Effect of instructions and modeling on self-disclosure.

Examined the relative effectiveness of modeling and instructional procedures in training college students to self-disclose. 48 male undergraduates were randomly assigned to 1 of the following instructional conditions: specific instructions to discuss personal feelings within specified topic areas, general instructions to discuss personal feelings within the same topics, or no instructions. Half of the Ss also listened to a model discussing his feelings within identical topic areas, and half did not receive a model. All Ss then participated in a brief monologue, which was scored for self-disclosure. Instructions and modeling, alone and in combination, increased the occurrence of self-disclosure, but the performance of the combination condition was not significantly greater than the performance of modeling or instructions alone. A post hoc analysis showed the instructional effect was due to the difference between specific instructions and no instructions. (30 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Influence of model's race and sex on interviewees' self-disclosure.

Assigned 48 White college students, 24 of each sex, to 1 of 8 modeling conditions, which varied for model's race (Black or White), sex, and length of disclosure (20 or 60 sec). Ss were exposed to a videotape of a model who disclosed on 10 topics (half favorable and half unfavorable); then they responded to the same 10 topics. Ss' depth of disclosure, speech duration, and number of self-references were not related to model's race, length of disclosure, or to their scores on the Self-Disclosure Questionnaire. However, Ss disclosed at greater depths and for longer durations after observing models of the same sex. Significant negative correlations were found between self-disclosure scores and the Ss' ratings of the importance of a counselor's sex, age, and socioeconomic status for the counseling process. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The use of observationally presented information to modify hypnotic susceptibility.

Examined the extent to which hypnotic susceptibility could be modified by means of various types of information modeled on a videotape. Of particular interest was the extent to which hypnotizability could be altered for the initially less susceptible S. 2 major informational components were compared: (a) behavioral modeling cues, in which Ss observed a model acquiesce to 7 hypnotic suggestions; and (b) verbal modeling cues, in which information was presented designed to correct misconceptions concerning hypnosis as well as provide concrete methods for experiencing hypnosis. 70 undergraduates completed the Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale (SHSS) Form B. After the manipulation period, Ss completed the SHSS Form C. Several days later, Ss completed M. Diamond's CP Scale of Hypnotic Susceptibility. Verbal modeling cues (in combination with motivational encouragement) were significantly more effective than the other cues, even for the initially less susceptible Ss. Results are discussed in relation to social learning and cognitive approaches to behavior change. (23 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Microcounseling versus human relations training: Relative effectiveness with undergraduate trainees.

Randomly assigned 24 undergraduates to 1 of 2 counselor training systems. 12 human relations training Ss received training in R. R. Carkhuff's 7 core counselor conditions. 12 microcounseling Ss were trained in the use of attending behavior, minimal activity responses, verbal following behavior, open inquiry, and reflection of feeling. Pre- and posttraining interviews with standard clients were audiotaped for each S. Trainees were assessed on empathy and on 3 categories of counselor communication derived from the microcounseling training content. Compared to no-training control groups, all experimental Ss significantly improved on both sets of training criteria. However, the microcounseling Ss gained significantly more on empathy than did the human relations training Ss. Differences in the instructional techniques of the 2 systems are discussed. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Variations in IQ testing and instruction and the letter learning and achievement of Anglo and bilingual Mexican-American children.

Investigated the effects of the language of IQ test administration on IQ performance and IQ predictions of letter learning and achievement under varying instructional conditions in Anglo and bilingual Mexican-American preschoolers, ages 4 yrs–5 yrs 11 mo. 72 bilingual Mexican-American Ss were given subtests of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence in English, Spanish, or English and Spanish. In addition, 24 Anglos were tested in English. Ss were given a letter identification pretest and letter identification instruction under conditions representing variations in modeling and feedback. Significant differences occurred in IQ associated with the language of test administration. Regression analyses, however, yielded no significant differences among IQ predictions of letter task performance for different testing conditions and instructional variations. (11 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-reinforcement: A continuum of external cues.

Investigated the role of external influences in children's self-regulatory behavior under stringent-demand (SD) and lenient-demand (LD) conditions. The abilities of the SD condition (in the form of stringent instructional sets and criterion setting), the LD condition (in which lenient instructions were provided), and a control condition to maintain 33 male and 29 female 3rd and 4th graders' performance on an arithmetic task were examined. Following 5 trials in which Ss self-administered prizes, all Ss in the SD group performed significantly better, during both the incentive and the extinction conditions, on all 3 dependent variables than did Ss in both the LD and control groups. Factors contributing to the differential performances of Ss under the LD and SD conditions are discussed in light of the self-reinforcement literature. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Therapy set: Its effects on subjects' involvement in systematic desensitization and treatment outcome.

