Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

The effect of increasing the availability of cognitive scripts on social behavior was investigated in three studies. In Study I male subjects read either a story describing a "boy-meets-girl" encounter or a control story. Those who read the boy-meets-girl story subsequently behaved in a much friendlier manner toward a female confederate than those who had read the control story, i.e., they smiled more, talked more, leaned forward more, and gazed at the confederate more. Study 2 replicated Study 1, except that subjects rated their mood after reading the stories. As predicted there were no differences between the conditions in mood, indicating that mood changes were not responsible for the behavioral effects. However, the behavioral effects in Study 2 were very weak. Study 3 attempted to explain why the behavioral effects in Study 2 were so much weaker than in Study 1. When there was a short delay (M = 4 minutes) between the time subjects read the story and met the confederate, subjects were significantly less friendly than subjects who had interacted with the confederate immediately after reading the story. It was concluded that making scripts available in memory can have powerful effects on behavior, although these effects appear to be quite temporally limited.

Previous research has shown that differential causal attributions are made for identical successful performance of male or female stimulus persons. It has been suggested (Deaux, 1976) that expectations derived from stereotypical assumptions about men and women might also hold for other stereotyped groups. A study was conducted to test this assumption by examining causal attributions for a successful banking career based on both the sex and race (black or white) of the target persom It was found that both male and female subjects attributed significantly greater ability, less effort, and less luck to the white male than to the other three groups (white female, black male, or black female)for whom attributions did not differ. Thus, race and sex act similarly as stimulus variables for attribution.

The 60 traditionally sex-typed and 60 androgynous subjects-half male and half female within each category-rated the likableness of stimulus persons described by gender and sex-role orientation (traditional, androgynous, or reversed). No preference was found for masculine role descriptions. Reverse sex-role descriptions were rated less positively than traditional or androgynous sex-role descriptions, but this was mediated by the subjects' sex and sex-role orientation.

To identify the dimensions underlying students' causal attributions for their test performance, attribution ratings obtained from high-school students immediately after they received their grades on a test were subjected to a principal components analysis. The results revealed that factors resembling Weiner's theoretical stability, locus, and control dimensions accounted for a substantial portion of the variance in students' ratings. Correlational analyses revealed the influence of test anxiety, performance, and satisfaction on students' use of the causal dimensions. The implications of the results for the measurement of "dimension scores" are discussed.

The attributional reformulation of the learned helplessness model of depression (Abramson, Seligman, & Teasdale, 1978) holds that depression-prone individuals are characterized by a certain attributional style. Specifically, they are seen as making internal, stable, and global attributions for negative outcomes. One implication of the attributional model tested by the present study, is that depression-prone persons should not evince this attributional style for negative outcomes that occur to others. The data presented here supported this prediction. Depressed subjects made self-attributions for negative outcomes that were significantly more internal, stable, and global than those of nondepressed subjects, while no differences were observed when both groups made attributions for the negative outcomes of a target other. The implications of these results for the attributional model of depression are discussed.

Workers' attributions of responsibility within their organization and the relationship between the workers' self-attributions and their supervisors' ratings of actual behavior were investigated in the present study (N= 540 persons). It was found that workers' self-attributions of responsibility for specific kinds of work activities or obligations were related to the degree of their psychological distance from these various obligations. In general, the self-attributions of responsibility made by workers were weaker than were the supervisors' ratings of the workers' responsibility. Also, the degree of agreement between the workers' attributions and the supervisors' ratings of their performance varied according to the workers' degree of psychological remoteness from the particular obligations.

In the competitive aggression paradigm, 26 hostile and 26 nonhostile Japanese female subjects exchanged shocks with female opponents. 7he subjects delivered significantly more intense shocks against the opponent who used shocks in a wide range of intensity than the opponent who used shocks in a narrow range. This was interpreted as meaning that negativity bias, enhanced by the extension of shock range, led the subjects to evaluate the opponent as more malicious and to retaliate more aggressively.

The effect of encoding specificity, attention-sharing, and identification paradigm (live-photo or photo-photo) on accuracy official recognition was investigated in a factorial design. High encoding specificity and high attention to the face led to more accurate recognition; there was also a borderline tendency for recognition to be higher in the photo-photo paradigm. Implications of these findings for the external validity of eyewitness identification studies are discussed.

In a recent, widely publicized finding (Loftus, 1974), eyewitness testimony heightened judgments of guilt even when the testimony was discredited In Study I we offered two hypotheses to explain this finding: that it depends on the order of presentation of evidence, and/or that the discreditors had low credibility due to their self-interest. Contrary to prediction, we found that eyewitness testimony did not heighten judgments of guilt when it was discredited. In Study 2, we replicated our results, again reversing Loftus' original findings, even when the eyewitness was allowed to reaffirm his identification after the discreditation.

