bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Perception and moral evaluation in young children
Authors: Fincham F. D.
Published: June 2011

Heider's model of responsibility attribution is used to investigate young children's sensitivity to several moral judgement criteria. Forty 6‐year‐olds responded to stories representing Heider's responsibility levels under one of two conditions: the actor was either the self or a hypothetical other. A highly significant levels effect was found as children made clear distinctions between the attribution criteria in their ratings of blame. Story character had no effect on this measure. However, an unfolding analysis revealed some support for self/other differences in the perception of stories. Moreover, the latent structures recovered successfully predicted blame judgements. The utility of several distinctions which are not made in Piagetian research is emphasized.
The measurement of extroversion: A comparison of the Eysenck Personality Inventory and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire
Authors: Rocklin Thomas , Revelle William
Published: June 2011

The authors of the Eysenck Personality Inventory (EPI) and the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire (EPQ) have claimed that the extraversion scales contained in the two tests are equivalent. Although scores on the two scales are moderately highly correlated, supplementary analyses suggest that they differ in at least one important respect. While the EPI scale measures extraversion as a reasonable mix of impulsivity and sociability, the EPQ's scale is almost purely a measure of sociability. Recent experimental evidence demonstrates that impulsivity is responsible for several findings previously attributed to extraversion. This evidence raises serious doubt about the usefulness of the EPQ extraversion scale in experimental research on extraversion.
Race, sex and helping behaviour
Authors: Sissons Mary
Published: June 2011

A field study investigated the effect of race and sex on helping behaviour. Four Asian (two males and two females) and four white English (two males and two females) requestors asked 205 white English subjects for change for a coin. Both male and female subjects displayed racial discrimination (against the Asian requestors) in same‐sex encounters but not in opposite‐sex encounters and the discussion considers this interaction between race, sex and helping. Racial discrimination was not related to the subject's social class but was characteristic of older (above 40 years) but not younger (below 40 years) subjects.
The relationship between facial structure and personality characteristics
Authors: Squier Roger W. , Mew John R. C.
Published: June 2011

A variety of findings in the fields of constitutional personality theory, person perception, emotion, and orthodontic dentistry suggest there may be a relationship between personality dimensions and facial structure. Twenty subjects with long, angular faces and 20 subjects with short, square faces were selected on the basis of a radiographic study of their facial structure. The subjects completed a biographical data sheet and took Forms A and B of the 16 Personality Factor Questionnaire. Subjects with long, angular faces were found to be more responsive, assertive, and genuine than subjects with short, square faces who were more restrained, conforming, and shrewd. The results of the study were compared with findings in the somatotype literature linking body size and shape with personality traits. The role of genetic factors underlying facial structure and personality attributes, the development of behaviour patterns based on social stereotypes about facial shape, and the effect of postural sets on facial form during maturation were discussed. Suggestions were made for further research utilizing EMG recordings and developmental observations.
Sex‐role stereotyping in British television advertisements
Authors: Manstead A. S. R. , McCulloch Caroline
Published: June 2011

The present study examined the portrayal of men and women in a sample of British television advertisements, with a view to establishing whether men and women were depicted differently, and if so in what respects. One hundred and seventy advertisements were analysed by classifying the following attributes of their adult central figures: sex, mode of presentation, relationship to product, role, location, arguments, rewards and product type. It was found that males and females were portrayed in markedly different ways, the most salient of which were that women were significantly more likely than men to be shown as product‐users, to be shown in dependent roles, to be shown at home, to provide no arguments in favour of advertised products, and to appear in conjunction with domestic products. These findings are compared with those of a similar study of American television commercials, and are also considered in the context of other studies of sex‐role stereotyping in the mass media. The implications of such findings for the development and maintenance of sex roles are discussed.
Affiliative rewards and restrictive costs in developing relationships
Authors: Eidelson Roy J.
Published: June 2011

The developmental courses of affiliative rewards and restrictive costs in interpersonal relationships categorized as ‘successful’, ‘conflicted’, and ‘unsuccessful’ were examined in a longitudinal study. Students beginning their first semester at college evaluated their developing relationships at two‐week intervals over a three‐month period. At each testing session the participants completed a questionnaire asking them to identify specific rewards and costs in their current relationships. Hypotheses derived from an affiliation‐independence model of relationship development were confirmed. In the successful relationships, rewards grew as interpersonal involvement progressed while costs also increased initially but subsequently declined. The pattern in the conflicted relationships was different; rewards showed no increase with growing involvement and the costs that arose were of greater magnitude. Unsuccessful relationships had the highest costs level of all three relationship types. These findings are discussed.
Effects of being observed on persistence at an insoluble task
Authors: Geen Russell G.
Published: June 2011

