Exploring the Effects of Attitudes Toward the Death Penalty on Capital Sentencing Verdicts.

Attitudes toward the death penalty are multifaceted and strongly held, but little research outside of the death-qualification literature has focused on the role that such attitudes and beliefs play in jurors' capital sentencing verdicts. A single item is insufficient to properly measure attitudes toward the death penalty; therefore, a new 15-item, 5-factor scale was constructed and validated. Use of this scale in 11 studies of capital jury decision making found a large effect of general support of the death penalty on sentencing verdicts as well as independent aggravating effects for the belief that the death penalty is a deterrent and the belief that a sentence of life without parole nonetheless allows parole. These effects generally were not completely mediated by, nor did attitudes moderate the effects of, aggravating and mitigating factors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading strategies of fast and slow readers.

Evaluated in 3 S-paced experiments reading patterns at the word, line, and sentence levels for fast and slow readers. A moving-window method was used to collect word reading times for natural texts. At the reading level, reading times of word N were influenced by features of word N–2 for fast (but not slow) Ss. The lag effect shown by fast Ss indicates that they continue to process a word when it is no longer in view. Both reader groups processed many new arguments (NAs) from a sentence. However, fast Ss exhibited greater NA effects relative to lines, whereas slow Ss exhibited greater NA effects relative to sentences. Results are discussed in terms of a buffer-and-integrate model of reading comprehension. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-verbalization and emotional arousal.

Investigated certain assumptions derived from A. Ellis' theory relating implicit verbalization to emotional arousal. Emotional responses (GSR and respiration changes) of 18 undergraduates instructed to silently read sequences of affectively loaded sentences were compared with those of 9 Ss who read neutral sentences. The relationship between relevance to S of the content of the sentences and level of emotional response was investigated, as was the effect of sentence type (observation, inference, or evaluative conclusion) on level of emotional response. Results were that Ss showed a significantly greater response to affectively loaded than to neutral sentences on 2 out of 3 responses measures. Neither relevance nor sentence type were found to have any significant effect. Results were interpreted as offering only partial support for the theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of source magnification of cognitive effort on attitudes: An information-processing view.

In Exp I 120 undergraduates viewed a videotape of 1 or 3 speakers presenting 1 or 3 arguments in favor of a counterattitudinal position. The 3-source/3-argument message produced significantly more persuasion than any of the other conditions, which did not differ from each other. It is suggested that each time a speaker appears, the recipient "gears up" to process the message and that if either speaker or argument is repeated, further thinking about the arguments is minimal. Exp II (30 Ss) excluded an alternative to this processing interpretation by showing that Ss exposed to the multiple-source/multiple-argument message did not infer that the pool of proproposal arguments was larger than that inferred by other Ss. In Exp III (100 Ss), Ss exposed to 3 compelling arguments purportedly produced by 3 different persons generated more positive thoughts and were more persuaded than Ss who read the same high quality arguments presumably generated by 1 person. However, Ss exposed to 3 weak arguments purportedly produced by 3 different persons generated more negative thoughts and were less persuaded than Ss who read the same low quality arguments attributed to 1 source. Overall, results indicate that increasing the number of sources of a message increases thinking about the message content. This increased thinking can result in either increased or decreased persuasion, depending on the cogency of the message arguments. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive dissonance in an intergroup context.

42 student members of a campus group supporting Ronald Reagan in the 1980 presidential election participated in a study of the effects of group membership on dissonance reduction. In a 2?×?2 factorial design, half of the Ss were asked to write arguments contrary to their attitudes, whereas the other half were required to write such arguments. Half of the Ss were then asked to advocate a position that was counter to the attitude that defined their membership in the group. The other half produced arguments that were counter to attitudes relevant to but not definitional of group membership. It was predicted that attitude change would be used as a way to reduce dissonance only by those Ss who freely wrote arguments counter to nondefinitional attitudes. Attitude change was not possible, however, for Ss who freely produced arguments counter to a definitional attitude; these Ss were expected to misattribute their arousal to the existence of a competing out-group and to reduce their dissonance by derogating that group. Results supported these predictions. The importance of group membership in affecting attitude change is discussed. (10 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Writing and revising persuasive documents: Cognitive demands.

