Physical attractiveness and health: Comment on Weeden and Sabini (2005).

Evolutionary behavioral biology suggests that certain characteristics of the human face and body are important for mate preferences and are therefore subject to sexual selection. J. Weeden and J. Sabini (see record 2005-11504-001) identify a number of weaknesses in the association between traits' attractiveness and health. In contrast, the authors argue that (a) studies on preferences for physical characteristics that rely on 1 trait permit only limited interpretation, (b) limitations placed on J. Weeden and J. Sabini's review exclude important associations, (c) there are misconceptions in their treatment of some traits, and (d) their selected literature provides an inaccurate picture regarding effect size. The authors suggest that future research in this field should seek conceptual and methodological constancy in trait selection and in the evaluation of attractiveness- and health-related traits. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evolution of life-history trade-offs in mate attractiveness and health: Comment on Weeden and Sabini (2005).

J. Weeden and J. Sabini's (see record 2005-11504-001) finding of small to no relation between traits rated as attractive in a mate and health of that mate might be interpreted as consistent with C. Darwin's (1859) proposal that these traits are arbitrary signs of beauty. However, such a conclusion would be premature. A combination of consistent empirical findings with nonhuman species and theoretical reasons argues for a continued search for honest signals of genetic fitness and reproductive health in human mate choices. Moreover, (a) even quite small relationships can be important when viewed across generations, and (b) traits that make a potential mate attractive at one age can result in poor health or early death at a later age. These life-history trade-offs greatly complicate the empirical study of attractiveness-health relations, and their potential importance has been underestimated by J. Weeden and J. Sabini. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A cognitive reinterpretation of Stanley Milgram's observations on obedience to authority.

Comments on S. Milgram's (1974) observations on obedience to authority. It is suggested that the underlying cause for Milgram's Ss' striking conduct could be conceptual and not the alleged "capacity of man to abandon his humanity…as he merges his unique personality into larger institutional structures." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Obedience lite.

Jerry M. Burger's (see record 2008-19206-001) partial replication of Stanley Milgram's (1963, 1965, 1974) classic experiments on obedience to authority is considered from the viewpoint of a contributor and witness to the original obedience experiments. Although Burger's replication succeeded in terms of gaining the approval of his local institutional review board, it did so by removing a large portion of the stressful circumstances that made Milgram's findings so psychologically interesting and so broadly applicable to instances of real-world destructive obedience. However, Burger has provided an initial demonstration that his "obedience lite" procedures can be used to extend the study of certain situational and personality variables beyond those examined by Milgram. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

From New Haven to Santa Clara: A historical perspective on the Milgram obedience experiments.

This article traces the history of obedience experiments that have used the Milgram paradigm. It begins with Stanley Milgram's graduate education, showing how some aspects of that experience laid the groundwork for the obedience experiments. It then identifies three factors that led Milgram to study obedience. The underlying principles or messages that Milgram thought could be extracted from his experiments are then presented, and the evidence in support of them is assessed. Jerry M. Burger's (see record 2008-19206-001) recent replication of Milgram's work--its place in the history of obedience research and its contribution to furthering the understanding of destructive obedience--is then examined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reflections on "Replicating Milgram" (Burger, 2009).

In "Replicating Milgram: Would People Still Obey Today?" Jerry M. Burger (see record 2008-19206-001) reported a high base rate of obedience, comparable to that observed by Stanley Milgram (1974). Another condition, involving a defiant confederate, failed to significantly reduce obedience. This commentary discusses the primary contributions of Burger's study in terms of (a) its novel methodological variation on Milgram's original paradigm (the "150-volt solution") and (b) its attention to ethical concerns so as to minimize participant discomfort and ensure institutional review board approval. Burger's technique could unlock research on behavioral aspects of obedience, which has been essentially muted for several decades. However, Burger's intensive efforts to improve the ethics of the study may be exaggerated, are uncertain in their effectiveness, and pose impractical demands. Different procedures used by Milgram and Burger in the modeled refusal condition preclude a clear explanation for the results and challenge Burger's emphasis on the comparability of his and Milgram's experiments. This study documents the complexities of extending research on destructive obedience in the context of contemporary ethical guidelines. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Emotion, character, and responsibility.