Sixty female subjects were given false information that they had done either well or poorly on a task purported to measure creativity, or were given no performance information. All subjects then worked on an insoluble task either alone or while being observed by the experimenter. Among subjects who had supposedly done well on the first task, persistence on the second was greater when they were observed than when they worked in isolation. Among subjects who had supposedly done poorly on the first task, persistence on the second task did not vary with observation or isolation. The results are explained in terms of a two‐process model of social facilitation/inhibition of performance following success and failure experiences.
Conformity or compliance? A study of sex differences in pedestrian behaviour
Authors: Osman Liesl M.
Published: June 2011

Sex differences in pedestrian violation of a traffic regulation were studied under field conditions. It was hypothesized that differences between men and women in rule breaking in this situation were influenced by sex differences with respect to both conformity to group pressure and compliance to legal prohibition. In the present study women were shown to be no more compliant than males, but to be apparently more conformist.
The evolutionary emergence of norms
Authors: Opp Karl‐Dieter
Published: June 2011

Norms may emerge in a variety of ways: institutions may prescribe behaviours (institutional norm formation), they may be created by a social contract (voluntary norm formation) or they may gradually emerge without either bargaining or the involvement of a norm‐making institution (evolutionary norm formation). The central concern of this paper is to formulate hypotheses specifying conditions for the evolutionary emergence of norms. A process is described, starting with recurrent behaviour, leading to the development of preferences for a behaviour, and ultimately to the acceptance of norms (internalization) and the enforcement of activities. The present analysis employs the behavioural model of economics and research findings from social psychology and sociology.
The structure of social values: Validation of Rokeach's two‐value model
Authors: Braithwaite Valerie
Published: June 2011

This research sought to investigate the validity of Rokeach's two‐dimensional model of political ideology. In two separate studies, samples of Australian adults and university students were asked to complete the Social Values Inventory, a newly derived instrument designed to provide a more detailed coverage of the political ideology domain. Factor analyses of each set of data revealed a basic two‐dimensional structure defined as international harmony and equality and national strength and order. While this solution only partially supported Rokeach's model, it did bear some resemblance to a typology identified by Scott (1960). The implications of these findings for Rokeach's model are discussed, as are strategies for resolving the present lack of concordance between these conceptual schemata.
Response uncertainty and imitation: Effects of pre‐experience and vicarious consequences
Authors: Roberts Michael C. , Boone Richard R. , Wurtele Sandy K.
Published: June 2011

This study examined the effects of pre‐experience and model consequences on children's feelings of uncertainty, imitative performance, and recall. Subjects received positive, negative, or no feedback for their selections on a commodity selection task prior to observing an adult model receive vicarious reward, vicarious punishment, or no consequences for his selections. Subjects given negative pre‐experience expressed more uncertainty and imitated more than did subjects given positive pre‐experiences. Vicarious punishment decreased imitation relative to vicarious reward and no model consequences. No effects on recall for either manipulation were found. These findings generally support a theory of response uncertainty as a mediator of imitation.
Moral reasoning and type of criminal offence
Authors: Thornton David , Reid R. L.
Published: June 2011

Many studies have investigated the relationship of Kohlberg's stages of moral reasoning to criminal behaviour, the consensual finding being that known delinquents tend to use less advanced forms of moral reasoning than control subjects. An assumption common to the majority of these studies is that moral stage relates equivalently to all forms of criminal behaviour. It is argued that this assumption is incompatible with cognitive‐developmental theory as elaborated by Kohlberg since the theory implies that developmentally primitive moralities will be associated with delinquent behaviour only to the extent that the behaviour in question is differently evaluated at the different moral stages. On this basis it is hypothesized that preconventional moral reasoning will be associated only with crimes in which the offenders believe they have a good chance of evading punishment. In support of this hypothesis prisoners whose current offence is of this type are shown to use more preconventional moral judgement than either other offenders or non‐offenders. Various possible alternative explanations of this finding are discussed.
Television and personal threat: fact or artifact? A British survey
Authors: Wober Mallory , Gunter Barrie
Published: June 2011

