Social Psychology Commons^™

The Effect Of Sex, Gender Identity, & Sex Of Story Characters On The Assessment Of Moral Development, Cathy Frey

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The present study investigated the three areas associated with sex bias in Kohlberg's theory of moral development --sex, gender identification, and sex of story characters. The Defining Issues Test (DIT: Rest,1986a), a measure of moral development derived from Kohlberg's theory, was used in its original form and two revised forms (Male and Female versions) to determine the effects of sex and sex of story characters on the assessment of moral development. The Bem Sex -Role Inventory (Bem, 1981) was used to classify subjects as either sex -typed or androgynous to determine whether sex -role identification affects the assessment moral development. …

The Effect Of Social Context & Group Decision Making Formats On An Evaluative Task, Joyce Bowers

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

A review of the literature on decision making indicated a lack of research attention given to the effects of the dynamics of the social context surrounding participation on decision outcomes. The present study examined the relationship between social context and group decision making formats, and its implications for the effective implementation of group participation in decision making The effectiveness of three decision -making formats, the nominal technique, the interacting technique, and the consensus technique, were compared under conditions of cooperation and competition on the three decision effectiveness dimensions of quality, acceptance, and synergy.

Two-hundred and forty-eight undergraduate students, working in …

Social Psychology's Three Little Pigs, Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Three perspectives on the nature of scientific research are discussed allegorically: (1) basic science, or the study of theoretically meaningful hypotheses through rigorous research; (2) applied science, which focuses on practically significant problems; and (3) "action research," which integrates elements of both basic and applied science. The allegory concludes by advocating the unification of basic and applied science.

Brief Mood Introspection Scale (Bmis): Open-Source Code, John D. Mayer

UNH Personality Lab

This is computer code for analyzing the Brief Mood Introspection Scale (BMIS) data files for the R Statistical Environment open source software.

Technical Notes On R-Based Reanalysis Of The Brief Mood Introspection Scale (Bmis) Of Mayer & Gaschke, 1998, Study 1, John D. Mayer

UNH Personality Lab

Notes regarding the creation of the Brief Mood Introspection Scale (BMIS) and data published in the original article Mayer, J. D., & Gaschke, Y. N. (1988). The experience and meta-experience of mood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55, 102-111.

Brief Mood Introspection Scale (Bmis): Scoring Instructions, John D. Mayer

UNH Personality Lab

The BMIS scale is an open-source mood scale consisting of 16 mood-adjectives to which a person responds (e.g., Are you "happy"?). The scale can yield measures of overall pleasant-unpleasant mood, arousal-calm mood, and it also can be scored according to positive-tired and negative-calm mood.

Brief Mood Introspection Scale (Bmis): Open-Source Data, John D. Mayer, Yvonne N. Gaschke

UNH Personality Lab

Mood experience is comprised of at least two elements: the direct experience of the mood and a meta-level of experience that consists of thoughts and feelings about the mood. In Study 1, a two-dimensional structure for the direct experience of mood (Watson & Tellegen, 1985) was tested for its fit to the responses of 1,572 subjects who each completed one of the three different mood scales, including a brief scale developed to assist future research. The Watson and Tellegen structure was supported across all three scales. In Study 2, meta-mood experience was conceptualized as the product of a mood regulatory …

The Brief Mood Introspection Scale (Bmis), John D. Mayer, Yvonne N. Gaschke

UNH Personality Lab

The BMIS scale is an open-source mood scale consisting of 16 mood-adjectives to which a person responds (e.g., Are you "happy"?). The scale can yield measures of overall pleasant-unpleasant mood, arousal-calm mood, and it also can be scored according to positive-tired and negative-calm mood.

A Charisma Model Of Telepathic Communication, James M. Donovan

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

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.