Reviews the book, Emotion, character, and responsibility by John Sabini and Maury Silver (see record 1999-02229-000). In this compilation of previously published essays, Sabini and Silver take on one of the more vexing issues in contemporary psychology of emotion—the relationship between emotions (which are typically experienced as unchosen) and responsibility. The book examines such human emotional experiences as sympathy, sincerity, loyalty and duty, shame, guilt, and embarrassment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the possible non-existence of Sabini and Silver's emotions: A critical review of Emotion, character, and responsibility.

In Emotion, character, and responsibility, J. Sabini and M. Silver (see record 1999-02229-000) set out to show specifically why emotions are important in the conception of a person's character. Thus, their collection of previously published material tackles the daunting task of explaining how and why it is that it is often considered that peoples' emotions reflect upon their characters. What the present author finds particularly appealing, as well as convincing, in all of these writings is Sabini and Silver's grounding of their arguments in everyday experience. This article examines whether it is appropriate to judge people on the basis of their emotions, and whether emotions and emotional responses reflect one's character. The question the present author proposes is whether the reader is prepared to make the sacrifices to the content of emotions which Sabini and Silver make in arguing for their conclusion. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Replicating Milgram: Would people still obey today?

The author conducted a partial replication of Stanley Milgram's (1963, 1965, 1974) obedience studies that allowed for useful comparisons with the original investigations while protecting the well-being of participants. Seventy adults participated in a replication of Milgram's Experiment 5 up to the point at which they first heard the learner's verbal protest (150 volts). Because 79% of Milgram's participants who went past this point continued to the end of the shock generator's range, reasonable estimates could be made about what the present participants would have done if allowed to continue. Obedience rates in the 2006 replication were only slightly lower than those Milgram found 45 years earlier. Contrary to expectation, participants who saw a confederate refuse the experimenter's instructions obeyed as often as those who saw no model. Men and women did not differ in their rates of obedience, but there was some evidence that individual differences in empathic concern and desire for control affected participants' responses. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Stanley Milgram (1933–1984).

Presents an obituary for Stanley Milgram. Stanley Milgram died on December 20, 1984, in New York City. He was born in New York, too, on August 15, 1933, and he received his bachelor's degree there from Queens College in 1954. At the time of his death, Milgram was a Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the City University of New York Graduate Center. Before taking a position at the City University in 1967, Milgram had been at Yale and at Harvard. It was no accident that Milgram was at the City University: He was a New Yorker. He was a lover of the city, a critic of the city, and an analyst of urban life. Milgram's attachment to New York was actually an attachment to all that was urbane; it was manifested in his intense distaste for the provincial and the parochial, including parochial social psychology. He had no respect for social psychology that addressed problems discovered by social psychologists. His interest was in problems people in the street faced, or, at least, could understand. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Involvement in role-playing simulations: A demonstration with studies on obedience.

A role-playing simulation of S. Milgram's (1963, 1965, 1972, 1974) studies on obedience was designed to determine the success of role playing as an alternative method to deception. 91 paid male Ss aged 20–60 yrs simulated 3 conditions of Milgram's studies. Experimental sessions were videotaped and rated for involvement in the role-playing situation. It was hypothesized that only for Ss most involved in the role playing and who successfully suspended the "as if" nature of the experiment would the relationships between conditions found by Milgram be upheld, such that there would be a drop in obedience in the experimenter-absent condition as compared to the baseline and victim's-limited-contract conditions. As predicted, only in the experimenter-absent condition was the regression of involvement on obedience significant, with obedience decreasing as involvement increased. The success of role playing in replicating both the outcome of the obedience studies and S's experience of the situation (process) is discussed. Some of the ethical advantages of role playing are reexamined in light of the realistic and stressful emotional responses exhibited. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Milgram and the Holocaust: A reexamination.

The Milgram obedience studies are widely presented in psychology textbooks as integral to understanding the behavior of Holocaust perpetrators. Recent appraisals of the Milgram legacy have not challenged this view. Discussions of the Holocaust in the historical literature are often cited by psychologists to support the claim of the centrality of the Milgram studies to understanding the Holocaust. More recent historical literature presents a different view of the Holocaust, one that directly questions the relevance of Milgram's obedience studies in understanding the Holocaust. This view has not been well represented in discussions of Milgram in psychology, and is discussed here. The nature of the evidence for the ecological validity of the Milgram studies, and the broader issue of the role of the Milgram studies as "scientific parables" are also discussed. Authors of future psychology textbooks may wish to examine the controversial nature of the claim that Milgram's studies are central to understanding the Holocaust more fully. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The price of obedience and the price of knowledge.

