found only among low-masculine Ss who failed on a male-stereotyped task. Results are compared with previous findings and suggest that feminine-sex-typed women may be particularly susceptible to some helplessness symptoms in contexts defined as male appropriate. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Those who can, tutor: High-ability students' conceptions of fair ways to organize learning.

When conceptions of fair learning practices of high-ability (HA) students (aged 6–18 yrs) were compared with those from a more representative group, the HA Ss typically chose peer tutoring as fairest. This was the case even though they regularly experienced acceleration and enrichment programs. The 2 groups held equivalent conceptions of fair learning practices. It was not until late adolescence that students in both groups articulated a rationale for placing HA students in accelerated learning programs. HA students were also no more likely than those in the representative group to select the acceleration and enrichment practices they experience as fair. Findings suggest that HA Ss do not emphasize self-interest when evaluating fair practices and are consistent with the cognitive-developmental position that children's evaluations of institutional practices reflect their developing conceptions of social justice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Processing of ambiguous and unambiguous feedback by depressed and nondepressed college students: Schematic biases and their implications for depressive realism.

Explored schematic processing as a mechanism for predicting (a) when depressed Ss would be negative relative to nondepressed Ss and (b) when depressed and nondepressed Ss would show biased or unbiased (i.e., "realistic") processing. Depressed and nondepressed Ss performed multiple trials of a task under conditions in which the 2 groups held either equivalent or different schemas regarding this task. Ss received either an unambiguous or objectively normed ambiguous feedback cue on each trial. In full support of schematic processing, depressed Ss showed negative encoding relative to nondepressed Ss only when their schemas were more negative, and both depressed and nondepressed Ss showed positively biased, negatively biased, and unbiased encoding depending on the relative feedback cue-to-schema match. Depressed and nondepressed Ss' response latencies to unambiguous feedback also supported the occurrence of schematic processing. We discuss the methodological, treatment, and "realism" implications of these findings and suggest a more precise formulation of Beck's schema theory of depression. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self- versus instructor-pacing: Achievement, evaluations, and retention.

Student procrastination is an important concern in personalized systems of instruction. The present study compared progress made on course work by 2 groups of students—one self-paced (75 Ss) and one instructor-paced (74 Ss)—in a course taught using the personalized system of instruction. Ss were also compared on measures of course achievement and evaluations and a 9-mo content retention test. Results show that even though the self-paced group procrastinated while the instructor-paced group did not, both scored similarly on pre-, post-, and retention tests and were equally satisfied with the course. Moreover, no differences were found in the number of units completed, final grade distributions, or course withdrawal rates. The withdrawal rate data and the tendency for the self-paced group to score better on the retention test are discussed in terms of educational objectives. (29 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)