Showing papers in "European Journal of Social Psychology in 1977"

The role of visual communication in synchronising conversation

Abstract: Previous research on visual interaction has indicated that Looking1 may serve a number of important functions in social interaction. In particular, the apparent relationship between the timing of Looks and the patterning of speech has led to the suggestion that visual communication serves to regulate the flow of conversation and to synchronise transitions from speaker to speaker. This was tested in the present experiment by comparing face-to-face dyadic encounters with similar discussions which took place over an audio intercom link which precluded visual communication. Simultaneous speech, which resulted generally from interruptions, occurred more frequently and for longer in total face-to-face than in the audio condition, while the length of utterances and the incidence of speech disturbance were both greater in the audio condition. This pattern of findings was quite different from that predicted, and suggests that the role of visual communication is to allow participants to converse spontaneously and interrupt freely by enabling them to send and receive nonverbal signals which maintain the interaction and prevent the breakdown which interruption might otherwise threaten. Suggestions for testing this interpretation further are outlined.

Dimensions of welsh identity

Abstract: A multidimensional scaling procedure was used to explore the role of cultural background, language and geographical region in the process of Welsh identity. Welsh bilinguals and Welshmen who could speak only English made similarity judgments among stimulus people represented by all possible combinations of these three factors and the anchor stimulus MYSELF. The results showed that language spoken was the most important dimension of ethnic identity for both groups, with cultural background and geographical region playing subordinate roles. These findings were discussed in relation to similar research conducted in Canada.

Increasing the size of the minority: Some gains and some losses

Abstract: Both folklore and much of the social psychological literature suggest that influence and numbers go hand in hand. The more the people espousing a particular position, the more they are presumed to be correct, and the more influence they will exert. Such a contention has received support in the conformity literature (Asch, 1955). However, recent work in minority influence demonstrates that a few people, provided they show particular consistency and confidence, are able to exert influence on a majority. We have hypothesized that such perceptions of consistency and confidence bear an inverse relationship to size of the minority. Combining these two findings, we predicted that, as size of the minority increases, their presumed competence increases but their presumed confidence in their position decreases. We further predicted that a combination of the two perceptions is the best predictor of influence exerted by that minority. These predictions received support in the present study.

Modeling, vicarious reinforcement and extraversion on blood donating in adults: Immediate and long‐term effects

Abstract: Studied the immediate and long-term effects of modeling on adult altruism using a quasi field experiment in a naturalistic setting. Forty-three female trainee occupational therapists aged 18-21 observed or did not observe a female model volunteer to donate blood. Modeling significantly increased the number of female observers who (a) also agreed to donate and (b) in turn actually gave their blood. The opportunity to donate blood occurred in a naturalistic situation on average six weeks after the commitment. It was concluded that observing a model could produce generalizable and durable behavior change in adults using an altruistic behavior of some cost to the individual. Personality and vicarious reinforcement effects however were not found.

The effects of fear arousal, fear position, fear exposure, and sidedness on compliance with dietary instructions

Abstract: Investigated the effects of fear arousal and sidedness variables on compliance with a dietary regimen. Experiments involved 202 women volunteers who were 10 per cent or more overweight, and aged 20-60 years. Experiment 1 involved a 3 (low, medium, high fear) × 2 (single, multiple exposure to fear message) × 2 (one-, two-sided communication) design. The fear levels involved discussing the health hazards of obesity. Experiment 2 manipulated the fear-message position relative to the recommendations (fear-recommendations, recommendations-fear, fear-delay-recommendations). Persuasive impact was measured via follow-up weight checks at 2, 4, 8, and 16 weeks. Results indicate nonsignificant effects from sidedness and pre-standardised fear levels. Using subjects' fear arousal ratings medium fear is significantly better (p < .025), supporting Janis's curvilinear hypothesis. A single exposure to the fear message is superior (p < .025) to multiple exposures, the interaction with time being highly significant (p < .001). Experiment 2 results indicate the optimum position for the fear message as immediately prior to recommendations (p < .025). Results support both cognitive and fear-reduction hypotheses, but the latter is favoured.

Norms and attitude change II: The phenomenon of bipolarization

Abstract: In a preceding article we discussed the links between norm and attitude change: a particular phenomenon in this relation will be developed in the present article. During a group discussion, and in the presence of a consistent confederate defending positions which follow the trend of the norms on the global level of society, subjects tend to polarize their attitudes much more than in control groups. In the opposite situation, we observe a division of the group: a number of subjects are sensitive to the confederate's reactionary positions; these subjects are initially, that is, before the interaction, ‘moderate’. The other subjects, with firmer initial positions, resist the consistent confederate, thus resigning themselves to not reaching the consensus demanded of them by the experimenter, and enduring the conflict resulting from the standstill in the group negotiation.