Following analyses of public survey data in the United States, Gerbner and his associates found that people who watch a great deal of television are more likely to show social anxiety and mistrust of others than are less frequent viewers. On this evidence they argued that television cultivates fearfulness and alienation. However, previous research on related social beliefs indicated that they may be a function of deep‐seated personality dispositions of individuals associated with more general social conditions — one such factor being Rotter's internal‐external control dimension. As other writers have shown (a) that social anxiety and anomie vary among different social groups and (b) that controls for demographic factors often significantly weaken relationships between viewing behaviour and social opinion, it is possible that both extent of viewing and fearfulness/mistrust are a function of some third variable — perhaps an underlying personality characteristic. To test this, data were collected from a British sample of over 300 individuals in the London ITV region on television viewing habits, fearfulness and anomie, and locus of control. Results showed that whilst fear of being a victim of crime correlated significantly with television viewing initially, this relationship disappeared when the influence of internal‐external control was partialled out. It was concluded that belief items used by Gerbner may be less robustly related to viewing behaviour than the factor measured by locus‐of‐control items and may offer a powerful alternative explanation for the relationship between television viewing and paranoid social perceptions.
Sex differences in sociopolitical attitudes: A replication and extension
Authors: Ekehammar Bo , Sidanius Jim
Published: June 2011

Sex differences in various aspects of sociopolitical ideology were studied with a sample of 783 Swedish high school students (median age = 18 years) from metropolitan Stockholm by use of the S6 Conservatism Scale. Males and females were compared with respect to six ideological dimensions: (1) general conservatism, (2) political‐economic conservatism, (3) religion, (4) punitiveness, (5) social inequality and (6) racism. The results revealed statistically significant differences on all six dimensions showing females to be less generally conservative, less ‘capitalist’ oriented, less punitive, more egalitarian and less racist than males. However, in line with previous findings, females were found to be more religious than males. Furthermore, the results showed females to be more ideologically homogeneous than males. Despite these differences the attitude profiles and attitude structures were quite similar for both sexes. There were no significant sex by social class interactions with respect to the sociopolitical attitude dimensions. In line with previous findings, females were found to be somewhat less interested in politics than males.
The accuracy of eye‐gaze judgement: A signal detection approach
Authors: Martin W. Wade , Jones Robert F.
Published: June 2011

Two studies are reported which tested the hypothesis that eye‐gaze discriminability declines with increased interpersonal distance and that this decline produces an overestimation bias. Signal detection theory was used to provide separate indices of discriminability and bias. Discriminability declined with both increased distance and, in one study, with decreased lighting. The tendency of the subject to guess that gaze was occurring when it was not mirrored the changes in discriminability, supporting the hypothesis.
Why are the poor always with us? Explanations for poverty in Britain
Authors: Furnham Adrian
Published: June 2011

Psychological studies on poverty have taken two forms: an investigation into the psychological processes characteristic of the poor, and the nature and range of lay explanations for poverty. This study concerns aspects of the latter research area from an attribution theory viewpoint. Previous research in America and Australia has indicated that people tend to attribute poverty to societal influences, personal responsibility and personal misfortune, and that various demographic factors are associated with different patterns of explanations of poverty. Sex differences and voting patterns were investigated in the explanation of poverty in general, and also among certain groups in particular, which were distinguished by race and class. Voting pattern but not sex differences led to a clearly different and predicted pattern of explanations arising. Conservatives found individualistic explanations for poverty more important than Labour voters, who in turn found societal explanations more important than did Conservatives. Fatalistic explanations showed no difference between groups and were not rated as important in explaining poverty. Results were discussed in terms of the psychology of explanations; political socialization and implications for education were also noted. The limitations and difficulties in research of this kind were discussed.
Differences between individual and group fights
Authors: Farrington David P. , Berkowitz Leonard , West Donald J.
Published: June 2011

The aim of this paper is to study the relationship between violence and characteristics of the individual and of the social context. As part of the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development, which is a prospective longitudinal survey, 389 youths were interviewed at age 18–19 and asked to give accounts of fights. A distinction was drawn between individual fights—in which the youth was usually provoked, got angry, and started the fight, and group fights—in which he often went to the aid of a friend, and which were more likely to involve weapons, produce injuries, and bring police intervention. Group fights were associated with frequent fighting and aggressive attitudes. The more aggressive and more frequent fighters came from deprived backgrounds (poor, large families) and had socially deviant life‐styles as young adults (involving delinquency, drug use, sexual promiscuity and an unstable job record). While the extent of aggression reflected background and life‐style, the characteristics of any particular aggressive incident depended upon the individual or group social context.
Sociobiology and social psychology—Rivalry or symbiosis? The explanation of altruism
Authors: Vine Ian
Published: June 2011

Edward O. Wilson (1975) proposed to make sociobiology the core of a ‘new synthesis’ for the study of social behaviour. In general this project has met with either indifference or hostility from students of human nature and society working within the established disciplines, despite the prima facie attractions of developing a genuinely interdisciplinary biosocial science of the person, as both organism and agent.

