Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin

Baumeister, Roy F.; Newman, Leonard S.

doi: 10.1177/0146167294201001pmid: N/A

Mechanisms for controlling inference processes are analyzed according to the models of intuitive scientist (who desires optimal, accurate conclusions) and intuitive lawyer (who desires predetermined, particular conclusions), using a step model of the inference process. The first step, gathering evidence, can be regulated by moving the termination point and by looking in particular places for evidence. The second step, drawing immediate implications from bits of evidence, is presumably automatic and hence relatively immune to regulation. The third step, assessing implications, can override or discredit implications of specific pieces of evidence, and it can be used to regulate inference through combating bias or through attacking and discrediting unwanted implications. The final step, involving integration of assorted evidence and implications, can be regulated by manipulating decision rules and criteria.

Schienker, Barry R.; Dlugolecki, David W.; Doherty, Kevin

doi: 10.1177/0146167294201002pmid: N/A

Strategic self presentations can have a far-reaching impact on an actor's identity. Subjects who presented themselves as sociable to an interviewer, compared with those who did not present themselves, later raised their self-appraisals of their own sociability, behaved more sociably (i.e., spoke sooner, more frequently, and longer) in a different situation, were viewed as more sociable by a confederate and by judges, and recalled personal experiences that indicated they were more sociable. Strategic self presentations thus produced both a phenomenological and a behavioral carry-over that influenced the actor's identity in a new situation with a new audience. Two further experiments explored the processes responsible for these effects and found that private self-reflection was not sufficient to produce the changes. Rather; public commitment to the identity portrayed in the self-presentation was a crucial antecedent of changes in self-appraisals.

Lightdale, Jenifer R.; Prentice, Deborah A.

doi: 10.1177/0146167294201003pmid: N/A

Two studies investigated the influence of social roles on sex differences in aggression, the first focusing on expectations and the second on behavior In both studies, deindividuation was used to remove the influence of social roles. In Study 1, implicit theories about sex differences in aggression were examined by asking people to predict aggression by males and females in individuated and deindividuated conditions. People expected men to be more aggressive than women but did not show an appreciation of the disinhibiting effects of deindividuation. In Study 2, deindividuation was manipulated in the laboratory to assess its effects in an aggression-eliciting situation. As predicted, men aggressed more than women in the individuated condition, but this difference was eliminated in the deindividuated condition. Subjects' perceptions of their behavior were more consistent with the implicit theories documented in Study I than with how they actually behaved.

McGuire, Anne M.

doi: 10.1177/0146167294201004pmid: N/A

The two studies reported here begin a research program designed to augment evolutionary theories of helping behavior by adding cognitive, affective, and social processes, but the issues addressed are relevant to many other approaches. Participants in the first study described incidents of helping actually experienced in systematically varied circumstances. The incidents reported were sorted into 72 homogeneous categories, and in a second study participants rated each of the 72 types of helping behaviors on 22 wide-ranging characteristics (antecedents, consequences, etc.). Factor analysis of the 72 behaviors yielded four well defined factors: Casual, Substantial Personal, Emotional, and Emerging Helping. Factor analysis of the 22 judgmental scales yielded three factors: perceived Benefits, Frequency, and Costs of helping. The two factorial solutions have theoretical relevance and identify an economically few helping behaviors and perceptual dimensions that represent a broad range of actually experienced helping. They also indicate types of helping behaviors across which obtained relations can and cannot be safely generalized.

Goldstein, Miriam D.; Strube, Michael J

doi: 10.1177/0146167294201005pmid: N/A

Although most research supports Bradburn's 1969 finding that positive and negative affect are independent between situations, affect independence within a given situation has not been demonstrated convincingly. The relation between the two types of affect, within and between situations, was examined in a naturalistic setting. Subjects were students who participated in a longitudinal study of emotion. Separate measures of positive and negative affect were obtained at the beginning and end of three successive class sessions. A natural mood induction of test performance feedback separated the two measurements on the second day of the study. Results support the independence of positive and negative affect within and between situations: Success feedback increased positive affect but did not influence negative affect; failure feedback increased negative affect but did not influence positive affect. Within each measurement period, correlations between positive and negative affect were nonsignificant. Results offer support for a two-dimensional structure of affect.

