Affecting the salience of the social responsibility norm: effects of past help on the response to dependency relationships.

A series of experiments by the authors assumes that many people in our society are motivated to aid others who are dependent upon them because such help is prescribed by a "social responsibility norm." The present study also assumes that prior help can increase the salience of this norm. In a 2 X 2 X 2 factorial design using 80 Ss (college women), ? of the Ss were individually helped by a peer (E's confederate) on a preliminary task, while the others were not aided. After this, the Ss worked on another task under the supposed supervision of yet another peer, with ? of the Ss being told the supervisor was highly dependent upon their work and the others told she was less dependent upon them. The 1st peer would supposedly learn of their work in ? of the cases but not in the other ?. The previously helped Ss tended to exert the greatest effort in behalf of their dependent peer. A self-report scale assessing social responsibility tendencies was significantly correlated with the effort measure in the Prior Help-High Dependency condition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of success and failure on cheating behavior.

Studied the relationship between cheating and previous success-failure experiences in 32 college students. Ss were informed that if they performed above average on a free-recall task they would receive bonus credit. Half of them were told their performance on a 1st test was poor and half were told that their initial performance was good. During a subsequent test, half of the words were left "carelessly" exposed so that Ss could copy them if they wished. Significant cheating occurred in the success but not in the failure condition, suggesting that failure following initial success may be more repugnant than failure following initial failure. Cheating elevated the number of recorded exposed words, while attention factors and/or arousal reduced recall of stored unexposed words. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of stress on the performance of normally anxious and high-anxious subjects under chance and skill conditions.

Studied whether a belief in personal control over a stressor would improve the performance of high-anxious Ss. Ss were 30 normal-anxious and 30 high-anxious undergraduates, classified according to Taylor Manifest Anxiety scale scores. The 2 groups did not differ on a complex learning task under nonstress conditions. Under a stress-chance condition, in which Ss were told they had no control over a shock stressor, the performance of high-anxious Ss was disrupted while that of the normals was not. In a stress-skill condition, Ss were told that they could control the stressor through their performance. Normals showed a marked improvement in performance in the stress-skill condition, but high-anxious Ss showed no significant improvement. (32 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Curiosity, achievement, and avoidant motivation as determinants of epistemic behavior.

Measures of n Achievement (n Ach), Test Anxiety (Anx), level of Academic performance (AL), and "Involvement" (Inv) in task content, differentiated students tested for Rote retention and Comprehension of written material under 2 conditions of knowledge seeking: (a) achievement oriented, and (b) curiosity oriented. Predictions from Atkinson's Motive-Expectancy-Incentive (M-E-I) model regarding the superiority of High n Ach, Low Anx over Low n Ach, High Anx Ss, and of High over Low AL Ss, were upheld for Comprehension, but not for Rote, in the Achievement condition. As predicted from a combination of the M-E-I model and Berlyne's theory of epistemic curiosity, superiority of the High AL, High Inv over the Low AL, Low Inv Ss held for both Comprehension and Rote in the Curiosity condition. Hypothesized differences across conditions were partially confirmed. (19 ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Physical pain and the goal of aversively stimulated aggression.

Two experiments were designed to demonstrate that painful environmental conditions evoke aggressive inclinations directed toward doing harm even when the available target is not responsible for the suffering. In both studies, 94 female undergraduates kept one hand in a tank of water that was either painfully cold or much warmer while they delivered rewards and punishments to another woman supposedly supervising their work. Half of the Ss in each condition were informed that their punishments might hurt their partner, whereas the others were told that these punishments probably would be helpful. In Exp I, the 2 variables interacted to affect Ss' behavior only during the 1st work period, whereas Exp II yielded interaction in both periods for the reward measure. In general, Ss exposed to the warmer water tended to deliver the greatest number of rewards when they had been told punishment would hurt, whereas those in the cold-water condition were least rewarding if they had been informed punishment would injure their partner. Results show that the aversive stimulation evokes an instigation to do harm and that the information about the possibility of hurting the partner serves as a goal cue facilitating the overt expression of the instigation. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Protestant work ethic and reactions to negative performance evaluations on a laboratory task.