In an attempt to show that there is no fundamental incompatibility between sociobiology and disciplines such as psychology, the essential features of sociobiological theory are outlined, focusing on the concept of ‘inclusive fitness’ and its implications for an understanding of human altruism. It is argued that accounts of the psychological bases of altruism need not be incompatible with sociobiological analyses; and that our most typical forms of behavioural altruism may well involve motivational systems which do normally operate to serve adaptive functions for the individual, even if these can sometimes be overridden. In principle, sociobiological and psychological analyses of human altruism can be developed in parallel, with each providing a useful corrective for the excesses of the other, and stimulating more productive theorizing and more effective empirical research.
Extraversion, neuroticism and time of birth
Authors: Russell James , Wagstaff Graham F.
Published: June 2011

This study failed to replicate the findings of Mayo et al. (1978), that individuals' astrological Sun signs are associated with extraversion and neuroticism scores on the EPI. These negative findings could have been due to the controls employed here for the subjects' belief in astrology and for subject self‐selection. Additional controls for the effects of knowledge of Sun sign on self‐reports revealed that the zodiacal locations of the Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars are also not associated with reported extraversion and neuroticism.
A re‐examination of the roles of consensus, consistency and distinctiveness: Kelley's cube revisited*
Authors: Hewstone Miles , Jaspars Jos
Published: June 2011

The reported study re‐examined the importance of consensus, consistency and distinctiveness in Kelley's attribution theory. The source of consensus was specified by basing this information on others of the same sex category as the actor, and effects of personal and non‐personal stimuli were also investigated to extend McArthur's classic study. Subjects completed a 16‐item questionnaire in which they were asked to attribute an effect to person, stimulus, circumstance or ‘combination’ causes. The three information variables each significantly affected causal attribution, and consistency accounted for the largest percentage of the total variance. However, consensus information was a much more important determinant of attributions to person and stimulus than has previously been found. These differences were explained in terms of generalization gradients within people and across actors.
Belfast children's awareness of violent death
Authors: McWhirter Liz , Young Valerie , Majury Juanita
Published: June 2011

Although violent deaths due to the Northern Ireland civil strife receive wide publicity, up to three times as many people are killed in road accidents, and death‐rate statistics reveal that natural causes predominate. Against this backcloth the study explores development of the death concept in Belfast children (n=200).

A disguised test technique was supplemented by more probing questions. Subject variables were age (five groups from 3 years 8 months to 15 years 8 months), sex, verbal ability, religious denomination, and place of residence.

Vocabulary scores were significantly related to conceptual level for the 7‐ and 13‐year‐olds only. More advanced definitions were given by the 4‐year‐olds living in the ‘troubled’ areas, by both groups of 13‐year‐old Protestants and by the 15‐year‐old Protestants living in the ‘less troubled’ areas. Overall, the children attributed death more often to sickness than to accidents or to violence; just as frequently to heart disease and to old age as to explosions and shootings and more often to road accidents and to cancer than to specific local violence. These attributions quite accurately reflect the total objective situation, and suggest that violence is not a salient dimension for the children of the area.
Can equity theory explain the quality and the stability of romantic relationships?*
Authors: Lujansky Harald , Mikula Gerold
Published: June 2011

This study, designed as a test of the applicability of equity theory to romantic relationships, examined the hypotheses that the quality and the stability of dating relationships which are perceived as equitable are better than those of inequitable relationships. Ninety‐two male students had to complete a questionnaire regarding various aspects of their relationship with their girlfriend. From these data a number of different equity indices and a measure of the quality of the relationship were calculated. Five months later the continuance of the relationships was checked and the quality was again assessed. Results revealed that neither the quality nor the stability of the relationships could be predicted on the basis of the equity indices. Furthermore, the validity of the various equity measures is called into question by the results of intercorrelation analyses. The methodological problems confronting an experimenter wanting to apply equity theory to more complex relationships are discussed.
A sequential analysis of informal dyadic conversation using Markov chains
Authors: Thomas Andrew P. , Roger Derek , Bull Peter
Published: June 2011

The informal conversations of 24 female dyads have been analysed using statistical methods appropriate for sequential, dependent data in order to test the hypothesis that a Markov process is a tenable model for information transmission in informal dyadic conversation. The hypothesis was supported. In addition, the model has been shown to be sufficiently flexible to produce accurate predictions of future events, even when the Markovity assumptions of sample homogeneity and sequence stationarity are violated. The model of conversation derived from the analyses is used to describe a number of conversational sequences and strategies instrumental in gaining, retaining and relinquishing the speaking turn. Applied to social skill training procedures, these strategies are considered to enhance the teaching of meshing skills.
Learned helplessness: The role of individual differences in learned resourcefulness
Authors: Rosenbaum Michael , Jaffe Yoram
Published: June 2011

