Showing papers by "Peter M. Gollwitzer published in 1981"

Symbolic Self-Completion, Attempted Influence, and Self-Deprecation

Abstract: A concept of symbolic self-completion states that people define themselves as musicians, athletes, etc. by use of indicators of attainment in those activity realms, such as possessing a prestige job, having extensive education, or whatever is recognized by others as indicating progress toward completing the self-definition. The self-completion idea postulates that when important symbols—indicators of self-definition—are lacking, the person will strive after further, alternative symbols of the self-definition. In the present research two modes of symbolizing completeness were studied: (1) attempting to influence others directly within the self-definitional area; or (2) simple self-descriptions of one's own performance, such that others would be exposed to those self-descriptions. Two correlational studies showed that the less education (Study 1) or on-the-job experience (Study 2) subjects had, the more they desired to influence others. Experimental subjects (Study 3) who were interrupted while writing a po...

The role of dispositional empathy and social evaluation in the empathic mediation of helping.

Abstract: University of Texas at Austin Coke, Batson, and McDavis have proposed a two-stage model of empathy-mediated helping, based on emotional arousal and perspective taking. We hypothesized that in addition, a dispositional factor—individual differences in empathy—and a situational factor—potential evaluation from others (demand)— should be included in the process. A study was conducted in which female subjects received false galvanic skin response feedback, indicating that they had either high or low arousal during a broadcast of a person's need for help, as in the Coke et al. experiment. In addition, subjects were led to believe that the experimenter either did or did not know their level of arousal (demand vs. no demand). Subjects' premeasured dispositional empathy constituted the third (continuous) variable in the design. The effect of greater help following high- rather than low-arousal feedback found by Coke et al. was replicated. However, as predicted, this was true only for subjects higher in dispositional empathy in the demand condition. The implications of these results for a revised model of empathy-mediated helping are discussed.

Masculine (Instrumental) and Feminine (Expressive) Traits A Comparison between Students in the United States and West Germany

Abstract: A German version of Spence and Helmreich's Extended Personal Attributes Questionnaire (EPAQ), a measure of socially desirable and undesirable components of "Masculine" instrumentality and "feminine" expressivity, was administered to three samples in West Germany to determine whether its psychometric properties in that setting were similar to those found in samples in the United States. Factor analyses and scale intercorrelations conducted on the data from male and female high school and college students closely replicated the results reported for U.S. groups. Significant sex differences in the predicted direction were also found on all scales. The data thus support the conceptual model of masculine and feminine personality traits proposed by Spence and Helmreich as being useful for another country, West Germany, as well as the usefulness of the EPAQ as a measuring device. In addition, intracultural comparisons of the German samples were conducted to determine the relevance of the personality dimensions ta...