In 2 experiments, 40 graduate and 60 undergraduate students wrote preliminary and final drafts of a persuasive document. In Exp I, the need for Ss to comply with mechanics (i.e., punctuation and spelling), to form complete sentences, and to sequence their ideas, respectively, were eliminated one at a time from preliminary-draft formats. The elimination of sentence-formation and sequence operations produced corresponding increments in persuasive argument production. In Exp II, Ss with average verbal ability (as assessed by the Scholastic Aptitude Test) benefited more from the elimination of these structure operations than did Ss with low verbal ability. When allowed to freely choose their typical preliminary-draft format, Ss with average verbal ability usually selected proposition-based formats (e.g., lists, outlines, and diagrams) that dispensed with the need for structure operations. Ss with average verbal ability also produced more sentences, more arguments per sentence, and fewer mechanical errors than did those with low verbal ability. In both experiments, comparatively few new arguments were constructed during revision. (21 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intimations of mortality: Integrative simplification as a precursor of death.

Tested the hypothesis that a "terminal drop" in cognitive functioning occurs a few years prior to death. Letters written during the last 10 yrs of life were selected from the published correspondence of 18 eminent individuals (such as Freud and Napoleon) and scored for integrative complexity—a variable related to the degree of integration and differentiation in information processing. The overall analysis supported the terminal drop hypothesis. The predicted decline in complexity was found during the 5 yrs prior to death among Ss who died of protracted illness or old age but only in the year immediately prior to death among Ss who died suddenly. There was no relation between complexity and age, and the mean complexity scores of men were higher than those of women. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Biased reporting of therapist–patient sexual intimacy.

To investigate bias in reports of therapist–patient sexual intimacy, information about 559 patients who were sexually intimate with their previous therapists was collected via questionnaire from 318 psychologists who subsequently saw these patients in therapy. Psychologists, the experimental Ss in the present study, were predominantly aged 40–49 yrs, and 64% were male. It was found that Ss who reported that no harm occurred to patients as a result of therapist–patient sexual intimacy (SI) admitted twice the prevalence of SI between patients and themselves than did Ss in general. Those Ss who had experienced SI with patients were less likely to report adverse effects of SI either for patients or for therapy. Fewer Ss with a history of SI than those without reported anger toward offending therapists, and fewer recommended punishment. A higher percentage of female than male Ss reported anger toward offenders and recommended punishment, yet women did not rate the effects of SI as more harmful than did men. In general, anger toward offending therapists and recommendations for punishment were associated with the degree to which patients were thought to have been harmed. Ss who had been consultants to a greater number of other therapists about sexual contact with patients reported relatively more cases in which therapy ended soon after SI began than did Ss who were consulted by fewer therapists. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Analysis of the treatment effects of simulation instructions in the application of the real simulating model of hypnosis.

385 Ss were given a sentence completion and a word association test. Later, 12 high- and low-susceptible Ss were asked before and after the induction to hypnosis to complete a test battery containing the 2 tests. Insusceptible Ss simulated hypnosis for an E who was blind as to S's susceptibility to trance. Critical comparison was between initial testing and testing before hypnotic induction was attempted. Results support the hypothesis. Simulators differed in their performance on the sentence completion test, showing less evidence of conflict after receiving instructuions to role play. Hypnotic Ss showed no difference between the 2 testings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attraction and repulsion by life and death in suicidal and in normal children.

Attraction and repulsion by life and death in 52 suicidal and 58 normal 6–12 yr olds were measured through responses to questions that followed fairy-tale stories. Each story represented 1 of the 4 attitudes. Parallel forms of the test were administered in a time interval of 4 wks. Analyses showed that the 4 attitudes were distinguishable from each other and that the response profile of the suicidal Ss was significantly different from that of normal Ss. Suicidal Ss, in contrast to normal Ss, showed a high degree of repulsion by life and attraction to death and a low degree of attraction to life and repulsion by death. In addition, in suicidal Ss the 4 attitudes were more distinguishable from each other but at the same time were more conflictual. The correlations between the scores of the 1st administrations indicate that 3 of the 4 attitudes have a moderate reliability for both normal and suicidal children. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Personality differences in spontaneous personality inferences at encoding.