The term ‘learned resourcefulness’ refers to an acquired repertoire of behaviours and skills by which a person self‐regulates internal events (such as emotions, pain, and cognitions) that interfere with the smooth execution of a target behaviour. Sixty undergraduate students were rated as either high resourceful (HR) or low resourceful (LR) according to their scores on Rosenbaum's Self‐Control Schedule. Subjects were then pre‐treated with inescapable, escapable or control aversive tone followed by anagram solution testing. As hypothesized the learned helplessness phenomenon, the interference with new learning following inescapable aversive events, appeared only in LR subjects and not in HR subjects. No relationship was found between subjects' causal attributions for their performance on the noise task and their subsequent performance on the anagrams as would be predicted from the attributional part of the recent reformulation of the learned helplessness model. It was concluded that subjects' general repertoire of self‐control skills, and their general expectations for self‐efficacy, might be at least as important in explaining the generalization of helplessness from the training task to the test task as the kinds of causal attributions subjects make for their performance on the training task.
Social categorization, interpersonal attraction and group formation
Authors: Turner John C. , Sachdev Itesh , Hogg Michael A.
Published: June 2011

It is widely assumed that interpersonal attraction is the primary psychological basis of group formation. Recent research disputes this view: the external designation of individuals as members of different groups (social categorization) in the absence of interpersonal relationships and interdependence seems sufficient for private acceptance of group membership and discriminatory intergroup behaviour. The present experiment manipulated interpersonal attraction and social categorization orthogonally: 80 school pupils were randomly assigned one of two types of personal code number (in the 40s or the 50s) on an explicitly criterial (the 40s were liked, the 50s disliked) or random basis, and categorized into groups or not in terms of these numbers. Interpersonal attraction was necessary and sufficient for group formation in the non‐categorization conditions but not necessary in the categorization conditions. Social categorization on a positive, negative, or arbitrary basis produced favouritism to similar others. Moreover, negatively categorized subjects were as discriminatory as positively categorized and more discriminatory than randomly categorized ones. The data are interpreted as evidence for the importance of self‐defining social categorizations in group formation. An explanation of the role of interpersonal attraction is offered in line with this interpretation.
Domain, scope and degree of happiness
Authors: Grichting Wolfgang L.
Published: June 2011

As part of the quality of life study in Townsville the happiness construct was studied by means of Cantril's self‐anchoring scale. The analysis of the rationales for happiness and unhappiness suggested that the happiness‐unhappiness construct is unidimensional and bipolar rather than multidimensional. Alleged causes and avowed degree of happiness were analysed with the help of Goodman's log‐linear analysis for nominal data. It was concluded that the degree of subjective happiness is not linearly related to the stipulated causes. Similarly, the consistency of motives for the pursuit of happiness is not linearly related to the degree of happiness, suggesting that both sinners and saints can be equally (un)happy. The happy individual emerges as female, married, of mature age and conservative in nature. In this study the ideal type of the happy individual does not conform with Wilson's observations of 20 years ago but fits more recent findings from overseas, particularly within the tradition of indicators of social well‐being.
The extent of logical deduction in self‐evaluation of abilities
Authors: Sanders Glenn S. , Mullen Brian D.
Published: June 2011

Two studies were conducted to examine possible cases of bias and distortion in the self‐evaluation of an ability, particularly as a function of social comparison information. Despite considerable differences in procedure, both studies found that subjects used strictly logical deductions as the primary method of evaluation. There were two instances of a non‐logical evaluational tendency, but these were not irrational in the sense of a cost–benefit analysis, nor were they easily avoidable given the experimental context. It was proposed that the results were due to the practical importance of having accurate perceptions of one's abilities. The discussion considered the proposition that people are in general highly rational, and will typically display bias and distortion in their judgements only when these tendencies are less costly than the use of logic.
Perceptions of rape in a British sample: Effects of relationship, victim status, sex, and attitudes to women
Authors: Howells Kevin , Shaw Fiona , Greasley Mark , Robertson Jane , Gloster Denise , Metcalfe Nicholas
Published: June 2011

A study of attitudes to rape in a non‐student British sample is reported. Ninety‐six subjects (64 male, 32 female) were presented with a newspaper rape account in which previous relationship between victim and rapist and victim status were manipulated. Respondents were divided into females, males with traditional attitudes to the female role, and males with progressive attitudes. Relationship and status had no effect on perceptions but consistent effects were found for sex of respondent and attitudes to the female role.
Social cues and the negotiation process*
Authors: Tysoe Maryon
Published: June 2011

