Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

Elliott, Elaine S.; Dweck, Carol S.

doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.54.1.5pmid: N/A

This study tested a framework in which goals are proposed to be central determinants of achievement patterns. Learning goals, in which individuals seek to increase their competence, were predicted to promote challenge-seeking and a mastery-oriented response to failure regardless of perceived ability. Performance goals, in which individuals seek to gain favorable judgments of their competence or avoid negative judgments, were predicted to produce challenge-avoidance and learned helplessness when perceived ability was low and to promote certain forms of risk-avoidance even when perceived ability was high. Manipulations of relative goal value (learning vs. performance) and perceived ability (high vs. low) resulted in the predicted differences on measures of task choice, performance during difficulty, and spontaneous verbalizations during difficulty. Particularly striking was the way in which the performance goal—low perceived ability condition produced the same pattern of strategy deterioration, failure attribution, and negative affect found in naturally occurring learned helplessness. Implications for theories of motivation and achievement are discussed.

Sande, Gerald N.; Goethals, George R.; Radloff, Christine E.

doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.54.1.13pmid: N/A

Four experiments supported the hypothesis that people see themselves as having rich, multifaceted, and adaptive personalities that result in the perceptions that they possess more traits than other people and are less predictable than other people. Experiment 1 showed that people perceived themselves as having more of opposing pairs of traits than they perceived others as having when they rated both self and an acquaintance on each trait in the pair separately, (e.g., serious and carefree). When the ratings were made on bipolar scales (e.g., serious vs. carefree), the self was rated as closer to the midpoint than was the acquaintance. Experiment 2 showed that the latter result reflects people's belief that they possess both traits in opposing pairs. Subjects in Experiment 2 also rated their behavior as less predictable than that of others. Experiment 3 replicated Experiment 2 and showed that people perceive that they have both members of pairs of opposing traits independent of the social desirability and observability of the traits. Experiment 4 indicated that familiar and liked persons are perceived to have more traits than unfamiliar and disliked persons.

MacCoun, Robert J.; Kerr, Norbert L.

doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.54.1.21pmid: N/A

Investigators have frequently noted a leniency bias in mock jury research, in which deliberation appears to induce greater leniency in criminal mock jurors. One manifestation of this bias, the asymmetry effect, suggests that proacquittal factions are more influential than proconviction factions of comparable size. A meta-analysis indicated that these asymmetry effects are reliable across a variety of experimental contexts. Experiment 1 examined the possibility that the leniency bias is restricted to the typical college-student subject population. The decisions of college-student and community mock jurors in groups beginning deliberation with equal faction sizes (viz., 2:2) were compared. The magnitude of the asymmetry effect did not differ between the two populations. We hypothesized that the asymmetry effect was caused by an asymmetric prodefendant standard of proof—the reasonable-doubt standard. In Experiment 2, subjects received either reasonable-doubt or preponderance-of-evidence instructions. After providing initial verdict preferences, some subjects deliberated in groups composed with an initial 2:2 split, whereas other subjects privately generated arguments for each verdict option. A significant asymmetry was found for groups in the reasonable-doubt condition, but group verdicts were symmetrical under the preponderance-of-evidence instructions. Shifts toward leniency in individual verdict preferences occurred for group members, but not for subjects who performed the argument-generation task. The theoretical and applied significance of these findings is discussed.

Hamilton, V. Lee; Blumenfeld, Phyllis C.; Kushler, Robert H.

doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.54.1.34pmid: N/A

We examined differences between blame and credit judgments among 247 students and 13 teachers from 7 first- and 6 fifth-grade classrooms. Study 1 indicated that even young children used information about excuses and justifications in assigning blame but not in determining credit. The gap between grades for assignment of credit was most striking for norms involving specific classroom roles. At both grade levels, norms of duty differed from norms of aspiration; for the latter, more credit was assigned for good outcomes than was blame for bad outcomes. Study 2 analyzed teachers' attributions and examined links between teachers' and pupils' judgments. Children's blame attributions were more highly correlated with those of teachers than were credit attributions. Teachers who provided less negative procedural feedback (NPF) had pupils whose blame judgments were more highly correlated with their own. However, within categories of teachers (grade levels by high—low NPF), individual teachers' and pupils' idiosyncratic judgments were not associated.

Tesser, Abraham; Millar, Murray; Moore, Janet

doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.54.1.49pmid: N/A

A self-evaluation maintenance (SEM) model of social behavior was described. According to the comparison process, when another outperforms the self on a task high in relevance to the self, the closer the other the greater the threat to self-evaluation. According to the reflection process, when another outperforms the self on a task low in relevance to the self, the closer the other the greater the promise of augmentation to self-evaluation. Affect was assumed to reflect threats and promises to self-evaluation. In three studies, subjects were given feedback about own performance and the performance of a close (friend) and distant (stranger) other on tasks that were either low in self-relevance (Study 2) or that varied in self-relevance (Studies 1 and 3). In Study 1 (N = 31), subjects' performance on simple and complex tasks after each feedback trial served as a measure of arousal. Being outperformed by a close other resulted in greater arousal than being outperformed by a distant other. In Study 2 (N = 30), evaluative ratings of words unrelated to task performance served as an indirect measure of affect. Results indicated that when relevance is low, more positive affect is associated with a friend's outperforming the self than either a friend's performing at a level equal to the self or being outperformed by a stranger. In Study 3 (N = 31), subjects received feedback while their facial expressions were monitored. Pleasantness of expression was an interactive function of relevance of task, relative performance, and closeness of comparison other. The results of all three studies were interpreted as being generally consistent with the SEM model.