Conducted 2 experiments in which male college students scoring high on the Protestant Ethic (PE) Scale performed better on repetitive, digit-copying tasks than those scoring low. In Exp I, 84 Ss told by the experimenter that they were doing well improved their performance regardless of their PE endorsement; when told that they were doing poorly, the performance of high PEs improved and low PEs declined. In Exp II, 72 Ss were told that their performance level was lower than their co-workers', but that their co-workers' superiority would bring them an unearned reward. High PE Ss performed at a high level and felt neutral about the task; low PE Ss performed poorly and liked the task, suggesting that they welcomed the unearned reward. Findings indicate that reactions to negative performance evaluations are moderated by endorsement of the Protestant work ethic. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

An experimental study of reinforcement and participant satisfaction.

The Es attempted to condition each S to accept a "relayer role" (see 35: 743). The relayer in a 5-man circle net collects information from the participant on one side and then passes that information plus his own to the participant on the other side. He has no opportunity to solve the problem himself. Ss were encouraged to perform the "relayer role" and were told that the group had succeeded only when they performed this role. For the questionnaire administered at the end of Trial 4, all of the satisfaction questions except task interest were interrelated in an essentially unidimensional or single-factored fashion and were significantly corelated with the number of rewards on Trials 1-4. At the end of 10 trials, however, these same items had separated into 2 independent factors. 1 factor repreesnted an evaluation of group performance and was correlated with rewards on Trials 1-10. The 2nd factor represented an evaluation of personal performance and was not related to rewards on Trials 1-10. This latter finding is not surprising in light of the fact that the Ss never did solve the problem themselves and many did not seem to understand who was solving it. The Ss with an understanding of the reward contingencies were more "satisfied" than those who did not believe their productivity was instrumental to reinforcement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Liking for the group and the perceived merit of the group's behavior.

Paris of Ss were told, individually, that their partners were congenial and they would probably like them (high like), or the converse (low like). Ss were then separated and given an artillery gunnery problem in which they were to judge the accuracy of their "observer's" range estimates. Both Ss in each pair thought the other 3 was the "observer," which was actually a taped recording piped to each S. High like Ss judged their "observer's" estimates as more accurate than low like Ss. Ss who had been led to believe that they had "observers" of high proficiency in range estimates tended to judge the estimate as more accurate than when they had low proficiency "observers." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's ability to adjust their standards for evaluating comprehension.

144 children 8 and 10 yrs of age listened to essays that contained either false statements or inconsistencies. They were asked to indicate which essays had problems in them. The 1st group of Ss was simply informed that some of the essays contained problems. A 2nd group was additionally told that some of the statements would be false and was given examples of falsehoods. A 3rd group was told instead that some of the essays would be inconsistent and was given examples of inconsistencies. Under neutral instructions, the rate of problem detection was quite low for both age groups. Specific instructions helped Ss find problems. Moreover, the relative order of difficulty in finding falsehoods and inconsistencies shifted depending on the instructional set, suggesting that the instruction enabled Ss to adjust their standard of evaluation. (9 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of perceived environmental conditions during cooperation on intergroup attraction.

Predicted that intergroup attraction would most likely increase when Ss felt the environmental conditions interfered with successful cooperation as opposed to fostering a successful effort. Two groups of Ss (256 undergraduates) competed for extra credit and then cooperated to achieve a pre-determined performance level. In half of the cases, Ss were told that the environmental conditions were ideal and should facilitate performance, and in the other cases, room conditions were poor and could be an inhibitor. Half the groups were told that their cooperative efforts were successful, while other groups learned that their joint efforts failed. Intergroup attraction increased when the cooperative efforts succeeded, regardless of environmental conditions. However, when these efforts failed, intergroup attraction increased only if Ss believed environmental conditions could have inhibited their performance. Ss were most critical of the room when cooperative efforts failed and they had been told the room might be an inhibitor. Significant correlations indicated that the more Ss disparaged the room, the more attracted they were to out-group members. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Interactive effects of teaching strategy and personal locus of control on student performance and satisfaction.

Studied the relationships between personal locus of control (Rotter's Internal-External Control Scale), teaching discipline, student performance, and satisfaction. 54 undergraduates were randomly assigned to 2 teaching conditions. In the high discipline condition, Ss were exposed to a 2-hr "mini-course" on computer programming that adhered to 5 empirically derived dimensions of perceived high discipline. In the low discipline condition, Ss were handed identical computer programming materials and told to proceed at their own pace with no rules. Results show that Ss high on internal locus of control performed better under low discipline conditions, while high external control Ss performed better under high teacher discipline conditions. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Development of referential communication: Deciding that a message is uninformative.