Decreasing the number of social cues available to a group representative negotiating an agreement with an opponent should, theoretically, increase attention to the task at the expense of their interpersonal relationship. Pairs of male undergraduates conducted a simulated union–management negotiation over an audio‐only system or face‐to‐face. Content analysis provided little evidence that audio negotiators were more neglectful of their personal relationship. Rather, they were more oriented towards negotiating the specifics of an agreement than face‐to‐face negotiators who, with greater access to social cues, held more wide‐ranging discussions. Subsidiary measures tended to support these conclusions. Theoretical implications are discussed.
Failure and defeat as determinants of group cohesiveness
Authors: Turner J. C. , Hogg M. A. , Turner P. J. , Smith P. M.
Published: June 2011

Two experiments were carried out to test the hypothesis that failure or defeat increases group cohesion where members feel personally responsible for acting on the basis of group membership. Experiment 1 manipulated success or failure on a cooperative task where subjects (40 male and 40 female undergraduates) experienced high or low choice about doing the group task. Experiment 2 manipulated victory or defeat in intergroup competition under conditions of high or low commitment to the group (the subjects were 64 13‐ and 14‐year‐old schoolgirls). It was predicted and found that negative outcomes produced more cohesiveness than positive outcomes with high choice or high commitment, but less with low choice or low commitment. In addition, counter‐intuitive interaction effects were obtained on measures of self‐esteem and the causal attribution of group performance: in Expt 2 under high commitment, defeat increased cohesion and self‐esteem at the same time that it was attributed to internal factors. It is argued that increased cohesion following failure or defeat is a product of identification with a group to justify and explain behaviour which incurs costs.
Perceptions of television violence: Effects of programme genre and type of violence on viewers' judgements of violent portrayals
Authors: Gunter Barrie , Furnham Adrian
Published: June 2011

This paper reports two studies which examined the mediating effects of programme genre and physical form of violence on viewers' perceptions of violent TV portrayals. In Expt 1, a panel of British viewers saw portrayals from five programme genres: British crime‐drama series. US crime‐drama series, westerns, science‐fiction series and cartoons which feature either fights or shootings. In Expt. 2, the same viewers rated portrayals from British crime‐drama and westerns which featured four types of violence, fist‐fights, shootings, stabbings and explosions. All scenes were rated along eight unipolar scales. Panel members also completed four subscales of a personal hostility inventory. Results showed that both fictional setting and physical form had signficant effects on viewers' perceptions of televised violence. British crime‐drama portrayals, and portrayals that featured shootings and stabbings, were rated as most violent and disturbing. Also, there were strong differences between viewers with different self‐reported propensities towards either verbal or physical aggression. More physically aggressive individuals tended to perceive physical unarmed violence as less violent than did more verbally aggressive types.
The functional relationship between performance outcome and causal attributions
Authors: Milech D. , Nesdale A. R.
Published: June 2011

Two experiments were conducted to examine the function relating performance outcome and causal attributions. Unlike previous studies, the degree of success or failure experienced was varied over five rather than only two levels so that the form of this function, as well as that relating outcome to affect, could be studied. It was found that subjects' attributions were not linearly related to their level of success. While the attributions of less successful subjects (10, 30 or 50 per cent correct) were quite similar, the attributions of successful subjects (70 or 90 per cent correct) were quite distinct. In contrast, the affect experienced by subjects was a simple linear function of the degree to which they were successful at the task. The implications of these findings for motivational and cognitive accounts of performance attributions and for the design of future attribution studies are discussed.
Cynical boys, determined girls? Success and failure anxiety in British adolescents
Authors: Weinreich‐Haste Helen
Published: June 2011

Fifteen‐year‐old British adolescents of both sexes were presented with success or failure story cues, in sex‐appropriate and sex‐inappropriate fields of endeavour. Responses were analysed to establish the extent and nature of ‘motive to avoid success’. The effects of cue variables (sex appropriateness, success versus failure), sex‐role attitude, locus of control, social class and maternal employment were explored.