Hypothesized that therapy instructions significantly augment desensitization treatment effects by influencing Ss' involvement in the conditioning procedure. 45 female undergraduate snake phobics were randomly assigned to 1 of 4 treatment groups or a no-treatment control. Therapy set and involvement instructions were manipulated within a 2 * 2 factorial design to create therapeutically and experimentally oriented Ss who were either unencouraged or encouraged to work hard at the experimental procedure. Analyses revealed therapy instructional effects on both behavioral and self-report measures of fear change which could not be attributed to experimenters' awareness of instructional manipulations. Therapy oriented Ss' performance scores were not, however, significantly greater than those obtained by Ss with an experimental orientation. Alternative hypotheses and future research strategies for testing therapy instructional effects are discussed. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Extended mnemonic instruction with learning disabled students.

Divided 64 learning disabled (LD) 6th-, 7th-, and 8th-grade students into 24 instructional groups that were assigned at random to mnemonic and control conditions. Instructional groups were administered 3 daily lessons on dinosaurs in counterbalanced order. The lessons involved vocabulary on dinosaurs, attributes of dinosaurs, and reasons for dinosaur extinction. Mnemonic groups were taught the information using keyword and pegword techniques. Control instructional groups were taught the same information using the principles of direct instruction, including teacher-directed questioning, choral group responding, fast instructional pacing, and cumulative review. A test was given after each lesson on that lesson's content. On the 4th day, all Ss were given production and identification tests on the content of all 3 lessons. Results indicate that mnemonic groups outperformed control groups on the immediate and delayed tests. In addition, control Ss' responses revealed significantly more intralist intrusions than did those of mnemonic Ss. No meaningful trend across days of instruction was observed for either condition. Findings suggest that mnemonic instruction is a versatile and effective instructional technique for LD students. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship of persuasive interaction to change of opinion in dyadic groups when the original opinions of participants are expressed privately and publicly.

This constitutes a replication of a former study by Cervin (see 33: 5903) attempting to determine the relationship between emotionality and persuasibility. The only aspect of the design altered was that herein Ss committed themselves publicly to opinions. Ss of both high or low emotionality were placed in pairs. They initially declared their opinion on a number of topics, discussed the question, then redeclared their opinion. The more highly emotional Ss tended to change their opinions more frequently than the lows when their opinions were made public. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4GD31C. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of concreteness-abstractness and anxiety on intellectual and motor performance.

Administered O. J. Harvey's "This I Believe" Test to undergraduates. 55 Ss were selected with concrete belief systems and 29 with abstract systems. Ss then played the role of arguing against their own stand on an ego-involving issue which was scored for 5 attributes: number to topics discussed, number of approaches utilized in the arguments, openness to negative evaluation, ethnocentrism, and absolutism. Ss also completed the WAIS Digit-Symbol Substitution test, a vocabulary test, an arithmetic test, the A-State scale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. On the basis of the anxiety measure, Ss were divided into "high" and "low" anxiety groups, and a 2-way analysis of variance (Concreteness-Abstractness * Anxiety) was run for each of the 8 dependent variables. Anxiety exercised a significant main effect on none of the 8 dependent variables, while concreteness-abstractness significantly affected 5. The interaction of these 2 variables, while in the anticipated direction in all instances, significantly affected performance only on the vocabulary measure. (29 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Characteristics of interactional behavior in a psychotherapy analogue.

Ss discussed topics with an interviewer (I) whose comments were controlled by a motor response made by S. In Exp. I, there was less increase in silence over trials, more negative attitude toward the I, and longer delay after I responses when these were interpretations rather than reflections. With a choice between interpretation and reflection, several personality differences were found between Ss preferring one rather than the other of the two classes of I response. Ss in Exp. 1 requested an I response less frequently when he disagreed with them, but only under conditions in which Ss were told the I would try to influence them. Under influence instructions there was a positive correlation between frequency of I responses and negative attitude toward him. In Exp. 3, frequency of I response was maintained over trials only for Ss high on the Social Desirability Scale. The attitude of high SD Ss was more negative when emotional, rather than neutral, topics were discussed. (15 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Persistence of inaccurate beliefs about the self: Perseverance effects in the classroom.