Aggression in dyadic interaction

Abstract: It is shown that the notions of aggressive behavior as ‘intentional emission of noxious stimulation’ (Buss, 1961, 1963, 1966, 1971) and that of ‘injuriating goal response’ (Dollard, Doob, Miller, Mower and Sears, 1939) are identical. The usefulness of these theories to predict S's reaction to the reception of a given noxious stimulation is questioned. It is suggested that S's reactions to noxious stimulation may or may not be aggressive, depending on whether the noxious stimulation S receives is interpreted as being a behavior justified by the nom in the situation, or as reflecting an aggressive intent of O. It is hypothesized that the norms established in the situation depend on (i) victim's perception of the noxious stimulation received as being instrumental for O's goal attainment, (ii) victim's perception of the value of O's goal, and (iii) the value of victim's own goal. The establishment of norms regulating the exchange of noxious stimulation between Ss is operationalized in two experiments. Aggression, defined as an infringement of these norms, is measured. In Experiment I, participate 56 female students, and in Experiment 2, 80 male students. Subject is alternately victim (he performs a sensorimotor task and receives an electric shock) and aggressor (he shocks the other S). In Experiment I it is found that Ss counteraggress faster and more frequently if they interpret the shock received from the partner as an infringement of the norm. In Experiment 2, Ss do not counteraggress more frequently, but they do counteraggress faster and evaluate O more negatively. It is concluded that the results clearly contradict current positions and favor the authors' cognitive reformulation of the determinants of aggressive behavior.

The new social psychology and ‘fascism’

Abstract: This article examines the claims of ethnomethodologists, symbolic interactionists and ethogenists to provide an improved basis for social psychology. The basic assumptions of these approaches are outlined, especially their common emphasis upon language and meaning. However, differences between the approaches are also noted. The problem is how this new social psychology would be capable of dealing with important social issues, such as fascism. There are criticisms from the point of view of the new social psychology of previous approaches to the social psychology of fascism, i.e., the authoritarian personality and value-analysis. A historiographical survey of fascism is made to show the sorts of problems which could be tackled by the new social psychology, particularly in relations to the concept of ‘fascism’ itself. However, it is argued that the new perspectives are inappropriate for a serious examination of a social issue like fascism, because they lack clear political commitment. They are based upon attitudes of either disassociation or sympathetic understanding, both of which are unsatisfactory for an examination of fascism. A return to a socially committed social psychology is urged.

Immediate attributional effects of success and failure in the field: Testing some laboratory hypotheses†

Abstract: Investigated how team success and failure are attributed to dispositional and situational factors as a function of immediate outcome of the group performance, past success of the team, and individual performance of team members within the group. 150 Little League baseball players' attributions for the team's outcome were taken separately with regard to team- and self-factors immediately after the conclusion of a game. The results reveal that success, independent of the margin of victory, is primarily assigned to effort and ability, while clear-loss is attributed to both effort and task difficulty. Conversely, bare-loss is seen to be mainly due to task difficulty and secondarily to low effort. The results are interpreted as supporting the notion of ego-centered causal judgments, but not necessarily the motive to enhance one's self, on the basis of the new proposition that effort has a different attributional meaning in the cases of success and failure; when losing effort is treated as an external factor, and when winning, effort tends to be interpreted as an internal factor. No differences with respect to attributions exist between individual players who perform poorly and those who excell within the team performance.

Subject variables and reactance to persuasive communications about drugs

Abstract: The role of three subject variables in the mediation of reactance to pro- and anti-LSD messages was investigated: sex, authoritarianism, and suspiciousness that the purpose of the experiment was to study persuasion. No reactance effect occurred reliably either overall or in any subgroup of subjects for the anti-LSD message which supported the initial views of most subjects (evening-division undergraduates). In the pro-LSD case, reactance effects occurred among highly suspicious male subjects only. It was suggested that reactance could be a responce to perceived threat from the experimenter rather than, or as well as the communicator, and that male and female subjects responded to such threat in accordance with their culturally prescribed roles.

Effect of communication discrepancy and ambiguity on placement and opinion shift

Abstract: Analyzed social judgment theory of attitude change and studied placement of a communication and opinion shift in an experiment on visual perception. In a 3 × 3 design plus a control group, 110 undergraduate college students (50 men and 60 women) received a communication after estimating the number of dots on 14 slides. The communication varied at three levels of ambiguity and three levels of discrepancy. Ss gave estimates of the communication from memory (measuring assimilation) and gave a second set of their own estimates (measuring opinion shift). Assimilation varies directly with ambiguity (p < .00l) but is unrelated to discrepancy. Opinion shift varies significantly as a function of discrepancy (p < .00l) but is unrelated to ambiguity. Authors hypothesize assimilation and opinion change may be negatively correlated at small discrepancies but directly correlated at large discrepancies.

