Effects of public and private failure on self-evaluation.

This study "examined how variations in the strength of social pressures, acting upon a person in the direction of lowering his self-evaluation, affect the evaluations the individual assigns to the quality of his performance, and to his more or less closely relevant abilities, after he has failed on a task… . Ss who made low evaluations of their performances did not evaluate these abilities differently under different experimental conditions… " but those who made high evaluations did. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:1HJ23S. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Similarity of performance as influenced by interaction, self-esteem, and birth order.

"This study concerns the relationship between the amount of interaction between two persons in a group and the acquisition by one of the persons of an attribute of the other. It is hypothesized that the greater the interaction between the two, the more will one acquire an attribute of the other… . Twenty groups of six subjects each (all college students) were formed to carry out a word assembly task so arranged that one of the six would be the center of the interaction." The findings were that similarity to the performance of the central figure was noted for the groups in general. Even more so, the factors of degree of prior attraction to the central figure, degree of prior acquaintance among Ss, S's self-esteem, and S's order of birth in their family influence the experimental behavior. Low attraction, minimal prior acquaintance among Ss, higher self-esteem, and those born later in the sibling series facilitated S's performance in the task. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of group expectations and self-esteem upon self-evaluation.

This study explores the effect of a specific level of achievement upon an individual's evaluations of his performance when the achievement is relative to an aspiration level set by a group and to the member's stabilized expectations about himself as represented by his self-esteem. Ss were assigned to one of 4 conditions, composed of the combinations of high and low group expectations and relevance and non-relevance of task to the purposes of the group. Half of the Ss within each experimental condition were allowed to succeed and the other half made to fail. Several specific hypotheses within this framework were tested. "The group's expectations appear to have been more potent as a scale of reference than the individual's self-esteem in determining his evaluation of his performance. When the influence of the group was weakest (task was non-relevant) persons high in self-esteem… differed in the way they evaluated their performance. When the influence of the group was strongest (task was relevant) there was no difference in the way that persons high or low in self-esteem rated their achievement." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Familial eating concerns and psychopathological traits: causal implications of transgenerational effects

The reducing end C-1 of (1-->4)-linked alpha-D-oligogalacturonides (oligogalacturonides), with degrees of polymerization (dp) 3 and 13, was coupled to tyramine via reductive amination in the presence of sodium cyanoborohydride. These derivatives were purified in milligram quantities and structurally characterized. Tyramination of trigalacturonic acid proceeded to completion. The yield of apparently homogeneous tyraminated trigalacturonic acid after desalting was 35%. Derivatization of tridecagalacturonide with tyramine was incomplete. The tyraminated tridecagalacturonide was purified to apparent homogeneity using semipreparative high-performance anion-exchange chromatography (HPAEC) with a yield of 30%. The structures of the derivatized oligogalacturonides were established by 1H NMR spectroscopy and electrospray mass spectrometry.     

Similarity to a model and self-evaluation.

"An adult model was presented to groups of grade school children as being either highly similar or of little similarity to the children in background and other attributes. To half of the groups he described himself as being high in abilities necessary for deep-sea diving. To the other half he described himself as being deficient in these abilities. He also described a number of his preferences relevant to deep-sea diving." Ss evaluated themselves on these abilities before and after being exposed to the adult, and expressed their own preferences regarding diving. Ss tended to agree with the preferences of the diver when he was perceived as being similar to themselves. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4FC57B. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Altruism reconsidered: The effect of denying feedback on a victim's status to empathic witnesses.

Th empathy–altruism hypothesis interprets the empathy–helping link as evidence of true altruism. The negative state relief model interprets the same relation as an artifact of egoistic sadness-reduction. Neither view expresses the possibility that empathic concern reflects a general sensitivity to the emotional state of the victim and a specific sensitivity to vicarious joy at the resolution of the victim's needs. It is proposed that the prospect of empathic joy, conveyed by feedback (FB) from the help recipient, is essential to the special tendency of empathic witnesses to help. In neither of the alternative models does goal attainment depend on FB. Results of an experimental contrast were consistent with the empathic joy hypothesis and inconsistent with the alternatives. Empathically aroused witnesses offered help reliably to a person in distress only when they expected FB on the result; when denied FB, empathic witnesses were no more likely to help than their nonempathic counterparts. In contrast, nonempathic witnesses were unaffected by the availability of FB in deciding whether to help. Implications of an empathic joy-based motive are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Group interaction and perceived simliarity of members.

The hypothesis being tested was that perceived similarity of other members of a group with oneself was a function of the degree of interaction in the group. An experimental situation (making lists of geographical names with or without the assistance of group members) offered the possibility to vary the degree of group interaction. The findings revealed that assumed (perceived) similarity between Ss was a function of degree of group interaction only when Ss did not know each other beforehand. From Psyc Abstracts 36:02:2GE35S. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Identification, authoritarian defensiveness, and self-esteem.

It was hypothesized that if one individual identifies with another with regard to 1 trait, the possession of a 2nd trait by the one with whom S identifies will lead S to assume the possession of even the 2nd trait. The opposite was also hypothesized, i.e., that if a person is made to perceive that he is opposite to a model with regard to a given trait, he will perceive that he is opposite the other trait. The degree of self-esteem will also influence this process; the higher the self-esteem the lower the assumption of similarity. After performing on 4 tasks (identifying associated nouns, finding antonymns, letter-number substitution, making words formed from other words), Ss were presented with material to structure identification or distinction from another S who performed the same or opposite tasks, describing this S in terms of intellectual level. Results supported the hypothesis. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Generalization of interpersonal similarity.

Ss were led to believe that their preferences (among eight pairs of tunes) were similar to those of 1 of 2 other individual's preferences. Subsequently, it was discovered that S tended to show similar preference for other stimuli (nonsense syllables, pairs of girl's names) to those of the individual with whom they initially agreed. The results were interpreted in terms of a cognitive theory of identification and related to the conditions under which projection and introjection might take place. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4HJ50S. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)