Discusses the ethics of S. Milgram's (1963, 1964, 1965; see also PA, Vol 39:7639) experiments on obedience to authority, in which Ss seemingly administered shock to others. The legitimacy of such research must be weighed in terms of costs and benefits to Ss and potential gains in knowledge about social behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On the difference between active and nonactive role-playing methods.

J. Cooper (see record 1977-07138-001) is incorrect in assuming that involved participation is not possible in role-playing experiments. The distinction between role playing and role taking is illustrated through a reenactment of S. Milgram's (1963) mock learning experiment, using both the role-playing and the role-taking models. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

On "Obedience to authority."

Comments on the major themes of S. Milgram's (1974) research, which showed obedience that was total. The author states that such an experimental result was very important, although the vital lessons about human conduct are really not influenced by research psychologists. The lessons reach the people through their parents, teachers, the police, and the other "real" people who set the rules and the consequences for breaking them. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Romantic attraction and generalized liking for others who are sources of conflict-based arousal.

Demonstrated the arousal-attraction effect in circumstances where negative reinforcement does not occur by making the stimulus persons the source of aversive arousal rather than a distraction lowering the arousal. 40 male and 40 female undergraduates witnessed a 30-min videotape of S. Milgram's (1974) obedience paradigm, in which the characters were of the opposite sex from the viewers. Ss were told either that they were watching actors role-play, or that these were real participants. Ss gave attractiveness ratings of the characters, and completed self-reports of arousal. Findings show that for conflict-based arousal, males and females interpret their affective reactions differently, with males reporting more anger, females more anxiety. It is suggested that sex role socializing might influence the schemata that determine self-reports of affective states. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Science, fallacies and ethics.

Psychological experiments with human subjects are frequently based on faulty assumptions which may lead not only to erroneous conclusions but also to warped ethics. Motivational studies often assume implicity and without empirical evidence different motives in E and in S for participating in the experiment. The principle of parsimony requires a single explanation for E's and S's behavior when it is virtually identical. Milgram's experiments on "obedience" are used to illustrate the application of identical explanatory principles to E's and S's behavior and are shown to have tested the release of aggression in a situation which facilitated the use of rationalization and displacement. Experiments with human Ss are shown to be undemocratic and unnecessary in instances where the behavior of the Ss can be predicted from E's behavior. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Change over time in obedience: The jury's still out, but it might be decreasing.

Jerry M. Burger's (see record 2008-19206-001) partial replication of Stanley Milgram's (1974) obedience study shows both the influence of culture and generations on behavior and the power of the situation. In Burger's data, disobedience has nearly doubled among male participants since the 1960s, a shift just as large as the increase in Americans' body mass index that has been labeled the "obesity epidemic." Differences in the ethnic composition of the two studies' samples, particularly the large numbers of Asian Americans in Burger's sample, may have suppressed what might have been an even larger increase in disobedience. Halting the experiment at 150 volts may also have suppressed change. Nevertheless, situations have a strong influence on behavior; thus generational shifts would not be expected to completely eliminate the effect. Burger's results are consistent with documented changes in personality traits over the generations, including increases in nonconformist traits such as assertiveness, self-esteem, and narcissism. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The processes of therapy.

(This reprinted article originally appeared in the Journal of Consulting Psychology, 1940, Vol 4, 161–264. The following abstract of the original article appeared in PA, Vol 14:6018.) Certain basic conditions for successful therapy are: the client's awareness of dissatisfaction with his current adjustment, his intelligence being above borderline level; a reasonable expectation of manipulating adverse social factors; and a skilled therapist where the purpose is to strengthen the individual. The steps in successful therapy are: (1) establishment of rapport with a delicate balance between identification and objectivity; (2) a client's free expression of thoughts and feelings; (3) his recognition and acceptance of his spontaneous self; (4) his responsibility for making his own choices; (5) his gain in insight through assimilated interpretation; and (6) his growth of independence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Harry Goichi Yamaguchi (1921-2002).

Reports the death of Harry Goichi Yamaguchi (1921-2002) and notes his contributions to to teaching, research, and clinical supervision and research. In keeping with his clinical experience with children and adolescents, Yamaguchi emphasized developmental psychology in his teaching. Learning theory remained the focus in his research, his publication, and his approach to clinical work. Yamaguchi's work with several professional organizations is also noted. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)