Johnson, Craig; Mullen, Brian

doi: 10.1177/0146167294201006pmid: N/A

A study was designed to examine the mechanism underlying the illusory correlation phenomenon. Previous evidence indicates that the salience of the paired distinctive information leads to greater accessibility of that information when later judgments are required. To test this idea, response latencies were measured as subjects performed the group assignment decision task used to measure illusory correlation. The results supported the paired-distinctiveness account for illusory correlations: Subjects over-attributed the rarer undesirable behaviors to the smaller group; they were quicker in making assignment decisions for small group/rare behavior events; and the assignment decision latencies for the small group/rare behavior events correlated the most strongly with the extent of illusory correlation.

Sanbonmatsu, David M.; Akimoto, Sharon A.; Gibson, Bryan D.

doi: 10.1177/0146167294201007pmid: N/A

Explanations for performance and behavior are often biased by stereotypes held by social perceivers. Stereotypes may affect not only judgments of the causal role of members of the stereotyped group but also assessments of the causal influence of people and events that are unrelated to the stereotype. The findings from three experiments indicate that an important mechanism through which stereotypes affect judgments of the causality of stereotype-irrelevant factors is blocking as described by Kamin. Patterns of causality consistent with gender stereotypes blocked, or attenuated, the perception of covariation between causes unrelated to gender and performance outcomes. The blocking of this covariation evidence, in turn, decreased the causality attributed to gender-irrelevant events. The findings suggest that blocking is a distinct process from discounting through which stereotypes and other expectancies bias causal attributions and persevere.

Sanna, Lawrence J.; Pusecker, Paul A.

doi: 10.1177/0146167294201008pmid: N/A

In two experiments, self efficacy theory was used to conceptualize the effect of efficacy expectancies and valence of self-evaluation on performance. In Experiment 1, efficacy expectancies were manipulated by practice item difficulty and feedback, and self-evaluation was manipulated by providing a standard of comparison. In Experiment 2, efficacy expectancies developed spontaneously while participants performed easy or difficult tasks, and the potential for self-evaluation was crossed with the potential for experimenter evaluation. In both experiments, as predicted, in the high-efficacy condition, self-evaluation participants performed better than no-self-evaluation participants, whereas in the low-efficacy condition, self-evaluation participants performed worse than no-self-evaluation participants. In addition, in Experiment 2, the equivalence of self-evaluation and experimenter evaluation was demonstrated. Implications for self-effcacy and self evaluation processes are discussed.

Seta, Catherine E.; Hayes, Nancy

doi: 10.1177/0146167294201009pmid: N/A

The influence of different impression formation goals on memory for the sources of social actions was investigated. Subjects read stereotype-constant and stereotype-inconsistent actions of target individuals described by both proper names and group affiliations and formed impressions of the individuals based on either the similarities or the differences between the targets' actions and typical behavior of group member. Overall memory for the actions and accuracy in pairing the actions with the correct action source (group or proper name) were assessed. Similarity goals produced more accurate source identification than difference goals. Difference goals produced higher rates of inaccurate source identification, especially for inconsistent actions. These results suggest that impression formation goals may differ in the extent to which they induce subjects to integrate behaviors with group prototypes or represent actions as segregated units in memory.

Peterson, Christopher; Ulrey, Lisa M.

doi: 10.1177/0146167294201010pmid: N/A

Explanatory style is a cognitive personality variable reflecting how people habitually explain the causes of bad events that involve themselves. Usually measured with a questionnaire, it can also be scored from verbal material such as interviews and essays. Unexplored to date is whether explanatory style can be assessed from stories written in response to pictures. College students (N = 108) completed the Expanded Attributional Style Questionnaire (EASQ) and the Beck Depression Inventory (BDJ) and responded to four Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) pictures chosen to elicit negative themes. Causal explanations were identified in the TAT protocols and reliably rated along the attributional dimensions of stability and globality. These ratings were consistent within subjects, and they correlated with the BDI. They correlated with globality as measured by the EASQ but not with stability.