A New Measure Of Mature Religiosity, James A. Croxton

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In this study, a new measure of mature religiosity was created. One hundred and fifty students were administered an 80 item scale based upon a consensus meaning of mature religiosity. The results of this administration were factor analyzed. Seven First Order Factors and two Second Order Factors emerged which could be adequately assessed by 50 of the 80 item. The revised 50 item scale was administered to 130 students. During the same administration, the students also responded to measures of personal maturity (Dogmatism Scale, Internal-External Locus of Control Scale, Social Desirability Scale) and other measures of mature religiosity (Intrinsic-Extrinsic Religious …

The Self-Help Movement: Evolution Of A Dystonia Chapter, Hanoch Livneh, Betsy M. Cohen

Counselor Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

Reviews the history of the Dystonia Foundation and the self-help movement. Dystonia is a rare neurological disorder characterized by repeated and uninterrupted movements that can affect 1 muscle, a group of muscles, or the entire body musculature. The New England Dystonia Chapter is discussed to illustrate the goals of the self-help movement, which include providing peer counseling and support services; establishing educational programs concerning dystonia for the medical and lay communities; serving as an advocating and liaison body for members regarding the availability of medical, legal, and social services; and participating in a network of services with other dystonia chapters …

Extramarital Sex: Good For The Goose? Good For The Gander?, Christina J. Taylor

Psychology Faculty Publications

Two experiments were carried out to elucidate beliefs about marital fidelity and extramarital sex by examining how the social evaluation of extramarital relationships is affected by three situational factors -- sex of the extramarital actor, the actor's physical attractiveness, and the frequency of the actor's involvement in extramarital affairs (i.e., extramarital experience). Overall, there has been little research on this subject in social psychology, and what findings do exist (Hartnett, Mahoney, & Bernstein, 1977; Vallacher, 1982) have limited general-izability because of the youth of the subjects, contrary definitions of extramarital relationships, and contradictory evidence regarding the double standard.

An Attributional Analysis Of Students' Reactions To Success And Failure, Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Like it or not, evaluation is as much a part of education as is learning. In most schools and universities students are regularly tested and evaluated by their teachers, who communicate their appraisals in the form of a grade. When the papers are handed back, the grades are posted, or report cards are sent home, students find out if they have succeeded or if they have failed.

How do students react to these academic evaluations? According to a growing number of studies, the answer to this question depends upon their attributions: students' inferences about the causes of their performances and …

The Effects Of Frequency & Source Of Feedback On Performance Under Goal-Setting Conditions, David Campshure

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Feedback and goal setting are both necessary for either to have an effect on performance (Erez, 1977). In the present study two attributes of feedback, frequency and source, were manipulated under goal-setting conditions to examine their effects on performance. It is generally assumed that performance can be enhanced by providing individuals with frequent feedback and by providing them with feedback that originates from a source close to themselves--that is, feedback from the task itself or self-administered feedback. A third variable of interest, subjects' perceived control over the task, was assessed via questionnaires.

Subjects worked on a problem-solving task. Each subject …

In Search Of An Operational Definition Of Social Creativity, Constance J. O'Brien

Critical and Creative Thinking Capstones Collection

Having argued for the existence of social creativity as observed in daily life, I will proceed in chapters two through four with a selective review of the psychological literature on social cognition, empathy, and social intelligence to determine whether any of these concepts can adequately account for the behavior cited. I will proceed to identify the connections between these concepts and creativity. Examining the concepts, their relationships to each other, and the degree to which any of these concepts alone can account for imaginative social problem solving will demonstrate the need for a new [...]

Effective Group Meetings And Decision Making, Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

An extraordinary amount of work and many types of decisions are handled by groups of people, for in group meetings we can pool our knowledge and abilities, give each other feedback about our ideas, and tackle problems that would overcome us if we faced them alone. Group members not only give us emotional and social support when meeting together, but they can stimulate us to become more creative, more insightful, and more committed to our goals.

