Toward a social psychology of diagnosis: Similarity, attraction, and clinical evaluation.

Applied A. Byrne's (1971) similarity–attraction model in 2 studies of diagnostic bias. 56 clinicians and 56 undergraduates evaluated a client similar or dissimilar to themselves in political radicalism after hearing a taped interview with the client. Results for clinicians indicated no similarity–clinical judgment effect, but more radical Ss rated the client as having better therapy potential. Further, the more radical client was rated as less disturbed. Among students, the similar other was rated more favorably for therapeutic criteria. Similarity–attraction relationships were absent in both samples. Clinicians showed strong relationships between clinical and attraction ratings. An interactive, affective component to diagnosis is suggested. (3 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Meaningfulness of categorization and influence upon impression formation.

Tested the hypothesis that people will rely on chunks of information to the extent that they are meaningful in forming an overall assessment of a person. 20 master's level psychologists sorted 55 statements (made by a client in a therapy session) into groups of statements that seemed to belong together. Each category or group was then related on 12 personality dimensions relevant to counseling and therapy. Finally, Ss gave an overall rating of the person based on all categories of information. The meaningfulness of a category was defined by the number of items in it, by the extremity with which it was rated, and by its centrality within construct organization (as measured by loadings on the 1st component of a principal components analysis on the category by construct grid). Category influence was measured by the degree of correlation between each category's ratings and the ratings of the final judgment. While all 3 definitions of meaningfulness related significantly to category influence, centrality was a much more powerful predictor of category influence than item number or rating extremity. (French summary) (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluational reactions to spoken languages.

Regarding language as an identifying feature of a national or cultural group, English and French students were asked to evaluate English-speaking and French-speaking speakers. Bilinguists were used who recorded passages in both French and English. Ss rated on the basis of traits related to desirability in regard to friendship, e.g., dependability, intelligence, character, etc. As expected, English students rated those speaking in English more favorably; unexpectedly, so did the French students. The findings are interpreted in the light of the effect of cultural stereotypes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Sensation seeking, augmenting–reducing, and the perceived and preferred effects of drugs.

Administered the General and Disinhibition subscales of the Sensation-Seeking Scale to 78 undergraduates (60 females and 18 males) and obtained measures of augmenting–reducing; use of alcohol, tobacco, and cannabis; the degree of attribution of stimulant, depressant, and neutral effects to these drugs; and desirability ratings of stimulant and depressant effects ascribed to various drugs. Findings show that reducing correlated positively with both sensation-seeking measures. Seven of 9 personality-vs-drug-use correlations were positive and significant. The effects attributed to drugs generally did not differ by sex, personality, or use, but frequent drinkers attributed stimulant effects more strongly than depressant effects to alcohol, while infrequent drinkers did the opposite. The mean desirability ratings of stimulant and depressant drug effects correlated positively. High disinhibitors rated drug effects of both kinds more favorably than did low disinhibitors. A similar, more favorable evaluation by high than by low general sensation seekers was significant for males only. (69 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Individual differences in prototypicality judgments about trait categories.

Three studies demonstrated substantial individual differences in prototypicality judgments about trait categories. In Study 1, subjects twice rated instances of four personality trait categories, four concrete object categories, and one definitional category. For all nine categories, agreement between individuals was substantially lower (median r?=?.43) than the retest reliability of individual ratings (median r?=?.86). In Studies 2 and 3, subjects twice rated the prototypicality of characters from the film Twelve Angry Men as instances of seven trait dimensions. Agreement between individuals was again found to be substantially lower (median r?=?.56) than the retest reliability of individual ratings (median r?=?.81). These results may help to explain the unreliability of trait ratings based on examples of behavior (e.g., evaluation of employees or patients) and suggest that individual differences in the perception of prototypicality should be taken into account when comparing cross-situational with temporal consistency of behavior. Most generally, the results suggest a reconsideration of the nature of implicit personality theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Moral judgments, behaviour and cognitive style in young children.

Assessed level of moral maturity in 2 studies with middle-class 6-7 yr olds (n = 29), middle-class 3-4 yr olds (n = 35), and lower-class 3-4 yr olds (n = 37). For the older Ss, stories were used to elicit judgments about relative goodness or badness. Level of moral maturity was scored on the basis of S's awareness of the intentions of the actor as opposed to his reliance on consequences. For the younger Ss, a group of films depicting similar situations were shown. All Ss were then given a battery of tests (e.g., the Children's Embedded Figures Test) measuring cognitive style and rated by their teachers on behavior and personality items. In 6 yr olds, level of moral maturity was found to relate to the cognitive styles of reflection-impulsivity and field dependence-independence, but not to verbal intelligence. Ss characterized as immature in their moral judgments were more impulsive and field-dependent. Ss with higher-level moral judgments were also rated by their teachers as more attentive and reflective. In preschool samples, Ss highest on moral maturity were rated as less aggressive by their teachers, least impulsive in cognitive style and in the lower-class sample, more field-independent. (French summary) (20 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Processing personal information about well-known others and the self: The use of efficient cognitive schemata.