Examined the relationship between individual differences on a trait measure with behavioral correlates—a balanced authoritarianism (F) scale developed by D. Byrne (1974)—and the content of stimulus sentences and their related dispositional retrieval cues. Two sets of sentences were developed in pretesting with 33 undergraduates. In the 1st set, events suggested a consensual disposition for each sentence actor to either high-F (HF) or low-F (LF) Ss. In the 2nd set, events suggested a different consensual disposition to HF and LF Ss. 38 HF and 39 LF undergraduates then read both sets of sentences for a "memory study." Consensual dispositions and semantic associates to the actors were used to cue recall. For the 1st set, there was a significant interaction between S type, sentence type, and cue type. LF dispositions were more effective retrieval cues for LF than for HF Ss. Ss had little accurate awareness of having made trait inferences. No significant effects were found for HF cues alone or for the 2nd sentence set. Results indicate that HF and LF Ss differ in their spontaneous social inferences about others and have little awareness of making these inferences. Implications for integrating trait and cognitive approaches to personality are discussed. (33 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Misattribution of dissonance and behaviour-consistent attitude change.

Examined the prediction that people who have misattributed dissonance arousal to an external source may come to question the appropriateness of this attribution and may then be motivated to alter their attitudes. This was tested by having an experimenter discredit the plausibility of an external source after misattribution had presumably occurred. 80 female undergraduates participated in the study, with 16 of these Ss serving as controls. 64 Ss were given a pill described as having either unpleasant side effects or no side effects and then were committed to write counterattitudinal essays under high-choice conditions. Some Ss were then told that a mistake had been made and that they had actually been given the other form of the pill. As predicted, Ss who had initially been led to believe that the pill had aversive side effects but were later told that it did not manifested behavior-consistent attitude change. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitudes toward life and death in suicidal, normal, and chronically ill children: An extended replication.

Evaluated the attitudes toward life and death held by 23 6–12 yr old suicidal children, 28 6–22 yr old chronically ill children, and 33 6–22 yr old normal children by examining 4 attitudes toward life and death: attraction to life, repulsion by life, attraction to death, and repulsion by death. The measurement of the intensities of these attitudes was obtained by means of the Ss' quantitative responses to questions that followed fairy tale stories. Each of the stories represented 1 of the 4 attitudes. Parallel forms of the test were administered in a time interval of 6 wks. ANOVA showed that the 4 attitudes were distinguishable from each other. The response profiles of suicidal Ss showed significantly lower repulsion by death than those of normal Ss. Chronically ill Ss presented the highest degree of repulsion by life and scored higher than normal Ss on attraction to death. On repulsion by death, they scored higher than suicidal Ss but lower than normal children. All Ss scored well on attraction to life. Findings document the construct validity of the theoretical model. (13 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Constructing macrostructure for expository text.

In Exp I, 108 (36 Ss at each level) 3rd, 5th, and 7th graders and 36 graduate students read short expository paragraphs and performed tasks that required the generation of macrostructure. Ss chose the best title, wrote a summary sentence, or wrote 1 additional sentence for each paragraph. Some paragraphs were not well structured; others contained an anomalous sentence. Results show that performance improved with age. The title task was easier than the summary task, which in turn was easier than the next-sentence task. Only adult Ss reflected the presence of anomalous information, and the effects were different on each of the 3 tasks. In Exp II, the title task with 4 response options was administered to 24 undergraduates. Results show that Ss broadened their representations to encompass the deviant sentence in both related and unrelated paragraphs. In the summary-sentence task, proficient adults—who monitored their own comprehension—responded like children. It is suggested that children need instruction variations in both task and in text, introduced gradually and systematically, in order to deal with potential sources of difficulty. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

When tactical pronouncements of change become real change: The case of reciprocal persuasion.

