摘要:

A belief common among medical personnel is that in conveying diagnoses or prognoses to patients, it is always best to emphasize the positive. In order to see if emphasis on the positive does make a difference in one's expectation of the more desirable of two alternative outcomes actually occurring, this laboratory experiment was conducted. College students were led to believe they had a low, moderate, or high probability of being assigned to one of two tasks, which differed in desirability. For some students the instructions focused on the probability of being assigned to the desirable task, whereas for others the instructions focused on the probability of being assigned to the undesirable. The two probabilities were always complementary; that is, the probability of being assigned to the desirable task was equal to one minus the probability of being assigned to the undesirable task. Following an interpolated activity, each subject's expectation of being assigned to the desirable or undesirable task was measured. Across all probability levels, subjects for whom the instructions had focused on the probability of being assigned to the desirable task viewed that assignment as significantly more likely than did subjects for whom the instructions had focused on the complementary probability of being assigned to the undesirable task. The implications of this for communicating with patients, for preventive medicine, and for coping with serious illness are briefly discussed.

ISSN:0021-9029    

DOI:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1984.tb02240.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

This study tested 62 police officers and 62 college males on their own authoritarianism and their estimates of the authoritarian beliefs of the other group. College students perceived police officers as much more authoritarian than the officers represented themselves as being (p<.0001). Officers were accurate in their estimations of students' authoritarianism, and there was no difference between officers and students in their characterizations of their own authoritarianism. The differences between these findings and those in much of the literature (especially that from the early 1970s) may be due to differences in police experience: Many of the officers in this sample had some college and thus direct experience with students. It may also be that officers are now being specifically chosen on the basis of less authoritarian attitudes. The results imply that rather than focusing on changing the attitudes of officers, police departments desiring better public relations might do well to concentrate on correcting public opinion.

ISSN:0021-9029    

DOI:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1984.tb02241.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The extent and nature of unfairly discriminatory hiring practices involving Vietnam veterans was experimentally explored. Sixty‐six supervisors and mid‐level managers reviewed the resume of an applicant and the position description for the job being sought. Given otherwise identical qualifications, the applicant was described as either a Vietnam veteran or a non‐Vietnam veteran. Results demonstrated that subjects made significantly lower recommendations to hire the Vietnam veteran even though both applicants were judged equally qualified for the job. The Vietnam veteran was also perceived to have a higher probability of psychological problems in his life. Findings are discussed in the context of Asch's (1946) central trait t

ISSN:0021-9029    

DOI:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1984.tb02242.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

The smoking attitudes and behavior of two samples of British 15‐year‐olds (N = 278) were studied by questionnaire. “Smokers” (anyone who had smoked at all within the previous week) held less negative attitudes about smoking, were more likely to have a father who smoked, and anticipated less parental disapproval of their smoking. When asked to name their five best friends among their classmates, smokers were more likely to name other smokers than were nonsmokers. On the basis of these results, we argue that the notion of “peer group influence” should be reconceptualized in terms of intergroup processes and social identity concerns within the

ISSN:0021-9029    

DOI:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1984.tb02243.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

An important factor concerning the use of the polygraph in employment settings has been overlooked: How does the polygraph experience affect a new employee's work‐related attitudes? In two experiments, subjects were exposed to different hiring scenarios‐one included a polygraph examination, the other did not—and then responded to a questionnaire of work‐related attitudes. Results indicated that preemployment polygraph examinations may induce negative work‐related attitudes. These findings suggest that the polygraph experience acts as a symbolic communication from the employer to the prospective employee, imparting information that may induce feelings of distrust and dislike. Moreover, the polygraph experience may be interpreted by prospective employees as evidence of high levels of employee theft, thus establishing a new (higher) norm of peer theft

ISSN:0021-9029    

DOI:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1984.tb02244.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

Politicians sometimes shift the stances that they take on issues. An experiment investigated the effect of such a shift upon observers' perceptions of and feelings about an ostensible candidate for public office. The target issue (private ownership of handguns) was chosen as being relatively emotional for some subjects and unemotional for others. Subjects were also selected (independently) as being either pro or con on the issue. The position taken by the stimulus person (who, in contrast to previous research, was identified as a candidate for office) was portrayed as initially being either similar or dissimilar to that of the subject. An assessment of the candidate's position 6 months later indicated either no change or a reversal of the initial position. Subjects' evaluations of the candidate on a variety of dimensions yielded a consistent pattern. The combination of initial agreement and final agreement was viewed more favorably than any other combination. Taken together, the data suggest two conclusions. First, there was no support in this context for the notion that a shift from disagreement to agreement would be especially valued (i.e., there was no “gain” effect). Second, in the realm of politics, people value consistent agreement with their own position—but they do not reward consistency p

ISSN:0021-9029    

DOI:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1984.tb02245.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY

摘要:

People's memory of events is often improved when there is some similarity between the conditions attending the original incident and the conditions present at the time of memory search. These context cues are commonly used by criminal investigators when obtaining eyewitness descriptions (recall tasks). The present research explored the impact of context cues on eyewitness identification responses (recognition tasks). It was found that reinstating the physical environment in which the crime was witnessed had no discernible effects. Even worse, reinstatement of the personal appearance of the criminal (distinctive shirt and glasses) had several undesirable consequences. The most important of these was the power of personal appearance context cues to facilitate false alarms (positive identification of innocent targets). There was no evidence that appearance cues actually improved memory of the criminal's facial characteristics. Possibilities for more effective context manipulations were explored. Emphasis was placed against generalizing from the beneficial effect of context on recall to applied problems of recognition.

ISSN:0021-9029    

DOI:10.1111/j.1559-1816.1984.tb02246.x

出版商:Blackwell Publishing Ltd    

年代:1984

数据来源: WILEY