A field study investigated the role of social comparison processes in mitigating stress associated with the threat of urban floods. Among residents of a major flood plain, extensive social comparison was associated with significantly greater levels of calm, confidence, and commitment to adaptive solutions, but only among persons who had not previously been flooded. Among previously flooded respondents, extensive social comparison was significantly related to heightened fear and feelings of desperation. Discussion focuses on the generalizability of social comparison predictions to the natural environment.

Previous investigators have suggested that situation variables play little role in moderating sex differences in self-confidence. The validity of this suggestion is assessed in an experiment testing the effects of social comparison and task completion upon sex differences. Either before or after taking a test, undergraduates estimated their own scores (noncomparative self-evaluation) and/or compared their scores to that of a competent peer group (comparative self-evaluation). As predicted, task completion affected subjects' noncomparative more than their comparative self-evaluations. Further, social comparison affected women more adversely than men, indicating that this situation variable does moderate sex differences: First, the sex difference in comparative self-evaluation was greater than that in noncomparative self-evaluation. Also, women's actual performances were lower than men's only when comparative self-evaluations preceded the test.

The meaning and operation of negative personal norms-feelings of moral obligation to avoid a particular action-are examined Results show that women with negative personal norms help less in response to an appeal than those with no norms. Individual tendencies to deny responsibility moderate the impact of positive personal norms on altruistic helping, but not the impact of negative norms.

Participants estimated their respect and admiration for persons described by their age, level of education, and income. When provided with one item of information, participants gave increasing respect to older, more educated, and wealthier persons. When provided with all three items of information, participants combined education and income information in accordance with algebraic models, admiring most those persons who have achieved both the highest education and the largest income. However, information about age did not combine algebraically with education and income. Instead, participants gave increments of respect to younger persons in the higher education and income brackets, indicating that some configural integration process occurs when age is involved. These results are discussed according to their implications for other achieved and ascribed characteristics.

The relationship between the feelings of pleasure and arousal elicited by an environment and ratings of source credibility and attitude change was explored in a three by two design. Three levels of pleasure and two levels of arousal were combined factorially. 7he results suggest that the emotion-eliciting qualities of the environment can be used to predict both source credibility and attitude change. The results are discussed in relation to other findings in attitude research.

Most social psychological research dealing with homosexuality focuses on heterosexuals' general attitudes, as expressed on questionnaires, toward homosexuals. The present study investigated some specific nonverbal and attitudinal reactions of heterosexuals to a perceived homosexual in an ongoing interaction. Perceived homosexuality, sex of subject, and sex of interviewer were varied in a 2x 2 x 2factorial design. Subjects had similar visual interaction patterns with both the homosexual and the heterosexual but spoke faster to the homosexual. Furthermore, they did not alter their publicly expressed attitudes about homosexuality compared with a previous private expression when interacting with the homosexual. However, they espoused more conservative attitudes about sexual behavior in general. When subjects interacted with a heterosexual, they espoused more liberal general sexual attitudes in the public compared with the private situation. The response to the homosexual was interpreted as a "socially acceptable" defensive reaction to a situation where direct denigration of homosexuality would be disruptive. Further, there was a greater avoidance reaction to same as opposed to opposite sex homosexuals.

This research investigated the relationship between male self-acceptance and attraction toward traditional and nontraditional women. Undergraduate males of low, medium, or high self-acceptance were exposed to video-taped job interviews of undergraduate women playing traditional and nontraditional roles. A measure of interpersonal attraction was obtained for each model. Analysis of variance on this attraction measure revealed a significant interaction between level of self-acceptance and role model. Further comparisons revealed that the low self-acceptance males were more attracted to the traditional model than to the nontraditional model and less attracted to the nontraditional model than were high or medium self-acceptance males. The high self-acceptance males showed a tendency to be more attracted to the nontraditional than to the traditional model. These results were interpreted as suggesting that prejudice against nontraditional women may, in part, be a result of attempts to counter perceived threats to self-conceptions or self-esteem on the part of low self-acceptance males.

Four studies were conducted to investigate the relationship between physical attractiveness and resting blood pressure. In two samples of adolescents, there were significant sex by attractiveness interaction effects on blood pressure. Unattractive females had significantly higher mean pressures than attractive females, even when controlling for obesity. The attractiveness of males was not generally related to their blood pressures. A fourth study investigated the generalizability of the sex by attractiveness interaction effect to an older sample of adults, but no significant effects were found. Taken together, these results suggested sex and age differences in the motivational salience of physical attractiveness and help illuminate the internal arousal potential of external physical characteristics.