It was found that boys were generally more negative, predicting failure and demonstrating anxiety in various ways. Girls were generally more positive, more likely to predict success outcomes, and tended to treat the obstacles to girls' achievement as challenges to be overcome. They tended to show a realistic appreciation of the problems likely to be encountered rather than anxiety or a motive to avoid success.
Just world beliefs and attitudes towards the poor
Authors: Furnham Adrian , Gunter Barrie
Published: June 2011

This study aimed to investigate the demographic correlates of just world beliefs and their relationship to poverty. There were predictable differences in just world beliefs between people of different political opinions, faiths and occupations. Also just world beliefs were associated with negative attitudes towards the poor.
Moral reasoning and delinquent behaviour among students
Authors: Renwick Stanley , Emler Nicholas
Published: June 2011

In a sample of students, relationships between delinquency and moral reasoning scores—on Rest's (1975) DIT—were consistent with the view that these scores reflect political orientation rather than developmental differences. More serious delinquency was positively correlated with principled reasoning for females (P < 0·05), and negatively with Stage 4 reasoning for males (P < 0·02).
Perceived controllability of life‐events and willingness to prescribe psychotropic drugs
Authors: Brewin Chris R.
Published: June 2011

To test an attributional model of psychotropic drug prescription, medical students rated the controllability of life‐events along with prescription probability. As predicted, students were more willing to prescribe for more uncontrollable events. This relationship could not be explained by differences in the amount of readjustment required by events.
Relative deprivation theory: An overview and conceptual critique
Authors: Walker Iain , Pettigrew Thomas F.
Published: June 2011

The theory of relative deprivation (RD) offers an instructive special case of Tajfel's CIC theory. Six focal issues characterize the current state of RD theory: (1) the egoistic–fraternalistic distinction, (2) measurement level, (3) the cognitive–affective distinction, (4) the absolute–relative distinction, (5) specification of the referent, and (6) specification of the compared dimensions. Each issue is discussed and possible resolutions suggested.
Intergroup relations, identification and social influence
Authors: Mugny Gabriel , Kaiser Claude , Papastamou Stamos , Pérez Juan A.
Published: June 2011

This paper reviews the research which introduces the intergroup dimension into the study of social influence processes, those of minorities in particular. After discussing the complexity of the intergroup context that presides over the diffusion of an innovation, the authors propose that social influence, categorization and identification processes can be integrated into a conceptual framework. It is shown that dominated entities, be they minorities or simply out‐groups, possess an essential ability to induce and negotiate social conflict through their behavioural and negotiation styles despite their being discriminated against. It is also shown that the minority which is confronted with such discrimination exerts an influence that is often indirect and latent, in the form of a conversion.
The determinants of attitudes towards social security recipients
Authors: Furnham Adrian
Published: June 2011

This study aimed to investigate the relationship between demographic variables (age, sex, education, vote and income), psychological beliefs (alienation, Protestant work ethic and Conservatism) and social security attitudes. Over 250 people from a variety of different backgrounds completed a number of standardized questionnaires. A factor analysis of the attitudes to social security scale revealed four clearly interpretable factors, which were later computed in four subscale scores. Analysis of variance showed that vote. Protestant work ethic, and Conservative beliefs most differentiated subjects' attitudes to social welfare. A canonical correlational analysis revealed three significant variates which showed age. alienation and the Protestant work ethic most closely related to social security attitudes. These results were discussed in terms of previous literature in this area and various social policy implications are considered.
Effects of victim attractiveness, care and disfigurement on the judgements of American and British mock jurors*
Authors: Kerr Norbert L. , Bull Raymond H. C. , MacCoun Robert J. , Rathborn Harriet
Published: June 2011

For almost all crimes, the appearance and behaviour of the victim are legally irrelevant to a defendant's guilt or innocence. However, there is evidence that such extralegal victim characteristics can influence juror behaviour. This paper reports an experimental juror simulation which examined the effects on mock jurors' verdicts of three victim characteristics—facial disfigurement, precautiousness and physical attractiveness. Subjects were drawn from student populations in both the US and the UK. Under most experimental conditions, the defendant was less likely to be convicted when the victim took every reasonable precaution to avoid the crime than when the victim took no such precautions. The opposite effect resulted when the victim was both physically unattractive and facially disfigured prior to the crime. These results were interpreted in terms of Lerner's just world theory and the principle of comparative negligence. The degree of harm done to the victim was implicated as a key mediator of victim characteristic effects. The effects on verdicts were also related to subjects' verdict criteria (standards of reasonable doubt) and their perceived costs of committing the ‘Type II’ juridic error (i.e. acquitting a guilty defendant). Although several cross‐cultural differences were obtained, the effects of the victim characteristics on subjects' verdicts were identical for the British and American samples.
Conformity in the Asch situation: A comparison between contemporary British and US university students
Authors: Nicholson Nigel , Cole Steven G. , Rocklin Thomas
Published: June 2011