Not every group, however, realizes all these positive consequences. Often we dread going to "committee meetings," "council sessions," and "discussion groups" because they take …

Predicting Immoral Behavior, Donelson R. Forsyth

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Moral behavior remains an unpredictable puzzle for psychological researchers; however, some success has been achieved recently by taking individuals' personal moral philosophies into consideration. Writing in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 1980, Forsyth argued that individual variations in approaches to moral judgment and behavior may be conceptualized in terms of two basic dimensions: relativism and idealism. First, while some personal moral codes emphasize the importance of universal ethical rules like "Thou shalt not lie," others maintain a posture of relativism that skeptically rejects universal principles. Second, while a fundamental concern for the welfare of others lies at …

The Latin American Experience In Applying Social Psychology To Community Change, Gerardo Marín

Psychology

No abstract provided.

On The Origins Of Negative Attitudes Towards People With Disabilities, Hanoch Livneh

Counselor Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

The literature review classifies reported sources of negative attitudes toward the disabled into 13 psychodynamic and sociological categories and stresses the difficulty of quickly changing such negative attitudes.

Degrees Of Self-Actualizing And Corresponding Levels Of Jealousy In College Students, Robert Paul

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In order to examine the relationship between jealousy and overall level of self-actualizing, measures of these constructs obtained from four groups of college students, males presently in romantic relationships, males presently not in romantic relationships, females presently in romantic relationships and females not presently in romantic relationships, were compared. Scores obtained from the Inner-directed scale of the Personal Orientation Inventory, a measure of overall level of self-actualizing, and a seven-item jealousy scale were examined separately for each group via 2 by 2 analyses of variance (sex by romantic status) and linear regression analysis. Results of the 2 by 2 analyses …

Characteristics Of Mentor Relationships In Male And Female University Professors, Charlotte B. Miller

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Graduate school socialization and mentoring are based on adult development theory as articulated by Jung, Erickson, and Levinson. As adults mature, they go through several stages of detaching from family and learning how to live in the world. During this period (which encompasses undergraduate and graduate education), special relationships are often formed to help ease the transition to adulthood by providing advice and mentoring.

A mentor is a person who helps guide another person into a profession and contributes to his or her professional development. The mentor may serve as a professional role model and teacher, providing encouragement, direction, information, …

Disability And Monstrosity: Further Comments, Hanoch Livneh

Counselor Education Faculty Publications and Presentations

The author discusses possible explanations for stereotypical and negative reactions toward physically disabled persons in literature and society. Cited are examples of physical deformity, animalism, and monstrosity. The reminder of mortality and fallibility produced by disability is considered.

The Traditional Sex-Stereotype Of A Job As A Moderator Variable For The Directionality Of Sex Biases In Performance Evaluation, Bernard Bena

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Accurate and objective performance appraisals are absolutely necessary due to their utility in important personnel decisions such as promotion, demotion and training. This study examines the contaminating effects of sex bias on performance evaluations and it's relationship to the sex-stereotype of the job and levels of performance. Unlike previous studies, this study not only examines these effects at the extremes of performance, but at average levels as well. Also, unlike previous studies, the subjects empirically determined the sex-typed nature of the jobs and the levels of performance within those jobs rather than the experimenter having made a priori decisions. Hypothetical …

Perceptions Of The Magnitude And Diversity Of Social Support, George R. Goethals, Shelley Jean Allison, Marnie Frost

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

Three studies were conducted to test the hypothesis that subjects would overestimate the proportion of their peers who shared their opinion on an issue and that they would perceive their own opinion group as consisting of people with a wider and more diverse range of values and outlooks than those holding different opinions. The first study was conducted following a period of intense debate about sexism on a college campus. Subjects estimated student opinion on issues related to sexism and indicated how diverse or similar they perceived supporters and nonsupporters of the women's movement to be. In a second study …

The Relationship Of Emotio-Sexual Orientation In Females To Androgyny & Social Self-Esteem, Joyce Gayles

