Behaviourism proposes successful learning to be dependent on the performance of conditioned behaviours that are distinctly observable and objectively measurable. Over the past 100 years, various behaviourist concepts have been superseded by sociocultural and cognitive learning theories, but the entwined areas of assessment in mathematics education…

The study of ethical decision making has gained considerable interest among organizational scientists due to the widespread occurrence of wrongdoing in business, industry, government and various other institutions. This study examined the effects of priming and organizational level manipulation on an individual's ethical decision-making behavior.…

Possible sex differences in risk-taking behavior were investigated in two experiments. In the first experiment, 15 men and 15 women played 12 hands of blackjack against a computer. A two-factor ANOVA with repeated measures on the outcome factor revealed no differences for main or interaction effects. In the second experiment 10 female and 10 male…

The relevance of cognitive style is not limited to specifically defined learning situations. Information is being processed continually in support of our daily activities and interactions with others. For this reason, an individual's cognitive style determines much of what is called personality. It has been observed that behavior patterns…

Past research suggests that Type A's have a higher need for control than Type B's, and empirical evidence documents their greater reactivity to control loss. To extend investigation to control decisions and examine the hypothesis that Type A's would be less willing than Type B's to relinquish control to another person, 160 male undergraduates were…

Previous research has indicated that Type A's have a higher need to control their environments, and respond more reactively to control loss than Type B's. To clarify the role of information processing in the control relinquishment decisions of Type A's and B's, 147 male and female college students took part in a problem solving experiment. Pairs…

A study was conducted concerning television program decision-making based on a theory of human information processing. Twenty-eight programers from 13 markets completed experimental simulations of television programing decisions. Important steps in the procedure were determined to be evaluation, search for alternatives, and selection of…

The explanatory cornerstone of most currently viable social theories is a strict cost-gain assumption. The clearest formal explication of this view is contained in subjective expected utility models (SEU), in which individuals are assumed to scale their subjective likelihood estimates of decisional consequences and the personalistic worth or…

A study investigated whether the interaction patterns of high consensus groups differed significantly from the patterns of low consensus groups in the final stage of a decision-making task. Eighty-four college students placed into 19 groups were told to select a social problem, investigate it, and develop a solution. At the end of the three-week…

Two cartoon strips were the vehicle for surveying perceptions of power use in everyday situations. A stratified cross-sectional sample of 430 adults in Los Angeles were interviewed. Their task was to choose a behavior, illustrated by a cartoon panel, most likely to be employed by a policeman in one instance and a nurse in another to secure…

Film audience research complements institutional research, verifying scholarship on the meanings films have to viewers and providing broad-based explanations of film images. Most important, such research focuses on the decision and motivation processes people use before they set foot in the movie theater, thereby helping to construct a context…

A systems model is presented which combines critical incident research techniques and systems methodology to improve individual decision-making. The model: (1) revolves around a critical incident approach to understanding personal history of decision-making in several environments such as family, educational, and vocational; (2) utilizes the…

This essay explores the group dynamics relating to the events surrounding the Watergate coverup and attempts to identify the factors that predispose of the parties involved to make inappropriate, foolish, and ineffective choices concerning a criminal case in which none of them initially was culpable. The initial Watergate breakin is briefly…

In this survey, approximately 30 teachers chose from a list of 56 behavior descriptors those they thought characterized either the learning disabled or slow-learner/low-achiever populations. Results indicated that, as a group, teachers did not distinguish between learning disabled and other under-achievers on the listed behavioral descriptors,…

The conflict theory of decision making was examined by testing a conflict model which differentiated among three basic coping patterns in response to decisional conflict, i.e., defensive avoidance, panic, and vigilance. Male college students (N=53) were administered two decisional problems, "The Changing Work Procedures Case" and…