Empirical evidence indicates that intrusions into an individual's personal space may produce anxiety and defensive or avoidance behaviors which might be reduced when conversation occurs between interactants. This paper briefly presents two field experiments designed to investigate this possibility. The first study hypothesized that invasion of…

Three variables, derived from Blau's (1955) analysis of consultation networks among federal agents and Homans' (1961) social exchange analysis, were manipulated to observe their effects on help seeking. Subjects were presented with a hypothetical situation where help was needed. Subjects indicated that they would be more likely to seek help from a…

Empathy has been hypothesized as a mediator facilitating prosocial behaviors such as altruism. Definitions and measures of empathy disagree as to the extent to which the observer's response is affective and the necessity for the observer to understand the other's point of view. A conceptualization of empathy which includes these considerations has…

This paper summarizes and integrates the findings from three separate studies, all of which had as their major objective the investigation of differences in small group behavior between children who have relatively high others-concepts and children who have relatively low others-concepts, as measured by the Paired Hands Test. Group sessions of…

Following the reasoning of "expectation states theory", the present study was designed to answer three questions: (1) Is the task orientation of males and females different when they work on a task together? (2) Is the task orientation of males and females working on a task, separately, different? and, (3) If there are differences, will status…

This paper tries to demonstrate the existence of social norms against self-evaluations that are more favorable than people deserve (over-evaluation of self) and evaluations of others that are less favorable than others deserve (under-evaluation of others). The norms are derived from a resource theory in which these norms are needed to protect…

Viewing personality as the ability to elicit consistent reactions from others, individuals classified on Moltola's History of Interpersonal Distance questionnaire were expected to elicit different amounts of nodding and smiling from an interviewer. As predicted, low distance individuals elicited more smiling from one of two interviewers, but no…

Should a stimulus be defined as the single event immediately preceding a response (simple stimulus) or as a constellation of antecedents representing several preceding events (complex stimulus)? Sixty-eight families with a child between four and eight years of age were observed, and family interactions coded in the naturalistic setting of the…

In order to identify behavioral cues which contribute to judgments of marital satisfaction/distress, 40 undergraduate judges rated the level of marital satisfaction of 24 couples shown on videotape and then listed the behavioral cues used in making their judgments. The stimulus tapes were problem-solving interactions of both distressed and…

This paper reviews some of the research findings relating to the issue of personalism versus situationism in the psychology of personality. The recurrent controversy regarding the relative importance of situations, personal dispositions, and interactions between these is addressed with a focus on the manner in which persons perceive, construe, and…

This study serves as a basis for revisions of the Organizational Climate Description Questionnaire (OCDQ) and as the second part of a larger study in which the conceptual model of climate introduced by Halpin and Croft, and the OCDQ, will be revised. The purposes were (1) to determine the factor structure of the OCDQ when a large, national sample…