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Three papers in the Journal of Personality (Oakes & Curtis, 1982; Tennen, Drum, Gillen, & Stanton, 1982; Tennen, Gillen, & Drum, 1982) report that behavioral deficits characteristic of learned helplessness occur independently of perceptions of and attributions for noncontingency. The present article discusses the problems for the cognitive mediational component of helplessness theory raised by these three papers. It is argued that while these papers do not seriously challenge helplessness theory because they fail to test adequately the central proposition of the model, they point to the theory's need for greater elaboration of the processes or mechanisms linking objective experiences, perceptions, attributions, expectations, and behavioral effects of uncontrollability. Suggestions for some of the additional mediational processes a revised helplessness theory should incorporate are offered, followed by a discussion of the role of these processes in leading to the relatively greater support found for perceptions and attributions as mediators of behavioral helplessness in natural vs. laboratory environments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past decade a wealth of research has been conducted on the cultural foundation of the self-concept, particularly with respect to East Asian and North American selves. The present paper discusses how the self differs across these two cultural contexts, particularly with respect to an emphasis on consistency versus flexibility, an intraindividual versus an extraindividual focus, the malleability of the self versus world, the relation of self to others, and self-enhancing versus self-critical motivations. These differences reveal the manifold ways that culture shapes the self. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the relative efficacy of volition and justification in arousing dissonance. Dissonance theory continues to be an important source of insights for an impressive diversity of behavioral areas. Unfortunately, many of these exciting extensions are based on vulnerable foundations, core assumptions and propositions of dissonance theory are still in dispute. Unlike research derived from a systematic theory, dissonance research has not strengthened the basic statements and postulates that generated it, it has not clarified them, it hasn't brought them closer to the data level and it certainly has not been integrated into a neat unified system. Of the several areas in need of clarification, one concerns the conditions for dissonance arousal. It was to this problem, particularly the relative contributions of volition and justification in arousing forced compliance dissonance, that the present experiment and an attempt at formalization were addressed. A principal feature of scholars J.W. Brehm and A.R. Cohen revision of dissonance theory was the authors' insistence that the subjects make a choice, either between choice objects or whether or not to engage in a given behavior.

