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Data from two quasi-experimental and two experimental studies of cooperative, equal-status, interracial contact are presented. The results show increases in favorable beliefs about and liking for Blacks by formerly prejudiced Whites. Such changes are accompanied by greater readiness to extend equality of social benefits (e.g., unsegregated housing, education, and employment) to Black persons. This illustrates one approach to the goal of extending the scope of social justice to subordinate groups from whom it is often withheld. Research relevant to other approaches to the goal is also discussed. The cumulative evidence represents a beginning step in formulating a psychology of improving justice.

Electricity conservation programs were implemented in spring 1977 infourmatchedpairs of University of Colorado office-classroom-laboratory buildings and three pairs ofdormi tories. Reductions in electricity use were significantly greater in 13 of the 14 experimental buildings than in the two control buildings. These results are supported by the results of direct observations of waste (lights in unoccupied rooms) in experimental and control buildings. The methodological problems of predicting consumption levels, interpreting why changes in consumption occurred, and estimating initial waste levels are discussed along with their implications for the conduct of behavioral research on energy conserva tion.

A multidimensional racial attitude inventory has been developed through several factor and cluster analyses of attitudinal statements. This inventory has been validated against attitudinal criterion groups. The purpose of this research was to adapt it from an agree-disagree answer format to a rating format potentially more sensitive to moderate, self-reported, attitude change. Evidence is presented that this adaptation has been accomplished while retaining strong correspondence to the validated inventory.

The effect of group success and failure upon interpersonal attraction in cooperating interracial groups was investigated in a 2X2X2 factorially designed experiment. The level of participation in the group's decision making (high or low) and race (black or white) served as the additional independent variables. The 56 military subjects exhibited significantly greater attraction for groupmates under the success as opposed to the failure condition (p < .001). No main effects for the race of the group member being evaluated or the level of participation in decision making were obtained, nor were there interactions among any of the three independent variables. Separate analyses of the attraction ratings given the white and the black groupmates further revealed that whatever elevated or depressed the ratings for one, similarly affected the ratings for the other. A general satisfaction-dissatisfaction interpretation is offered to explain the effect of group success-failure on interpersonal attraction. Implications for the scapegoat hypothesis are discussed. Reviews of the literature on interpersonal and attitudinal outcomes of personal contact with representatives of a disliked group make it clear that these outcomes vary

This paper introduces a conceptual framework aimed at integrating the conservation behavior literature and facilitating the comparison of findings across studies. Within this framework, conservation behavior is approached from the theoretical orientations of attitude change, behavior modification and behavior maintenance. Seven commonly used approaches to encouraging conservation behavior are described in terms of these perspectives. Illustrative research related to each approach is reviewed.

Since 1976, major Denver metropolitan area firms have been required to encourage employees to use mass transit, carpooling, bicycling, and other “alternate transportation modes” to commute to work. The encouragement programs of 36 firms were clearly associated with greater use of alternate transportation modes, with the portion of variance in alternate transportation use explained by differences in employer programs of approximately 15%. The effects of the programs on deterring alternate mode users from returning to solo driving are consistently weaker than their effects on persuading drivers to try alternate transportation modes initially. Recommendations for the conduct of alternate transportation encouragement programs are made, based on these and other results. In addition, two recommendations are made concerning the evaluation of encouragement programs: that aggregate percentage change in alternate transportation use should not be used as the sole measure of success, and that environmental variables such as the availability of and pressure for use of alternate transportation modes should be measured and controlled.

The empirical approach to the analysis of attitude organization suggests that verbal racial attitudes are not organized in terms of cognitive, affective, and conative (or behavioral) components but rather in terms of content areas that cross-cut this structural trichotomy. A racial attitude inventory made up of nine empirically identified dimensions successfully predicted whites' membership in attitudinal criterion groups. In this study two additional dimensions were hypothesized: (a) reactions to interracial marriage and (b) preference between an approach to racial equality for black Americans which stresses changes in society and one stressing changes in blacks themselves. Cluster analyses confirmed the existence of these two additional dimensions as well as the original nine. A validation study indicates that both new dimensions as well as the original nine successfully differentiate groups of whites known to differ in racial attitude.

In their paper, “Academic Freedom, Civil Liberties, and SPSSI,” S. Stansfeld Sargent and Benjamin Harris (1986) give an account of the threat to individual liberties that characterized SPSSI's early years. Based to some extent on my personal experience during the post-World War II peak of this threat (i.e., the era of Senator Joseph McCarthy), I add a brief supplement to Sargent's and Harris's account. I provide a description of initial attempts by SPSSI members to discover the social psychological principles that help to understand the erosion of individual rights and freedoms that took place in those years.

Present physiological techniques of attitude measurement tap attitude intensity but not attitude direction. An alternative physiological technique, based upon the phenomenon of semantic generalization of conditioned autonomic responses, was tested to determine whether it would provide a bidirectional indicator of attitude. Subjects with favorable or unfavorable self-reported attitudes toward blacks were conditioned to statements having no racial content which they had previously evaluated as "bad." Subsequently, they were presented with statements with racial content; the latter were sentences which would be differentially evaluated as "good" or "bad" by persons with dissimilar racial attitudes. It was hypothesized that racial attitude would predict conditioned autonomic responses elicited by the generalization statements. It was found that groups differing in racial attitude could be distinguished on the basis of their conditioned responses to the race-related generalization statements. Unresolved problems of interpretation are discussed.

During the deliberations prior to its school desegregation decision in 1954 the Supreme Court had before it a Social Science Statement on the effects of segregation and desegregation. This article reassesses the quality of that Statement 25 years later. Key points in the Statement are compared to the results of subsequent research. Some points, e.g., no negative effect on the school achievement of white students, have been supported. Others, e.g., improvement in black self-esteem, are difficult to evaluate due to inconsistent and uninterpretable research findings. Still others, e.g., more favorable racial attitudes, cannot be compared to the research findings because desegregation was not carried out in accord with conditions that were specified as conducive to the outcomes predicted in the Statement. Much research effort has been wasted in the study of school desegregation conducted under conditions unknown to the investigator. In order to avoid such waste in the future it is suggested that investigators concentrate on innovative methods of facilitating constructive classroom desegregation. Illustrations are provided from recent research developments.