It was predicted that the assignment of intimate topics for self-disclosure in the presence of self-awareness producing stimuli would lead to negative affect and attempts to avoid actual disclosure. To test this prediction, an experiment was conducted in which male and female subjects described themselves while alone in a cubicle. Self-awareness was manipulated by the presence or absence of a mirror within the cubicle and subjects were assigned either intimate or non-intimate topics. As expected, subjects in the mirror-high intimacy condition enjoyed the task the least, evinced the highest average latencies in responding to the topics, and were seen as having provided the least complete descriptions.

The value placed on success in achievement situations by internals and congruent (CE) and defensive (DE) externals was investigated in tasks defined as either skill-or chance-determined. Internals and DEs persisted longer on the skill task than CDs, while both external groups worked longer on the chance task than internals. Across task conditions, internaLs and DEs persisted longer in the skill than chance task, while CEs did not dffer. These results support the utility of the CE-DE distinction, and suggest that DEs behave similarly to internals in skill-based achievement situations, while externality for CEs is more representative of a veridical set of external control beliefs.

In law, the social context of rape is irrelevant. Yet legal studies have suggested that judgments of rape are influenced by the victim's relationship to the rapist and the victim's sexual history. In the present study, respondents (N= 650) made judgments about a rape after reading one of several simulated newspaper accounts. Rape within either a dating or an intimate context was judged to be less serious than rape by a stranger. Rape was judged less serious when the victim's sexual history was described as either limited or extensive than when this information was not given. Female respondents judged the rape to be more serious than did males.

Events on the Holmes and Rahe (1967) Schedule of Recent Life Events were separated into controllable and uncontrollable categories based on subjects' ratings. It was found that the relationship between life events and illness depended upon whether events were viewed as controllable. Specifically, the more life events individuals identified as uncontrollable, the greater the illness reported. Moreover, events perceived as uncontrollable were rated as significantly more stressful than events perceived as controllable. It was also demonstrated that the effect the controllability-uncontrollability dimension had in moderating the relationship between total life events and illness was stronger than the effect of severity (i.e., life change units) of life events.

The present study examined Type A and Type B women's reporting of chronic recurring symptoms of menstrual distress, which are culturally defined as interfering with daily activities. Based on previous laboratory experiments, it was expected that Type A women would be motivated to ignore symptoms during menstruation in order to carry on daily activities. Consequently, they would report less intense symptoms during menstruation relative to the intensity of the same symptoms reported when Type As would not be motivated to ignore symptoms. This hypothesis was supported and subsidiary analyses showed that both positive and negative sensations associated with menstruation were relatively underreported by Type As. Thus, it appears that Type As' suppression of acute symptoms during performance of specific tasks extends to suppression of menstrual distress.

A choice elimination reactance paradigm (Brehm, Stires, Sensenig, & Shaban, 1966) was used to examine the relationship between control expectancies and the coronary-prone behavior pattern. It was hypothesized that because of concerns for control, coronary-prone individuals (Type As) in a reactance situation would be more motivated to resassert control than noncoronary-prone Type Bs. These variables were manipulated factorially in a 2 (Type A-Type B) x 2 (no choice elimination-choice elimination) experiment. Reactance was measured by the subjects' reevaluations of the eliminated choice alternative. The results indicated that when a behavioral freedom is blocked, only Type As experience reactance.

A survey of 58 in house program evaluators in health-care settings revealed that evaluators are largely satisfied with their work and their roles in these facilities. This finding suggests that the faculty of graduate programs can in good faith continue to encourage students to prepare to become program evaluators since program evaluation seems to be a desirable field to enter. Survey respondents suggested that research methods courses be retainede however, the type of evaluations done by the evaluators surveyed suggests that methods of large-scale data management ought to become an important part of the evaluator's training.

Estimates of the average effect size of research cited in socialpsychology textbooks were obtained. The estimates were (a) interpreted in relation to the effect sizes attributed by Cohen (1977) to the behavioral sciences and (b) extrapolated to suggest effect sizes that social psychologists might expect when they do not have more specific information about particular research areas.

Articles published in four mainline social psychology journals in 1978 and 1979 were categorized by research design and subjects, and compared with similar analyses from 1949, 1959, and 1969. The results indicated that research trends previously observed for the 1940s through the 1960s were perpetuated during the 1970s: At the end of the 1970s, experimental research still predominated over correlational research, and college students still predominated over noncollege samples.