How can a person be induced to do something he might not ordinarily do? What constitutes a commitment on his part of some future action? Past research indicates that compliance with a small, relatively innocuous "foot-in-the-door" request serves to increase, relative to a control group, subsequent compliance with a larger request directed toward…

Discusses behaviors which culminate in suicide attempts and relates these to the biological concept of conservation-withdrawal. Clinical advantages to this conceptualization are presented. (Author/JMF)

A 2x2 factorial experiment was conducted to determine the effects of 2 interventions designed to reduce face-saving in a situation which normally produces such behavior. Face-saving, defined as sacrificing tangible (monetary) rewards to avoid public embarrassment, was measured by the length of time subjects publicly performed an embarrassing task.…

"Five roles are considered by which systematic, quantified field research can augment controlled laboratory experimentation in terms of increasing the validity of laboratory studies." Advocates that comparative psychologists should "take more initiative in designing, executing, and interpreting our experiments with regard to the natural history of…

If we define irrationality as thought, emotion, or behavior that leads to self-defeating consequences or that significantly interferes with the survival and happiness of the organism, we find that literally hundreds of major irrationalities exist in all societies and in virtually all humans in those societies. These irrationalities persist despite…

The results of four experiments comparing the behavior of children from two settings are reported in this article. (Authors)

This paper describes a therapy analogue experiment in which an interviewer's interpretation of a client's presenting problem was systematically varied along dimensions suggested by causal attribution theory. Subjects were 64 undergraduate students with the same presenting problem of unassertiveness. They were given two different interpretations of…

Developments that laid the groundwork for the modern psychology of attitude began with early Greek philosophy. Conceptions of the cosmologists during the Golden Age of Greek Civilization and the Sophist movement served as a link between mythology and science. Contributions of British Empiricism and German Experimentalism were instrumental to the…

Reports on a study which sought to determine the effect of family tactile history on attitude toward touch in public, and the relationship between this tactile history and the frequency of public touching behavior. (Author/AM)

Individual differences in self-attributions in a forced-compliance task and following manipulations of facial expressions were found to relate, suggesting that the self-attribution processes are similar and that variations among individuals in these processes are general across contents and inputs. (Author)

The convergent validity between the following measures was investigated: use of accomplices, imaginary accomplices, feltboard, disguised questionnaire, and undisguised questionnaire. The first four measures yielded corresponding results. Subjects' awareness proved to be an important methodological consideration. Results were not affected by the…

Based on research indicating that restrictive judicial language directed at jurors encourages reactance, or decisions contrary to the judge's instructions, two experiments were conducted to determine whether courtroom jurors merely admonished to ignore inadmissible evidence would be more inclined to comply with judicial instructions than would…

This review of research on the preschool years asserts that a general behavior analysis of those years is essential not only because of its importance as a developmental stage but also because there is a need to fill the knowledge gap between the principles of animal behavior and the principles of practical applications to childhood problems.…

BAER, PETERSON, AND SHERMAN HAVE ATTEMPTED TO BUILD A GENERALIZED RESPONSE SYSTEM (GRS) IN THE FORM OF IMITATIVE BEHAVIORS (IB) IN THREE SEVERELY RETARDED CHILDREN (S'S). IN THE FIRST PHASE OF THE STUDY, 130 IMITATIVE RESPONSES WERE TAUGHT BY IMMEDIATE, INDIVIDUAL REINFORCEMENT. THE S'S ALSO PERFORMED RESPONSES WHICH WERE NEVER REINFORCED. BY…