Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Madden, Thomas J.; Ellen, Pamela Scholder; Ajzen, Icek

doi: 10.1177/0146167292181001pmid: N/A

Research in social psychology has extensively referenced and used Fishbein and Ajzen's theory of reasoned action to predict and understand motivational influences on behavior Recently Ajzen has proposed an extension of the theory by including perceptions of behavioral control as an additional predictor of intentions and behavior. The present research compared Ajzen's theory of planned behavior with the theory of reasoned action for 10 behaviors chosen to represent a range with respect to control over performing the behavior. he results indicate that inclusion of perceived behavioral control enhances the prediction of behavioral intention and behavior Consistent with the theory of planned behavior, the effects of perceived behavioral control on a target behavior are most vivid when the behavior presents some problem with respect to control.

Williamson, Gail M.; Clark, Margaret S.

doi: 10.1177/0146167292181002pmid: N/A

Donors' reactions to choosing and being required to help were examined. Among subjects led to desire a communal relationship with the recipient, both choosing and being required to help elevated positive affect and alleviated negative affect relative to not being asked to help. Changes in affect as a result of choosing to help did not differ from changes as a result of being required to help. Among subjects led to desire an exchange relationship with the recipient, choosing to help caused positive affect to deteriorate, relative to being required to help or to not helping. Changes in affect in the required condition did not differ from those in the no-help condition. Psychological processes that may underlie these effects are discussed.

doi: 10.1177/0146167292181003pmid: N/A

Roskos-Ewoldsen, David R.; Fazio, Russell H.

doi: 10.1177/0146167292181004pmid: N/A

The accessibility of a source's likability from memory was hypothesized to moderate the influence of source likability on persuasion. The accessibility of subjects' liking for the source of a message was manipulated in two experiments. Subjects with more accessible liking for the source exhibited more attitude change in the direction of the source's message than subjects with less accessible evaluations of the source.

Gordon, Randall A.; Vicari, Pamela J.

doi: 10.1177/0146167292181005pmid: N/A

Individual eminence in social psychology was examined through a textbook citation analysis conducted on eight current (1987-1990) social psychology textbooks. These data were subsequently compared with data collected from an assessment of individual research productivity in psychology for the decade of the 1980s based on publications listed in the PsycINFO database and citation counts from the 1987-1989 volumes of the Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI). Comparisons were made between the textbook citation results and findings from three previous related studies. The results revealed significant relationships between the different citation measures and between the research productivity and SSCI citation measure but not between the textbook citation and research productivity measures. The relative validity of each of the measures used in the study as an index of scientific eminence is discussed.

Burger, Jerry M.; Palmer, Michele L

doi: 10.1177/0146167292181006pmid: N/A

University students who experienced the 1989 California earthquake were asked a few days afterward to estimate the likelihood that they, the typical student at the school, and the average person their age would someday experience each of several negative life events, including being hurt in a natural disaster such as an earthquake. These responses were compared with those of a quasi-experimental control group of students 3 months later Unrealistic optimism about being hurt in a natural disaster, as indicated by the difference between the subjects' perceived vulnerability for themselves and for others, was not apparent immediately after the earthquake. However; unrealistic optimism for this item was found 3 months later Further analysis suggests that the loss of optimism after the earthquake was limited to natural disasters and did not alter perceived vulnerability to other negative events.

MacKie, Diane M.; Allison, Scott T.; Worth, Leila T.; Asuncion, Arlene G.

doi: 10.1177/0146167292181007pmid: N/A

Two experiments explored the possibility that the occurrence of inferences biased by different outcomes might produce the perception that a target social group had changed, even in a counter-stereotypic direction. In Experiment 1, subjects made inferences about the conservatism of a political group based on whether the group passed a liberal measure or not. The decision rule in operation at the time of the vote on the issue was manipulated experimentally, so that the measure either passed or failed, even though the same number of group members supported the measure in each vote. When ever the measure passed, subjects saw the group as more liberal than when the measure failed, even if this change was counterstereotypic. In Experiment 2, subjects read about a sequence of performance outcomes that were either consistent or inconsistent with subjects' stereotypes of Black and Asian college students. The magnitude of the impact of outcome biases was as great for the stereotype-inconsistent inferences as for the sterotype-consistent inferences.

Koestner, Richard; Bernieri, Frank; Zuckerman, Miron

doi: 10.1177/0146167292181008pmid: N/A

This research examined the impact of self-regulatory styles on the degree of consistency between behaviors and self-reported attitudes and traits. It was predicted that individuals who regulate their behavior in an autonomous manner would be more like{y to display behavior consistent with their self-reported attitudes and traits than individuals who regulate their behavior in accordance with external or introjected controls. In two intrinsic motivation laboratory experiments, subjects who were classified as autonomy oriented on the basis of their responses to the General Causality Orientations Scale were shown to display significantly higher attitude-behavior correlations than subjects classified as control oriented. In another experiment, autonomy-oriented subjects showed greater consistency between self-descriptions of conscientiousness and a behavioral criterion than control-oriented subjects. Together, these findings support Deci and Ryan's hypothesis that individual differences in self-regulation will influence indexes of personality integration.

Bylsma, Wayne H.; Tomaka, Joe; Luhtanen, Riia; Crocker, Jennifer; Major, Brenda

doi: 10.1177/0146167292181009pmid: N/A

This study used response latencies to record differences in evaluative self-judgments that result from social experiences. Immediately after receiving either positive, negative, or no evaluative feedback, subjects completed a task on a microcomputer that recorded the latencies of their responses to various prime/adjective pairings. The primes were designed to activate either self-conceptions, conceptions of an object, or conceptions of a person other than the self These were paired with either positive, negative, or neutral self-descriptive adjectives. Subjects judged whether the adjective could ever describe the prime and responded by pressing a "yes" or "no" key. As predicted, when the self was primed, response latencies for positive adjectives were significantly shorter after positive evaluative feedback than after negative feedback. Latencies for neutral and negative adjectives as well as for primes other than the self did not differ as a function of evaluative feedback.

Hutton, Debra G.; Baumeister, Roy F.

doi: 10.1177/0146167292181010pmid: N/A

On the basis of the elaboration likelihood model and self-awareness theory, it was reasoned that self-awareness should stimulate thoughtful resistance to attacks on personally important attitudes. In Experiment 1, mirror-induced self-awareness increased resistance to a message that was counterattitudinal, personally important, and based on direct experience, but it failed to increase resistance to a message that lacked those qualities. In Experiment 2, self-aware subjects showed greater resistance to weak persuasive arguments than to strong arguments, unlike subjects who were not made self-aware. These results support the view of self-awareness as a cause of biased central route processing and (hence) of selective, judicious resistance to persuasion.