So far, cross-cultural research on generativity has been lacking. The present study tests the cross-cultural applicability of an integrative model of generativity proposed by McAdams and de St. Aubin. Measures of implicit pro-social power motivation, a general disposition for generativity, generative goals, and life satisfaction were administered to adults in Cameroon, Costa Rica, and Germany. These measures cover the intrapersonal part of the generativity model. After examining the comparability of the measures across the three cultures, cultural differences in the level of each variable were inspected. Finally, the hypothesized model was tested via structural equation modeling. Results show that the model can be successfully applied in all three cultural samples. This finding has interesting implications for the further investigation of generativity, particularly its social antecedents and behavioral consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Methodological arguments are usually invoked to explain variations in the structure of affect. Using self-rated affect from Italian samples (N=600), we show that individual difference variables related to affective differentiation can moderate the observed structure. Indices of circumplexity and congruence coefficients to the hypothesized target were used to quantify the observed structures. Results did not support the circumplex model as a universal structure. A circular structure with axes of activation and valence was approximated only among more affectively differentiated groups: students and respondents with high scores on Openness to Feelings and measures of negative emotionality. A different structure, with unipolar Positive Affect and Negative Affect factors, was observed among adults and respondents with low Openness to Feelings and negative emotionality. The observed structure of affect will depend in part on the nature of the sample studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a recent analysis of personality data, Saucier and Goldberg (1998) sought to answer the question, What is beyond the Big Five? Those authors evaluated numerous clusters of English person-descriptive adjectives that have been suspected of referring to non-Big Five dimensions of personality. Their results led them to conclude that most, if not all, traits of personality can be adequately subsumed within the Big Five factor space. In contrast, our reanalysis of Saucier and Goldberg's own data, using a more realistic criterion for deciding on whether a variable does or does not fall within a particular factor space, contradicts their claim. We are led to the conclusion that there are plenty of dimensions of behavior beyond the Big Five. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traitedness (Baumeister & Tice, 1988) and self-schemata (Markus, 1977) have each been proposed as factors that moderate the relationship between personality traits and behavior, with traited or schematic individuals being judged more predictable than untraited or aschematic individuals. The purpose of the present study was to compare the similarity of the two types of measures and to test the hypothesis that traited individuals will respond quicker to self-descriptive trait words than untraited individuals (Britt, 1993). A personality inventory was administered to a sample of 389 military recruits. Measures of traitedness were computed based on the variability of item responses, and self-schema scores were computed based on response latencies to the items. The results supported Britt's (1993) hypothesis, insofar as traitedness and self-schema scores were significantly, albeit moderately, correlated. Given the modest evidence for convergent validity between the two types of proposed moderators, future research is proposed to establish their divergent validity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Within the diversity of approaches in personality research, paradigms have shifted away from some generalized concept of personality as out there in the "real world" toward personality as perceived and inferred from behavior in various contexts, and even further toward personality as sequences of actions discernible in the moment-to-moment flow of behavior Some current approaches minimize such perennial problems in personality research as the fuzziness of broad concepts and the variance associated with contexts and with particular perceivers/observers for whom the words used in common measurement procedures have individualistic meanings An assortment of research programs are discussed to illustrate the trend Particular attention is paid to the small behavioral units in most of these programs Although these investigators circumscribe the domains of behavior they study, their findings and conclusions appear to possess substantial external validity Personality research will progress as this slow shift in paradigms continues [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two of the most significant factors determining the effectiveness of group behavior are the locus of power and the manner in which the powerholder exerts influence on the members of his group. Despite the numerous empirical and experimental studies demonstrating the limited effectiveness of any specific leadership behavior, theories still persist on the values of specific styles of leadership. Taking a broader view, psychologist F.E. Fiedler, after demonstrating that leadership performances over different situations were uncorrelated, proposed a contingency model which argued that both leadership style and situations were important determinants of effective group behavior. Thus, most of the studies of leadership have focused directly on leadership behavior and/or situation and the effect of either or both on group effectiveness. Reactions of internal and external locus of control subjects to leaders' using reward and coercive power were investigated in a group setting. It was predicted that internals would react more negatively to the use of coercive power than externals and that externals would react more positively to leader's feedback of success and failure than internals.

While large-scale urban riots have become relatively infrequent in the last several years, the occurrence of more localized and direct racial confrontations has steadily increased. This tendency is especially obvious in the public schools and in the military services. Incidents ranging in intensity from minor brawls to full-scale shipboard riots have occurred with such high frequency and have been so disruptive that racial problems have become a major concern of many educational and military professionals. Clearly, strategies are needed to control racial confrontations and aggressive interracial interactions. It was of interest in the present study to determine the degree of response generality associated with the observation of a nonaggressive or highly rewarding model in an interracial context. Forty-eight white male subjects were given an opportunity to administer shock or rewards to a black target, in a context designed to promote negative responses. Prior to responding one-third of the subjects observed a white peer model administer low level shocks, another third observed the same model administer high level rewards, while a final third did not observe the specific responses of the model.

The article investigates conditions in which viewing aggression increases aggression, decreases aggression, or has no effect. Thirty-two male undergraduates participated in an aggressive competition after witnessing the performance of either an aggressor or nonaggressor who behaved in either an adequate or inadequate manner in the same competitive task. With the data collapsed over levels of adequacy, subjects who saw aggressive models were less aggressive than subjects who saw unaggressive models. This finding, which runs counter to the prevalent view that aggressive behavior tends to be imitated, may be explained by noting that the model's strategy was unsuccessful in that it failed to prevent the model's opponent from becoming increasingly aggressive. In addition, the hypothesis that subjects who see an adequate aggressor are more likely to be aggressive than subjects who see an inadequate aggressor was confirmed only when the subjects' perceptions of the model were considered. Both findings support the view that the implicit communication of values within the modeling situation is an important factor in determining whether witnessed aggression will be imitated.