Investigated whether young children typically attend to the age of the speaker when they lack knowledge of other communicative rules. Two experiments compared how children evaluate 3 types of uninformative messages (ambiguous, incomplete, inconsistent) and whether and why the speaker's age affects the evaluation of each. In Exp I, 22 1st and 22 4th graders played a referential communication game with either a peer or an adult speaker. In Exp II, 22 1st graders played the same referential communication game used in Exp I, but Ss who were interacting with the peer speaker were told that the speaker was very smart and Ss who were interacting with the adult speaker were told that the speaker was very stupid. Overall results indicate that incomplete messages were the easiest to evaluate and inconsistent messages were the most difficult. The evaluation of ambiguous messages was affected by the age of the S and the age of the speaker. Although older Ss attended solely to the quality of the message, 1st graders based their evaluations of ambiguous and inconsistent messages on the age of the speaker. Adult speakers' messages were evaluated more positively than peers' because the young Ss thought the adults were smart and therefore more likely to be good communicators. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Control of respiration as a means of controlling responses to threat.

111 undergraduates assessed the degree to which persons' physiological and psychological responses in a threatening situation might be altered by controlling respiration. Ss who (a) had a history of cardiac disease, (b) were taking medication that would influence heart rate, or (c) were engaged in any form of meditation were excluded from the study. After a 30-min rest period, Ss in a respiration-tracing condition began replicating their breathing patterns from the rest period; Ss in an attention-tracing condition participated in a comparable task that did not involve the control of respiration; and Ss in a no-tracing condition were not assigned any task. After the tracing manipulation was introduced, half of the Ss were assigned to a threat condition and informed that they would receive a series of painful electric shocks; the other Ss were assigned to a no-threat condition and informed that they would receive red light stimulation. Analyses of heart-rate and self-report data indicated that (a) the threat manipulation was effective; (b) controlling respiration did not reduce Ss' stress responses; and (c) Ss in the no-tracing condition were the only stressed Ss to show decreases in physiological arousal over time, an effect that may have been due to their use of a cognitive coping strategy. Findings do not provide evidence that control of respiration is an effective strategy for controlling stress but do suggest that, when not interfered with, Ss can employ relatively effective, self-generated cognitive coping strategies. (27 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Equity in effort: An explanation of the social loafing effect.

Previous researchers have demonstrated an effect termed social loafing: People expend less effort when working in groups than when working alone. The explanation of this decrement has been that people can get away with poor performance because their individual outputs are not identifiable; however, holding identifiability constant eliminates the loafing effect. Another possible explanation, which was tested in the present study with 42 female undergraduates, is that people, when working in groups, expect their co-performers to loaf and therefore reduce their own efforts to establish an equitable division of labor. Each S was told that she was going to participate in a test of shouting ability and was given an individual practice trial after being paired with another female confederate who ostensibly was also given an individual trial. When the experimenter left the room, the confederate told S that she had tried hard and would continue to do so or had tried hard but would not continue to do so. In a 3rd condition, the confederate made small talk until the experimenter returned. Results indicate, consistent with the hypothesis tested, that Ss whose original expectations were violated by new information regarding the confederate's intended level of effort matched their own efforts to these new expectations. Ss matched the confederate's level of effort whether their individual outputs were identifiable or not. As with identifiability, holding constant the expectations about partner performance eliminated the loafing effect. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Manipulating subjective expectancy through feedback: A laboratory study of the expectancy–performance relationship.

Investigated the form of the expectancy–performance relationship in a laboratory study of the performance of 132 undergraduates on a simple clerical task. As feedback after each of 8 trials, Ss were told that their performance was better, worse, or borderline. Ss recorded their subjective expectancies before each trial. Over all Ss, feedback condition had no impact on performance; but when 39 Ss whose reported expectancy did not match their assigned feedback were eliminated, a strong expectancy–performance relationship emerged. Ss having intermediate expectancy outperformed those whose expectancy was low or high. Examination of the nonbelievers supported the mediating role of cognitive variables in deciding how hard to work at this task. (8 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of anticipation of positive and negative outcomes on audience anxiety.