Heider, Harré and Herzlich on health and illness: Some observations on the structure of ‘représentations collectives’

Abstract: Heider's notions of attribution are presented as a theoretical underpinning for the empirical findings of Herzlich concerning health and illness. Her methodology is treated as a good example of the ‘new’ methods advocated by Harre and Secord: - the collection of naive unnegotiated accounts. It is suggested that the potential for attributional artifacts is present when an investigator invites laymen to discuss issues which have favourable as well as issues which have unfavourable outcomes and then accepts their ‘accounts’ at face value. Favourable outcomes tend to be attributed to the self and unfavourable to the environment. The self is seen as the source of health and the environment as the source of illness. Evidence, from other areas of research, supporting this interpretation is presented. In conclusion it is argued that Herzlich's data more neatly exemplify the structure of Lewin's Psychological life-space than they do that of Durkheim's ‘representations collectives’.

Polarization and moderation of person perception judgements as a function of group interaction style

Abstract: Studied the effects of group discussion on the extremity of person perception judgements with a view towards (a) evaluating the role of alternative ‘modes of interaction’ in selectively inducing polarization or moderation of judgements, and (b) further extending the generality of the group polarization phenomenon. Two traditional theories of group shift (leadership theory, value theory) were also evaluated. Both the video-taped stimuli and the subject, object and situation-relevant measuring instrument were specially developed in a pilot study (N = 90) in order to approximate real-life conditions. The person stimuli were rated by subjects (N = 72) in a traditional repeated measures design, with a control group for familiarization effects. Free exchange of opinions in group discussion was either encouraged or discouraged. A significant polarization effect with marked postdiscussion recidivism was found when spontaneous interaction was encouraged, while group consensus judgements were more moderate in the more formalized group interaction condition. Neither of the traditional theories examined were supported by the data. The results are discussed in term of their potential relevance to real-life groups specializing in person perception judgements (juries, interviewing panels), and the connection between the mode of interaction formulation and other recent theories of the group shift are examined, with some suggestions for the further elaboration of the present model.

Structural and nonstructural aspects of power distance reduction tendencies

Abstract: Re-examines Mulder's Power Distance Reduction Theory (P.D.R.) and the related experiments using a model which distinguishes between structural and nonstructural parameters of a power system. The former defines the Vertical and Horizontal nature of the power relations between people in the system, while the latter specifies the power differential between two immediate ranks, and together they provide a more adequate and precise conception of the links between the power parameters and the tendencies of subordinate group members to seize super-ordinate power. Several theoretical statements were generated on the bases of the P.D.R. literature and theories of social comparison and bureaucracy to hypothesize the individual effects of the three parameters on power distance reduction (p.d.r.) tendencies. Two experiments using 48 and 40 male college students respectively were conducted to test the hypotheses by systematically varying one parameter and holding constant the other two. The results indicate an inverse relationship between the p.d.r. tendencies and the size of the parameters, as predicted. The strength of the relationship increases from the nonstructural to the Vertical to the Horizontal parameter. An argument was developed which combined the three power parameters to form two ideal power conditions for further research.

Partisan language, immediacy, and attitude change

Abstract: In an experiment to study the effects of attitudes and immediacy of verbal expression of requiring subjects to emply evaluatively biased language, 28 male und felmale college students wrote essays on the topic of capital punishment. They were not forced to write either for or against the issue, but were required to incorporate a list of either 15 pro-bias words, which implied a negative evaluation of abolition, or 15 anti-bias words which implied a negative evaluation of capital punishment. It was predicted that subjects' final attitudes would be more pro capital punishment after using pro-bias words, and this was confirmed for subjects' final self-ratings (p<.05). However, alternative measures of subjects' final attitudes implied that the bias manipulation had a consistent effect in the predicted direction only for subjects whose initial attitudes were congruent with the words they used (i.e., pro subjects in the pro-bias condition and anti subjects in the anti-bias condition) incorporated more of the words provided (p<.01) and employed more immediate forms of expression (p<.025) than subjects required to use words incongruent with their intial attitudes. These results were not replicated when 19 further subjects were required to incorporate comparable lists of statements rather than words, suggesting that the effects of the word-lists were not due to their providing subjects with ready-made persuasive arguments.

A perspective on the study of social attitudes

Abstract: Argues that the comparative neglect of the cognitive component and social origins of social attitudes has produced serious inadequacies in social psychology and limited its social relevance. Discusses critically the question of how far social change can be brought about by changing attitudes. The argument is exemplified with reference to the literature on authoritarianism and recent British research on racial prejudice and mass communication. Concludes that the psychology of social attitudes needs to take greater account of the way the production and communication of culture are related to social structure and change.