The article presents information on the cognitive tuning set and behavioral receptivity to discrepant information. The objective of the present selective attention experiment was to increase understanding of information receptivity by examining a situational factor which might affect receptivity to consonant versus dissonant information. The situational factor is the individual's role in the communication process, specifically, whether he is set to transmit information or to receive further information. Scholar R.B. Zajonc followed earlier theorizing by Kurt Lewin in developing specific propositions about the effects on cognitive structure of cognitive tuning, that is, readiness to receive or transmit information Zajonc's cognitive tuning distinction has implications for selective attention. When set to transmit his impression to others, the person should tend to polarize, that is, he should tend to exclude or suppress or minimize one polarity of the contradiction and order the relevant cognitions around the other extreme. When set to receive others' impressions, the person should tend to suspend, that is, he should bring together or see as related the contradictions between cognitions by entertaining the opposing cognitive elements and minimizing their contradictions.

The article presents information on the elicitation of information and response biases of repressors, sensitizers and neutrals in behavior prediction. Repressor, sensitizer, and neutral judges predicted the responses of neutral targets on the Adjective Check List. Each judge was paired with a neutral target and interviewed him with the aim of getting to know him as well as possible. Hence, each judge elicited information on which to base his predictions. The groups did not differ with regard to content of information elicited or relevance of the information for criterion responses. Differences in predictions were noted which were consistent with expectations based upon the response biases of the judges. It was concluded that group differences in behavior prediction cannot be accounted for by differential elicitation of information in interpersonal interaction, but instead are determined by response biases. While groups differed in degree of activity in eliciting information from targets, the nature of the information did not differ with regard to interview content measures or judged relevance of the information for the predictive task. Hence, group differences in prediction cannot be accounted for by differential elicitation of information in interpersonal interaction within the limits of this study.

The article presents information on the eye fixation behavior as a function of awareness. When a stimulus is presented so faintly that the viewer is unaware of seeing it, his eyes should not behave as though he were inspecting it. This simple supposition has never been tested in all of the research on waking and sleeping eye movement. A direct way to test this supposition is by exposing a faint stimulus at graded increments of illumination and photographing the eye fixations at each stage. Inspection patterns of fixations might occur well before, just before, or only at the moment of awareness. If the method were to reveal "intelligent" tracking behavior before the reported awareness of seeing anything, it would be one of the most direct ways for exploring cognition without awareness. Not only unaware tracking of unseen stimuli may be revealed, but other eye behaviors as well. The fixations may fall on a stimulus by happenstance or by the viewer's naive reference for looking in a certain area of the field. Whether the viewer's looking is directed or by chance, the more the gaze falls on forms within foveal vision the more registration can occur. Registration also may take place even without eye fixations directed exactly upon the stimulus-information can be taken in through peripheral vision.

For years, researchers have been concerned with a person's ability to convey emotional meaning through vocal but non-verbal techniques. The basic procedure has been to instruct a speaker to express a particular emotional meaning, such as affection, by reciting letters of the alphabet, numbers, or some other mode of communication that eliminates potential verbal cues. The task for the S has been to identify the emotional meaning expressed by the speaker. The perception of communications of emotional meaning can be seen as a particular kind of social perception. The many investigations of the relation between social perception and interpersonal behavior have not, however, produced consistent findings. In view of the contradictory findings, attempts have been made to clarify the conditions under which accurate social perception occurs and the nature of the interpersonal relationships that exist. These attempts have been in the direction of affirming that the perceptual categories being studied must be relevant not only to the perceiver but also to his particular social situation.

This article presents stimulus-response analysis of inferences from projective test behavior. A stimulus-response analysis of diagnostic and predictive inferences from responses to projective test stimuli was outlined. Principles of stimulus generalization and associative chaining and also of conflict were used to illustrate development of such inferences as well as to distinguish possible sources of error. Response-response correlations of criterion-oriented validation studies were viewed as relationships which could be derived from stimulus-response principles. A similar interpretation was advanced for response-response laws which involve intervening variables. The objective of this article is the application of stimulus-response concepts and principles to: diagnosis of the immediate and more remote antecedents of responses to projective test stimuli; and prediction or postdiction of responses to other test and extratest stimuli. These applications, are more clearly dependent upon sets of principles than the relatively empirical response-response or criterion-oriented, laws of many validation studies. The response-response approach to test validation, however, can also be related more explicitly to sets of general principles. Accordingly, the second objective is a description of the place of response-response laws in the more inclusive stimulus-response analysis of diagnosis and prediction.