52 high school students were first exposed to either highly effective or thoroughly useless filmed instruction, leading, respectively, to their consequent success or failure. No-discounting (ND) Ss received no assistance in recognizing the relative superiority or inferiority of their instruction. Discounting (DS) Ss, by contrast, were subsequently shown the other instructional film, highlighting the obvious differences in instructional quality. Subsequent measures revealed that all Ss recognized the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of their instruction, although this contrast was clearer for DS Ss. Nevertheless, both DS and ND Ss continued to draw unwarranted inferences—in line with their initial outcomes—about their personal capacities. Dissociated and disguised measures of academic preferences and perceptions completed weeks later showed that the continuing impact of initial outcomes was generally greater for DS than for ND Ss. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Associative learning of abstract and concrete nouns and their subject-drawn pictorial representations.

Conducted 2 experiments to examine undergraduates' associative learning and pictorial representations of 48 concrete and 48 abstract noun pairs. In Exp. I, 24 Ss drew their own pictures of each noun. In Exp. II, another 24 Ss chose S-drawings that best represented their subjective meaning of the word referents. These Ss also received pretraining in labelling the S-drawings. Results from both experiments show that recall of noun pairs was superior to recall of S-drawn picture pairs. These findings conflict with the literature on picture and word paired-associate learning. In addition, concreteness of items facilitated recall. In Exp. I, concrete S-drawings were significantly better retrieval cues than abstract S-drawings. Results are discussed in terms of Pavio's theory of verbal and imagery processes of memory. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Compliance, temptation, and conflicting instructions.

Examined compliance with prohibitive instructions persisting across time and situations. 88 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-grade males were initially placed in a temptation situation where instructional consistency, threat intensity, and experimenter surveillance were manipulated (Bender Gestalt Test for Young Children). 21–30 days later, instructional control was assessed in an ostensibly unrelated situation where an unfamiliar experimenter permitted Ss to emit the formerly forbidden behavior. Results show that the extension of prohibitive control across time was significantly reduced by contradictions between instruction-givers. Findings are interpreted in terms of an algebraic-summation model of discriminative functions combined with generalization. The crucial role of establishment of instructional control in the subsequent development of self-control is discussed. (39 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Increasing the accuracy of self-recording in speech-anxious undergraduates through the use of self-monitoring training and reliability enhancement procedures.

28 undergraduates in a speech anxiety treatment program served as Ss in a study designed to evaluate procedures for improving the accuracy of self-recording. Treatment consisted of repeated exposure to "real-life" public speaking situations with Ss held responsible for evaluating their progress by self-monitoring (SM) objective indicators of anxiety (i.e., frequency of speech disfluencies) during 3 treatment sessions. Self-monitored speeches were unobtrusively recorded to compare the number of disfluencies that were self-recorded and the number actually emitted. Between the 1st and 2nd treatment sessions, Ss were exposed to 1 set of training procedures (SM training or training control) and 1 set of instructional strategies (reliability enhancement package or accuracy instructions). Results indicate that (a) SM training was more effective than the training control in increasing the accuracy of SM, (b) reliability enhancement procedures were more effective than accuracy instructions only when the target behavior was easily discriminable, and (c) a combination of SM training and reliability enhancement strategies proved most effective in improving self-recording accuracy. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Modelling and instructional effects as a function of conceptual level.

Investigated the effects of conceptual level (CL) and training mode (modeling and instructions) on 3 problem-solving skills: problem definition, generation of alternatives, and choice behavior. 32 high and 32 low CL Ss (female undergraduates) were randomly assigned to 4 training conditions: instructions, modeling, instructions plus modeling, and control. Data indicate minimal support for the matching model. Modeling was an effective method in facilitating alternative generation. All 3 training conditions were effective in choice selection. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of including task variables in a matching model paradigm. Recommendations concerning future matching model studies are made. (French summary) (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Physiological and comparative psychology: Current research interests.

316 members of the American Psychological Association Division 6 (physiological and comparative psychology) completed a questionnaire concerning their research Ss, methods, and topics. Results show that the primary Ss were animals (particularly rats); the most frequent methods were behavioral observations and lesioning or electrophysiological techniques; and the most favored topics were learning and memory, perception and emotion, and development. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relationship between competitiveness and empathy in 6- and 7-year-olds.

Tested the proposition that competitiveness and a competitive instructional set would suppress the expression of empathy in 6- and 7-yr-old children. The Feshbach and Roe test of empathy was administered to 84 Ss while they were preparing either to compete or to cooperate with another child on a game. Boys rated by teachers as highly competitive were less empathic than less competitive boys; no difference was found for girls. There was no evidence that the Ss' empathy was influenced by the manipulation of instructional set. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)