80 female Ss performed a task alone or before an observer (O). The O either witnessed Ss' performance passively or explicitly evaluated the performance. Half of the observed Ss were told that the evaluation was merely to provide help with a future task. Ss high in test anxiety showed better performance and less palmar sweat during the period of the task when evaluation was said to be a prelude to help than when it was not. Results support the hypothesis that evaluation apprehension induced by Os is due to anticipation of negative outcomes and does not follow anticipation of positive outcomes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Public versus private expectancy of success: Confidence booster or performance pressure?

In Exp I, private expectancies of success were manipulated by having 38 male and 26 female undergraduates complete a confidential preliminary test that was rigged to cause either success or failure. Ss furnished confidential self-reports of expectancies and were informed that their audience expected them to succeed in an anagram-solving task. Results show that Ss' private expectancies of success improved performance, while audience's expectations of success lowered performance. Findings were strongest for Ss low in trait self-consciousness and for males. In Exp II, 30 undergraduates completed a personality questionnaire and were told they had an integration score of 75. Ss were (1) told they were expected to do well on the basis of past research findings, (2) told they were expected to do well on the basis of the experimenter's theory, or (3) given no information about expectations. Results show that Condition 1 raised performance while Condition 2 lowered performance. Findings fit a model holding that audience expectations of success constitute performance pressure that harms performance except when substantial private confidence is created. (24 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conformity to peer-sponsored misconduct at four grade levels.

Used semantic differential and rating scales to measure resistance to endorsing peer-sponsored misbehavior, judgments of the wrongness of such behavior in the abstract, and attitudes toward self, mother, father, peers, and adults in 116 females and 117 males at 4 grade levels (Grades 3, 6, 8, and 11) at one school and 3 levels (Grades 3, 6, and 8) at another. Ss were instructed differentially that no one, peers or parents would be informed of their responses. Results support U. Bronfenbrenner's (see PA, Vol 43:5218 and 44:16460) findings that American children resist more under the parent and less under the peer than under the neutral condition. Ss did not grow more exacting grade by grade, nor did they remain stable in their judgments of wrongness. Resistance and judgment of wrongness were highly correlated and steadily declined to the 8th grade, with females consistently higher than males. Differences in resistance for sex, grade, and instruction remained even when variance associated with judgment of wrongness was reduced. Difference between schools, however, did not remain. A marked loss in favorableness toward adults provides a basis for explaining the results. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Choosing friends as activity partners: The role of self-monitoring.

Two experiments with 105 undergraduates assessed the involvement of self-monitoring (SM) processes in friendship. Exp I focused on the differential considerations that are involved when high SM and low SM Ss choose friends as partners for leisure-time activities. High SM Ss chose friends as activity partners on the basis of their friends' particular skills in the activity domain. Low SM Ss chose friends as activity partners on the basis of general feelings of liking for their friends. Exp II examined the internal structures of the preferred social worlds of high SM Ss and low SM Ss. High SM Ss preferred relatively partitioned and compartmentalized social worlds in which they would engage in particular activities only with specific partners. Low SM Ss preferred relatively homogeneous and undifferentiated social worlds in which they would spend time with friends who were globally similar to them. Implications for understanding the processes by which individuals facilitate the enactment of their characteristic behavioral orientations, as well as for understanding the nature of friendship itself, are discussed. (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The role of attention in "lie-detection."

Randomly assigned 80 male college students to 1 of 4 groups. Tape-recorded instructions directed Ss in Groups 1 and 2 to evaluate a psychological case history or a newspaper story, respectively. Group 3 read about a kidnapping after being told they were participating in a lie-detection experiment and would be questioned on the material later. Group 4 was given the same information as Group 3, but was told that they should not reveal the information when questioned. Galvanic skin responses (GSRs) were measured as Ss listened to tape-recorded questions on the material read; no verbal responses were made. The E then attempted to determine "blindly" which target information S had received by examining the GSRs. The number of Ss whose given information was successfully detected was significant in Groups 2, 3, and 4. Results suggest that simply attending to or focusing upon relevant information is a sufficient condition for detectability in a lie-detection situation. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)