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Full-Text Articles in Psychology

The Effect Of Group Influence On Individual Choices In A Virtual Environment, Rebecca Rayburn-Reeves, Jennifer Wu, Sara Wilson, Beth Kraemer, Philipp Kraemer Jan 2013

The Effect Of Group Influence On Individual Choices In A Virtual Environment, Rebecca Rayburn-Reeves, Jennifer Wu, Sara Wilson, Beth Kraemer, Philipp Kraemer

Beth Kraemer

Second Life (SL) is a virtual world application that enables users to create virtual representations of themselves and interact with other users. SL is increasingly being used to study important psychological questions. The current project sought to replicate within SL Asch’s (1951) classic finding of group influence, in which participants often respond in accordance with choices expressed by other members of a group, regardless of the accuracy of those choices. Participants were given a series of perceptual judgment trials, in which they chose one of three stimulus alternatives that matched the length of a target stimulus. Participants were tested either …


Reinterpreting Telepathy As Unusual Experiences Of Empathy And Charisma, James M. Donovan Aug 1998

Reinterpreting Telepathy As Unusual Experiences Of Empathy And Charisma, James M. Donovan

James M. Donovan

Telepathy is often dismissed because it is judged to be contrary to the accepted facts of social psychology. This article argues that what is called telepathy may require nothing more than empathy and charisma and is reducible to these sociopsychological constructs. Two studies explore this hypothesis. In the first the proposed relationship is used to explain the sheep-goat effect. In the second study scores on charisma and empathy are used as direct predictors of scores on traditional telepathy measures. The results in combination support the interpretation of telepathy as phenomenologically impressive social psychological events which in less dramatic instances are …


Toward A Model Relating Empathy, Charisma, And Telepathy, James M. Donovan Jan 1997

Toward A Model Relating Empathy, Charisma, And Telepathy, James M. Donovan

James M. Donovan

Telepathy is often dismissed because it is judged to be so weird as to be counterintuitive. This article argues that telepathy may be interpreted as phenomenologically impressive events of a social psychological process which in less dramatic instances would be termed empathy and charisma. Such an equation, however, herein called the "possible world model," would perhaps normalize telepathy, and lessen the opprobrium attached to its study. A first step is taken to validate the model when a comparative literature search finds that telepathy and empathy relate very similarly to other experimental variables.


Multiple Personality, Hypnosis, And Possession Trance, James M. Donovan Aug 1996

Multiple Personality, Hypnosis, And Possession Trance, James M. Donovan

James M. Donovan

Multiple personality disorder [MPD] and possession trance [PT] are examined from the perspectives of presenting morphology and demographic epidemiology. The goal is to ascertain whether at these levels MPD and PT are disparate phenomena, or warrant treatment as two instances of a single type. The data favor the second alternative, and from this we infer that both MPD and PT are culturally manipulated instances of a unitary psychobiological ability. But by virtue of this manipulation, differences do exist between the final forms, especially on the dimension of whether they are experiences as states of health or illness.


Validation Of A Portuguese Form Of Templer's Death Anxiety Scale, James M. Donovan Aug 1993

Validation Of A Portuguese Form Of Templer's Death Anxiety Scale, James M. Donovan

James M. Donovan

To translate Templer's Death Anxiety Scale into the Brazilian Portuguese Escala de Ansiedade de Morte, linguistic validity was first established by back-translation and calculating bilingual split-half reliability coefficients. Even-numbered items achieved a minimally adequate .59, while the odd-numbered items attained a satisfactory .91. The internal consistency of the Escala (.77) matches that found for the original scale. The construct validity was tested by replicating the interactions of the English form with (1) the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, (2) the Purpose-in-Life Test, and (3) Levenson's measure of locus of control. The Escala performed as expected, save for some difficulty with the locus …


The Effects Of Sex And Sexual Orientation On Attractiveness Judgments: An Evolutionary Interpretation, William R. Jankowiak, Elizabeth M. Hill, James M. Donovan Aug 1992

The Effects Of Sex And Sexual Orientation On Attractiveness Judgments: An Evolutionary Interpretation, William R. Jankowiak, Elizabeth M. Hill, James M. Donovan

James M. Donovan

If attractiveness judgments reflect biologically important reproductive criteria, men should base judgments of potential partners on objective physical criteria more than do women; homosexuals and heterosexuals of the same sex should perceive attractiveness in the same terms, regardless of the sex-object choice. To test this theory, photographs of men and women (20 each) were presented to members of four subject groups, solicited on an opportunistic basis. Subjects were asked to rank the sets of photographs separately on the dimensions of physical attractiveness and general social attractiveness. We found some sex differences across sexual orientation. There was less variation among men …


Charisma, Empathy, And The Experience Of Telepathy, James M. Donovan Jan 1992

Charisma, Empathy, And The Experience Of Telepathy, James M. Donovan

James M. Donovan

A critique is offered of the preference of parapsychology for physical explanatory models for telepathy. Discussion shows this trend emerging from the combined effects of historical accident. An alternative explanatory model is offered which draws upon the rich but underutilized psychological foundations of parapsychology. Emphasizing telepathy's original definition as a communication event, two other phenomena are held to fall into the same class of events: charisma and empathy. Concepts traditionally used to understand charisma and empathy are shown to be equally suited for modeling telepathy. Experimental, theoretical, and especially philosophical implications of this "possible world" model are addressed throughout.


Gender, Sexual Orientation, And Truth-Of-Consensus In Studies Of Physical Attractiveness, James M. Donovan, Elizabeth Hill, William R. Jankowiak May 1989

Gender, Sexual Orientation, And Truth-Of-Consensus In Studies Of Physical Attractiveness, James M. Donovan, Elizabeth Hill, William R. Jankowiak

James M. Donovan

Truth-of-consensus methodology presently holds that sex differences in perceptions of physical attractiveness are negligible and may be routinely ignored during prescaling. No determination has been made in the literature of the effects of sexual orientation on this perceptual process. The data presented herein suggest that while sex and sexual orientation of judge are largely irrelevant to prescaling of female stimuli, these variables are important when judging male stimuli. In particular, male homosexuals and male heterosexuals differ significantly in ranking male facial photographs. Thus, experimenters wishing to treat attractiveness levels as known quantities should control for this difference, especially when using …


A Charisma Model Of Telepathic Communication, James M. Donovan Jan 1988

A Charisma Model Of Telepathic Communication, James M. Donovan

James M. Donovan

This paper opened by making some general criticisms of the state of parapsychological research: that it suffered from a lack of external validity and from uncritical acceptance of a flawed paradigm. The charisma model was offered as an attempt to rectify these problems. It allows for laboratory experiments to be designed which closely approximate genuine human interactions by shifting the paradigm for telepathy from that of energy transfers to one of communication events.