It was expected that children with high as compared to low SD would state overly cautious bids suggesting low expectancy for success, and would adopt a failure avoiding pattern of Rotter's level of aspiration task. The results support the hypotheses on SD and cautious, failure avoiding behavior. Age must be carefully controlled. (CJ)

A series of studies on observer biases revealed that simply informing observers of experimental hypotheses does not produce observational data consonant with those hypotheses. However, questionnaire responses following an experiment with different induced expectations does produce global data consonant with experimental hypotheses. In addition, if…

Interpretation of experimental tasks is influenced by knowledge of the language used, by assessment of what the experimenter intends, and by how subjects themselves would normally represent the physical situation. Whether these processes in which children engage in cognitive studies differ from those employed by adults in similar tasks was…