Friendly or just polite? The effect of self-esteem on attributions†

Abstract: Studied the effect of a person's self-esteem on his inferences about another person's feelings toward him. Fifty-six mule and female college student subjects of high or low chronic self-esteem (median split; modified version of Janis and Field's ‘Feelings of Inadequacy Scale’) received either a negative or a positive evaluation of themselves. They were told that the evaluation had been written by another subject who had acted either under ‘sincere’ instructions, which allowed him to give his own opinion, or under ‘role-playing’ instructions, which assigned him to write either a positive or a negative evaluation. The subject's take was to decide under which instruction his evaluation had been written. It was predicted from a self-concistency logic that low self-esteem subjects would attribute negative evaluations to ‘sincere’ and positive evaluations to ‘role-playing’ instructions, while high self-esteem subjects would make the reverse attributions. A significant self-esteem × evaluation positivity interaction (p <.01) supported this prediction.

The question‐answer exchange between mothers and young children

Abstract: Investigated associations between the questioning and answering behaviour of mothers and children in a design that allowed analyses within as well as between social classes. Thirty-two six-year-old children volunteered their knowledge and asked questions of their mothers about a variety of objects in a natural context. Social class differences in the children were found in the quality of questioning and the amount of knowledge displayed, but for the latter there were differences between tasks, and the incidence of questioning confounded the predictions made. Class differences in mothers' behaviour likewise differed by task. An index of the mothers' provision of cognitive meaning and of feedback was shown to correlate highly with children's rates of questioning and knowledge revealed both within and across classes.

Power difference between players and level of matrix as determinants of competition in a MDG

Abstract: At first, it was demonstrated that social comparison theory (Festinger, 1954) predicting a need for moderate (instead of maximal) superiority, could reconcile a number of disparate results of earlier Maximizing Difference Game (MDG) experiments. Using the same theory, it was then further predicted that high power players in an asymmetrical MDG would compete less than their inferior opponents or than equal power players in a symmetrical MDG and that the inferior and equal power players would not differ in competition. The data of an experiment, involving an asymmetrical (8/6) MDG matrix and two symmetrical MDG matrices (8/8 and 6/6), generally confirmed these predictions, but it was observed serendipitously that the high 8/8 symmetrical matrix yielded more competition than the lower 6/6 symmetrical matrix. An extended replication of this variable with five linearly related MDG matrices (4/4, 5/5, 6/6, 8/8 and 12/12) showed a similar result, namely most competition in the highest matrices and least in the lowest ones. The finding was interpreted in terms of the competitive motivation of the players and the low cost of competition in the highest matrices.

Limits to participative leadership: Task, structure and skill as contingencies‐a German‐British comparison

Abstract: The research investigated the relationship between managerial decision-making and a set of specified contingent situational factors: decision type, perceived skill requirements and objective skill inputs. The study was based on 663 German and British managers in two interlocking senior management levels of 37 large enterprises. The data were collected by means of Group Feedback Analysis as part of a large study of managerial decision-making in eight countries. The results show a significant (p = <.05) relationship between the choice of decision styles and the postulated contingency variables. Only 1 % of 615 senior managers consistently use a single decision style, more than two-thirds use four or five different styles. Very large variations occur as a function of different decision tasks, perceived skill requirements and objective skill availability. There are differences between the relatively well matched samples of German and British managers, but they are less significant than the broadly similar way in which both samples respond to the particular contingencies under investigation. The results are interpreted in the context of an open systems contingency framework. Their action implications are seen to suggest a link with sociotechnical theory on job design and wider issues of organisational and social policy.

Social institutions and the control of deviance: A cross‐national opinion survey

Abstract: Representative samples were drawn from particular areas of five countries: New York, U.S.A.; Orani, Italy; Teheran, Iran; Djakarta, Indonesia; and Belgrade, Jugoslavia. Descriptions of behavior ranging from criminal through deviant to nondeviant acts were presented to the respondents who were asked to indicate to which agencies of social control they would refer the act. The social institutions of religion, party politics or education were rarely chosen. All country samples invoked the police and family, but the more industrialized countries also reported to government bureaucracy and the medical system. Less developed countries favored the family and village level of social control. Results were interpreted to suggest that the current view of labelling theory, that all social institutions are agencies of social control, needs to be reassessed. A distinction between socializing institutions and controlling institutions is suggested.

The effects of proportion, strength and value orientation of arguments on decision-making

Abstract: Presented 120 males and 300 females with a summary of arguments concerning a court case. The information varied in the proportion and strength of arguments for either the defense or the prosecution. Based on the relevant arguments version of the cultural value hypothesis, it was predicted that: (a) proportion of arguments is directly related to subjects' ratings of probability of guilt; (b) fewer arguments are needed to move subjects toward innocence than toward guilt; (c) strong minority defense arguments ate more effective than weak ones in allowing subjects to adhere to their initial value; and (d) strong prosecution arguments result in higher probability of guilt ratings than do weak prosecution arguments. Data supported each of these hypotheses.