Investigated the efficiency with which personality information about highly familiar others and the self is processed and retained in memory. 18 undergraduates (aged 19–24 yrs) made yes/no personality ratings on 48 personal adjectives (e.g., resourceful, orderly). Half of the adjectives were rated for self-reference, whereas half were rated for applicability to a well-known other target person. Each S selected a highly familiar other to rate, and rating times (RTs) were recorded for all of the personality judgments. After the ratings, Ss were given an unexpected free recall test, in which they were required to write down as many of the personal adjectives as they could remember. Findings indicate that for both the self-referent and well-known other conditions, yes-rated recalled words had significantly shorter RTs than nonrecalled words. This pattern suggests the existence of efficient cognitive schemata for representing and interpreting personal information about these targets. A model of other-referent personal information processing is presented. Central to this model is the proposal that familiarity level is a critical determinant of the cognitive structures and processes implicated in other-referent processing. (French abstract) (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation between self- and other-acceptance and its moderation by identification.

Although psychologists and lay people share a common belief that positive self-regard is associated directly with positive regard for others, the influence of parameters such as the nature of the others and their perceived similarity to the self rarely is considered. To investigate the influence of the degree of identification with the others who are rated on self–other correlations, we examined the relation of self-ratings to ratings of same- and opposite-sex others in 60 preadolescent boys and 69 preadolescent girls. Each subject rated himself or herself and 8–20 classmates on 7 personality variables. Favorable self-ratings and ratings of same- and opposite-sex others were significantly positively associated in both groups: Girls exhibited similar self–other relations when rating same- and opposite-sex others; boys identified more strongly with their sex roles than girls and exhibited a stronger relation between self- and other-ratings when the others were of the same sex. We concluded that a positive relation between self- and other-acceptance is fairly robust, but the magnitude of the relation is moderated by the degree of identification with those rated. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluational reactions of bilingual and monolingual children to spoken languages.

Monolingual and bilingual French-Canadian children listened to tape recordings of children's voices, some in English, some in French, and rated each speaker's personality on 15 traits. Differences between the ratings assigned French and English voices by the subgroups were interpreted as indicative of differences in stereotyped reactions to French and English Canadians. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Marital roles, sex differences, and interpersonal attraction.

Tested the hypothesis that role and dispositional factors can alter the usual link between similarity and attraction. In 2 replications, 64 undergraduate females and 64 males with traditional or nontraditional attitudes toward sex roles and marriage (measured by the Marital Role Decisions Questionnaire) rated similar or dissimilar opposite-sex strangers on 3 attraction measures. Results show that sex and traditionality interacted with similarity in determining ratings of the strangers' general likability and personal role attraction (e.g., desirability as a dating partner), but not their functional role attraction (e.g., desirability as a debater on sex roles). The discussion suggests that previous attempts to find interactions have often failed because of a lack of correspondence between dispositional factors and similarity manipulations. Reinforcement and informational explanations could account for the overall findings, but communication factors of extremity and discrepancy could not. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reactions to intergroup similarity: Examination of the similarity-differentiation and the similarity-attraction hypotheses.

Hypothesized that intergroup similarity results in in-group–out-group differentiation rather than intergroup attraction, particularly when social identity is threatened. 66 female and 79 male undergraduates who had expressed their support for 2 issues relating to the equality of men and women were run in 28 pairs of opposite-sex groups. Each pair developed a written position on one of these issues. Intergroup belief similarity was manipulated using false feedback. Each group was led to believe that the other group affirmed or denied that the issue was of importance. The evidence did not support the similarity–differentiation hypothesis; rather, the similarity–attraction hypothesis was supported, particularly for female groups. Groups differentiated the out-group from their own group along stereotype and attitude dimensions in response to threat to social identity. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Judged happiness: Effects of mode of recall of positive and negative experiences.

Obtained ratings of happiness with life in general from 159 undergraduate Ss before or after estimates of how often they felt either delight or annoyance. Estimates were made both in terms of absolute frequency categories and in self-ratings, and half of the Ss were instructed to base their frequency ratings on detailed memories for actual events. Comparative ratings of delight were positively related to overall happiness, regardless of experimental condition, although the direction of correlation between comparative ratings of annoyance and overall happiness depended on the condition. For Ss who rated annoyance before happiness, those who reported relatively more annoyance than others gave lower ratings of general happiness when using vivid, detailed, recalled events, but not under nonvivid recall. The pattern was reversed when happiness was rated before annoyance. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attributions of personality based on physical appearance, speech, and handwriting.