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The research on sex-role development, psychological androgyny, and personality variables in lesbian women was reviewed. Since previous research suggested that lesbian women tend to have characteristics which might be labelled androgynous, a study was undertaken to assess the presence of androgyny among lesbian and heterosexual women and to cross-validate the findings on the relationship between androgyny and self-esteem. In order to assess sex-role classification, the PRF-Andro Scale was administered to 30 lesbian and 30 heterosexual women. The Texas Social Behavior Inventory was used to measure self-esteem. Results showed that a significantly greater proportion of the lesbians were androgynous, and a …

The Relative Efficiencey Of The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (Wais) As A Predictor Of College Academic Achievement, Ollie Dennis

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study examined the predictive validity of the WAIS in an academic setting. Traditional WAIS IQ scores and subtests of 127 male and 163 female college students were correlated with Grade Point Averages at the end of four semesters and within five academic areas. Five groups were examined including the total group, male group, female group, black group, and white group. The academic University's general and Communication of areas investigated corresponded to the education requirements; Organization Ideas, Humanities, Social and Behavioral Studies, Natural Science and Mathematics, and Physical Development. Results indicated that dictor of both semester GPA and five groups. …

Symbolic Interaction And Social Planning: Perspectives From The Early Years, Roger A. Lohmann

Faculty & Staff Scholarship

The principal thesis of this paper is that the inadequacies of recent efforts at social planning are essential failures of theory, rather than failures of practice. Economic, land use and social welfare planners it is suggested have all shared a common unwillingness or inability to abandon commitments to an essentially utilitarian rhetoric of reasoned behavior, wherein means are matched with ends, persons are viewed as essentially self-interested and goal-directed rational problem solvers operating on schedules of goal attainment known or predictable by the planners. Symbolic interaction theory has resources to revitalize planning theory. Selected publications by John Dewey, G.H. Mead, …

Leniency Error As A Function Of The Rater's Need For Social Approval, Danny Bean

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The effects of the rater's need for social approval (N-SA) on leniency error in ratings was investigated. Each of 19 supervisors rated the performance of a common set of 12 workers. Using an ANOVA procedure (Guilford, 1954) leniency error was identified. The effects of N-SA as measured by the Personal Reactions Inventory (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960) and the Least Preferred Coworker (Fiedler, 1967) were partialed out of the ratings. When the ANOVA was repeated on the partialed ratings, it was hypothesized that reduced leniency error would result. Contrary to expectations, there was virtually no reduction in leniency error. The low …

Berkeley's Social Theory: Context And Development, David E. Leary

Psychology Faculty Publications

This paper is an investigation of Berkeley's social thought, particularly as it is grounded upon Berkeley's quite explicit, but neglected, social theory, which is revealed in an essay written by Berkeley in 1713 for Steele's short-lived Guardian. Originally untitled, this short essay has been labeled "The Bond of Society" in Luce and Jessop's critical edition of Berkeley's works. Its significance was noted by Harry Elmer Barnes in 1948, but Barnes's comment has not brought the essay the recognition it deserves. This is all the more unfortunate since, as Barnes says, Berkeley's essay is "one of the most suggestive essays …

The Attributional "Double Standard": Actor-Observer Differences In Predicting The Relationship Between Attitudes And Behaviors, Donelson R. Forsyth, Barry R. Schlenker, Thomas V. Bonoma

Jepson School of Leadership Studies articles, book chapters and other publications

It was hypothesized that subjects who took the role of interaction observers ration than actors would predict a closer relationship between attitudes and behaviors and would report greater confidence in behavioral predictions derivable from an actor's attitude statements. One hundred sixty-eight subjects assumed the role of either actor or observer in scenarios of group interactions in which a central person made a statement about a particular attitude object. As predicted, subjects in the observer role reported that specific future behaviors (e.g., loaning money, helping to study for a test) had a greater likelihood of occurrence following an attitude statement (e.g., …