In 3 experiments, Ss' public statements of attitude change conformed to the norm of reciprocity, in that the most change on a topic was accorded to a persuader who had yielded to the S's earlier persuasive attempt on a prior topic, and the least such change was accorded to a persuader who had resisted the S's persuasive attempt. This tendency was unaffected by perceptions of the persuader's likability and intelligence, personal relevance of the topic, and strength of the arguments. Private change matched the pattern of public change only when the arguments Ss received were strong, and Ss could (mistakenly) attribute much of their reciprocation-induced change to the cogency of the arguments. Implications are discussed for the internalization of socially desirable conduct. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Time, awareness, and order of presentation in opinion change.

Primacy-recency was investigated as a function of time interval interpolated between the presentation of the opposing arguments and of the level of awareness of the manipulatory intent of the experimenter. Utilizing the pretest—experimental treatment—posttest design, 210 Ss were made differentially aware of the manipulatory intent of the experimenter. Half of the Ss were read the opposing arguments in immediate succession while the other half had a 2-week time interval interpolated between the argument presentations. Results indicated that those Ss who were unaware of manipulatory intent yielded a significant recency effect. Recency was minimized with those Ss who were made differentially aware of manipulatory intent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Heuristic versus systematic information processing and the use of source versus message cues in persuasion.

In Exp I, 183 undergraduates read a persuasive message from a likable or unlikable communicator who presented 6 or 2 arguments on 1 of 2 topics. High involvement (HI) Ss anticipated discussing the message topic at a future experimental session, whereas low-involvement (LI) Ss anticipated discussing a different topic. For HI Ss, opinion change was significantly greater given 6 arguments but was unaffected by communicator likability. For LI Ss, opinion change was significantly greater given a likable communicator but was unaffected by the argument's manipulation. In Exp II with 80 similar Ss, HI Ss showed slightly greater opinion change when exposed to 5 arguments from an unlikable (vs 1 argument from a likable) communicator, whereas LI Ss exhibited significantly greater persuasion in response to 1 argument from a likable (vs 5 arguments from an unlikable) communicator. Findings support the idea that HI leads message recipients to employ a systematic information processing strategy in which message-based cognitions mediate persuasion, whereas LI leads recipients to use a heuristic processing strategy in which simple decision rules mediate persuasion. Support was also obtained for the hypothesis that content- vs source-mediated opinion change would result in greater persistence. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

"Self Verbalization and Emotional Arousal": Erratum.

Reports an error in the original article by David C. Rimm and Stuart B. Litvak (Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1969[April],74[2],181-187). On page 187 of the article corrections need to be made in the first and second paragraphs. (The following abstract of this article originally appeared in record 1969-09037-001.) Investigated certain assumptions derived from A. Ellis' theory relating implicit verbalization to emotional arousal. Emotional responses (GSR and respiration changes) of 18 undergraduates instructed to silently read sequences of affectively loaded sentences were compared with those of 9 Ss who read neutral sentences. The relationship between relevance to S of the content of the sentences and level of emotional response was investigated, as was the effect of sentence type (observation, inference, or evaluative conclusion) on level of emotional response. Results were that Ss showed a significantly greater response to affectively loaded than to neutral sentences on 2 out of 3 responses measures. Neither relevance nor sentence type were found to have any significant effect. Results were interpreted as offering only partial support for the theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Use of semantic context by patients with Alzheimer's disease.

Used semantic-priming procedures to examine limitations in the use of semantic context by 18 patients (mean age 68.9 yrs) with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and to determine whether any such contextual effects were mediated solely through automatic processes or whether attentional processes were also involved. Three tasks were applied to examine the effect of semantic context on the performance of 18 normal elderly Ss (mean age 67.2 yrs), 18 normal young Ss (mean age 24.1 yrs), and the AD Ss. When normal and AD Ss were asked to decide whether a given item was a member of a certain category, their response times were equally affected by the item's dominance in the category. The time that AD Ss took to recognize a word was actually affected more by the semantic context provided by a priming sentence than was that of normal Ss. When asked to generate the final word of an incomplete sentence, AD Ss performed very poorly unless potential responses were highly constrained by sentence context. (31 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)