Examined the effect of facial appearance, speech style, and handwriting on personality attributions made by 40 undergraduates to test 2 hypotheses: the source consistency hypothesis, which predicts that an actor will receive consistent attributions across all 3 types of information; and the differential information hypothesis, which predicts that different personality dimensions are used to differentiate the actors within each type of information. In a 3?×?6 multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) design, each S rated a single actor/information combination on scales of social evaluation, intellectual evaluation, activity, potency, emotionality, and sociability. Photographs of actors were differentiated primarily in terms of positive social and intellectual evaluation; the speech of actors was differentiated primarily along an activity dimension; and the writing of the actors was differentiated primarily along a potency dimension. Results support the differential information hypothesis and suggest that these 3 types of information about an actor may lead judges to use different personality dimensions. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of age and gender on perceived facial attractiveness.

Examined 2 alternative predictions: (1) that Ss would find others similar to themselves as most attractive or (2) that men would prefer younger women and women more mature men. 22 men and 25 women (aged 17–29 yrs), 16 men and 18 women (aged 30–49 yrs) and 18 men and 32 women (aged 50+ yrs) rated the physical attractiveness of 72 photographs of faces from similar age/gender categories. For all groups of Ss, perceived attractiveness declined with age of face, particularly for women's faces. In addition, most groups rated women's faces as more attractive than those of men, the exception being men under 30 yrs, who rated men higher. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Agreement, attraction, and self-esteem.

Explored the role of increased self-esteem in mediating the relationship between attitudinal agreement and interpersonal attraction by creating conditions known to produce differential attraction and then testing for corresponding changes in self-esteem. 280 undergraduates were given a questionnaire measuring attitudes and self-esteem and were then exposed to a confederate student who (a) held either similar or dissimilar attitudes on a variety of current issues; and (b) had given them either a positive, a negative, or no personal evaluation. Posttreatment confederate evaluations and measures of self-esteem indicate that although the attraction manipulation was highly successful, no support was found for the notion that increased self-esteem was even a concomitant, let alone a determinant, of attraction. The only reliable posttreatment increase in self-esteem came from Ss who had been negatively evaluated, and appeared to be defensive in character. In addition, Ss receiving similar attitudes plus positive personal evaluations liked the stranger more, and those receiving dissimilar attitudes plus negative evaluations liked the stranger less, than did Ss who received the attitude similarity-dissimilarity manipulation only. These latter results suggest that current models of attraction in which the proportion of positive elements is the crucial factor should be reformulated. (French summary) (16 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Training, motivation, and personality as determinants of the effectiveness of brainstorming groups and individuals.

Presented 3 problem-solving tasks to groups of male undergraduates in 2 experiments to (a) assess the influence of motivation, training, and personality on group effectiveness (using high or low interpersonal-effectiveness groups as measured by Ss' scores on 5 subscales of the CPI), and (b) compared the effect of motivation and training on the performance of real and nominal brainstorming groups, using individuals and groups low on the personality variable in Exp. I. High interpersonal-effectiveness groups were found to respond favorably to either motivation or training but not to both together. Low interpersonal-effectiveness groups were resistant to both manipulations taken together or separately. Nominal groups were shown to have a significant but only a slight superiority over real groups. When all previous studies are taken into consideration, the forced participation procedure used in this study resulted in a level of real group performance that was nearly identical to the performance of nominal groups. Results contradict previous brainstorming studies that used an unstructured procedure. (21 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Critical abilities, graduate education (Biology vs. English), and belief in unsubstantiated phenomena.

Compared the responses of 96 Canadian graduate students in biology and English who were asked to read one of 3 abstracts that made a particular claim. The abstracts differed in their apparent scientific relevance, but none contained crucial, comparative, or control group type information. The Ss' readiness in recognizing that crucial information was missing was assessed. Although biology students in general required fewer cues, they did not perform significantly differently from the English students on the less scientific texts. There was a statistically significant relationship between performance on the critical abilities measure and strength of belief in paranormal phenomena. Part of the reason why people endorse belief in unsubstantiated phenomena may be a result of their critical ability skills being relatively domain specific. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Lexical competition during second-language listening: Sentence context, but not proficiency, constrains interference from the native lexicon.

A spoken language eye-tracking methodology was used to evaluate the effects of sentence context and proficiency on parallel language activation during spoken language comprehension. Nonnative speakers with varying proficiency levels viewed visual displays while listening to French sentences (e.g., Marie va décrire la poule [Marie will describe the chicken]). Displays depicted several objects including the final noun target (chicken) and an interlingual near-homophone (e.g., pool) whose name in English is phonologically similar to the French target (poule). Listeners’ eye movements reflected temporary consideration of the interlingual competitor when hearing the target noun, demonstrating cross-language lexical competition. However, competitor fixations were dramatically reduced when prior sentence information was incompatible with the competitor (e.g., Marie va nourrir… [Marie will feed…]). In contrast, interlingual competition from English did not vary according to participants’ rated proficiency in French, even though proficiency reliably predicted other aspects of processing behavior, suggesting higher proficiency in the active language does not provide a significant independent source of control over interlingual competition. The results provide new insights into the nature of parallel language activation in naturalistic sentential contexts. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)