Wilder, David A.; Thompson, John E.

doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.54.1.62pmid: N/A

In a series of four experiments, we examined the impact of varying the salience of an extremely different out-group on subjects' evaluations of a moderately different out-group. Evaluations of the moderately different out-group were accentuated when the extreme out-group was present: In a preliminary study and in Experiment 1, the moderate out-group was rated more poorly; in Experiments 1, 2, and 3, it was rated more favorably. Results were interpreted in a social judgment framework. Evidence from Experiment 3 indicated that salience of the extreme out-group was associated with a shift in the positions subjects thought the moderate out-group espoused. This shift in judgment may have brought about or at least justified the change in subjects' evaluations of the moderate out-group. Implications for intergroup relations are considered in the discussion.

Frank, Mark G.; Gilovich, Thomas

doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.54.1.74pmid: N/A

Black is viewed as the color of evil and death in virtually all cultures. With this association in mind, we were interested in whether a cue as subtle as the color of a person's clothing might have a significant impact on his or her behavior. To test this possibility, we examined whether professional football and ice hockey teams that wear black uniforms are more aggressive than those that wear nonblack uniforms. An analysis of the penalty records of the National Football League and the National Hockey League indicate that teams with black uniforms in both sports ranked near the top of their leagues in penalties throughout the period of study. On those occasions when a team switched from nonblack to black uniforms, the switch was accompanied by an immediate increase in penalties. The results of two laboratory experiments indicate that this finding can be attributed to both social perception and self-perception processes—that is, to the biased judgments of referees and to the increased aggressiveness of the players themselves. Our discussion focuses on the theoretical implications of these data for an understanding of the variable, or “situated,” nature of the self.

Thompson, Leigh L.; Mannix, Elizabeth A.; Bazerman, Max H.

doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.54.1.86pmid: N/A

In this study we characterized small group negotiation as a mixed motive task that involved both cooperation and competition. We examined the impact of two group decision-making processes (decision rule and agenda) and one cognitive–motivational frame (aspiration level) on the quality of negotiated outcomes in small groups. Negotiation groups that used a unanimous decision rule were more likely to integrate their interests to achieve higher group outcomes than were groups that used a majority rule. Negotiation groups that followed an explicit agenda and used a majority decision rule distributed resources more unequally, and were more likely to form coalitions against a remaining party than were groups with no agenda/majority rule, explicit agenda/unanimity rule, and no agenda/unanimity rule. There was no support for the hypotheses that group members who held high aspirations and followed a majority decision rule would distribute resources more unequally than would groups with high aspirations/unanimity rule, low aspirations/majority rule, and low aspirations/unanimity rule; that adherence to explicit agendas would lead to lower group profits; and that the absence of high aspirations would lead to lower group profit. We discuss the results in terms of a mixed motive analysis of group decision making. We examine the implications of methods designed to increase the effectiveness of small group decision making.

Zuckerman, Marvin; Kuhlman, D. Michael; Camac, Curt

doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.54.1.96pmid: N/A

The study was designed to investigate the dimensions underlying some of the personality traits measured by questionnaires that have been used in research on the biological bases of personality. Forty-six scales from eight tests were selected to provide markers for seven hypothesized factors. Subjects were 271 students taking the tests as part of a personality course. Factor rotations were done for solutions that extracted three, five, or seven factors. Five of the seven postulated factors were found with the seven-factor rotation: sociability, activity, impulsivity, socialization, and emotionality. In the five-factor rotation, asocialization, impulsivity, and many elements of sensation seeking blended in a P factor, and anger and anxiety formed a broader emotionality factor. The three-factor solution approximates the model proposed by Eysenck, and his own scales provide excellent markers for the three factors. Correlations of factor scores derived from data for men and women and applied to data for the opposite sex show very good correspondence of factors at the three-factor level.

MacEvoy, Bruce; Lambert, William W.; Karlberg, Petter; Karlberg, Johan; Klackenberg-Larsson, Ingrid; Klackenberg, Gunnar

doi: 10.1037/0022-3514.54.1.108pmid: N/A

The early affective, apparently temperamental antecedents of Type A behavior were investigated in a Swedish longitudinal sample (N = 149). Four clusters of Type A items (describing irritability, hurried behavior, work achievement, and competitiveness) were regressed on maternal ratings of the child's poor appetite, sleep disturbances, liveliness, anger, and shyness, collected annually from infancy to adolescence. The child's liveliness, sociability, and poor appetite during infancy and childhood were positively related to the adult Type A irritability and hurried behavior clusters, as were the mother's liveliness, orderliness, and intelligence as rated by psychologists during the child's first 6 years. The two work-involvement clusters were predicted by interactive effects among shyness, poor appetite, and anger during adolescence but were unrelated to mother attributes. Sleep disturbances were only related to competitiveness and only in late adolescence. These findings indicate that the interrelated components of adult Type A behavior have contrasting developmental histories and that temperament-related constructs are important antecedents to the adult syndrome.