In a cross‐cultural study of the Asch effect, the present study found contemporary British and US university students did not differ significantly in their responses to unanimous peer‐group opinion. While the number of obtained error responses was significantly less that those reported by Asch (1951, 1952, 1956), it was also significantly greater than zero. It is suggested that, although the Asch effect has weakened over the past 30 years, it remains an observable minority behaviour: that is, there is still an identifiable small set of university students who will conform to group pressure in the Asch situation.
Focus of attention in minimal intergroup discrimination
Authors: Abrams Dominic
Published: June 2011

An experiment was conducted to test the hypothesis that the level of intergroup discrimination between minimal groups depends on the amount of attention that subjects are able to pay to the intergroup distinction. This hypothesis was only partly supported. Subjects who were encouraged to attend to group membership (enhanced condition) showed greater in‐group favouritism on some measures than did those in standard and distracted conditions, respectively. Enhanced condition subjects were also slightly more consistent in their intergroup allocation of points than were subjects in the other conditions. Individual differences in self‐attention and conformity only affected self‐reported behaviour and some affective measures, but did not influence point allocations. The results are discussed in terms of task, motivation, salience and attention.
Some problems underlying the theory of social representations
Authors: Potter Jonathan , Litton Ian
Published: June 2011

This paper critically examines Moscovici's theory of social representations. Four related difficulties are identified and illustrated drawing upon studies by Herzlich (1973), Di Giacomo (1980) and Hewstone et al. (1982). First, it is argued that the treatment of representations as coextensive with social groups is potentially circular and, second, that the broad notion of consensus across representations fails to distinguish important differences between levels (‘use/mention’, ‘theory/practice’). In addition it is claimed that not enough attention is paid to the relationship between social representations and specific contexts of use, and to the constitution of social representations in language. In response to these problems it is suggested that social representations be considered as ‘linguistic repertoires’.
Attribution and evaluation in ordinary explanations of voting intention
Authors: Antaki Charles
Published: June 2011

Intergroup theory and attribution theory were applied to 151 voters' perceptions of the causes of electors' intentions to vote for subjects' own preferred party and other parties. An intergroup extension of actor‐observer attribution theory predicted that the difference in the explanations should be along the external‐internal locus dimension, but in addition it was hypothesized that voters would enhance the differences between themselves and other voters by exaggerating differences in the favourability of the expressed causes. The pattern of internality and evaluation in respondents' accounts of others' intentions only partially supported these predictions. The intergroup differentiation hypothesis was further tested by asking respondents to guess at the accounts of voting that other voters would give. It was predicted that such ascribed attributions would allow greater scope for differentiation, and that subjects would exaggerate the negativity of others' accounts. Results supported this generalized intergroup derogating interpretation for ascribed attributions.
Delinquent behaviour and attitudes to formal authority
Authors: Reicher Stephen , Emler Nicholas
Published: June 2011

A scale was developed to assess attitudes towards formal authority in the school and in the public domain (police and law). Data derived from a sample of young adolescents (13 years) indicated that attitudes towards authority in these two domains were highly rated (r = 0·57, P < 0·001). Factor analysis yielded four interpretable factors—alienation from the institutional system, belief in the absolute priority of rules, perception of the bias vs. impartiality of authorities, and personal relationship to school life—accounting for 47·6, 13·9, 9·3 and 8·0 per cent of common variance respectively. Both overall attitude scores and factor scores were significantly related to self‐reported delinquencies. Finally, covariance analysis of the results indicated that the attitude variable accounted for a substantial proportion of the sex difference in delinquency.
When liking begets solidarity: An experiment on the role of interpersonal attraction in psychological group formation
Authors: Hogg Michael A. , Turner John C.
Published: June 2011

The role of interpersonal attraction in psychological group formation is discussed. For the social cohesion model attraction and group formation are isomorphic, while the social identity approach identifies self‐categorization as the mechanism of group formation. This paper examines the ‘social attraction hypothesis' (Hogg & Turner, 1985) that interpersonal attraction only leads to group formation if it generates an assumption of common category membership that engages a cognitive process of identification. This hypothesis is experimentally tested in a 2(categorization/no categorization) x 2(idiosyncratically likable‐dislikable others) x 2(positively/negatively distinctive in‐group) factorial design employing the ‘minimal group’ paradigm. As predicted, group formation was found to be a function of the social attractiveness (positive distinctiveness) rather than the personal attractiveness (idiosyncratic likableness) of the in‐group members, and categorization (irrespective of affective relations) also generated group behaviour. Complex interactions revealed the unpredicted finding that individuals spontaneously form a group when aggregated with positively distinctive likable others in the absence of an explicit categorization. Social identity readily provides an explanation in terms of perceptions of interpersonal similarities which are transformed into social similarity and thus cause identification. The results of the study strongly favour the social identity approach to group formation.