People are often presumed to be vulnerable to a desirability bias, namely, a tendency to be overoptimistic about a future outcome as a result of their preferences or desires for that outcome. In this article, this form of wishful thinking is distinguished from the more general concepts of motivated reasoning and overoptimism, and the evidence for…

This study replicates and extends Coyle-Shapiro and Morrow's study (Coyle-Shapiro, J.A.-M., & Morrow, P.C. 2006. Organizational and client commitment among contracted employees. "Journal of Vocational Behavior, 28," 416-431) of organizational and client commitment among contracted employees. Our study focuses on temporary workers rather than…

Both spatial theories of voting and our intuitions lead us to expect that political parties' ideological positions should affect individuals' turnout decisions. Contrary to these expectations, existing research finds that neither feelings of alienation--that no party adequately represents an individual's ideological position--nor…

The use of multivariate statistics in behavioral research is investigated, with emphasis on the reasons why multivariate methods can be so important. The concepts of testwise and experimentwise error are explained, and it is noted that multivariate methods can be used to control the inflation of experimentwise Type I error. It is also noted that…

Discussed a measurement instrument that expands on self actualization to include actualization of the environment. (RK)

The purpose of the two present studies is to ascertain whether differential acceptance of the same general personality interpretation resulted as a function of telling seperate groups of individuals that their interpretation was based on a projective test, an interview, an objective test, or was "generally true of people." (Author)

The focus of this study is on the approach-avoidance reactions durning mediational activity of repressors and sensitizers. It was hypothesized that repressors would exhibit (a) disruption and early termination of chained free association, (b) a redundancy in their association repertoires, and (c) a lesser degree of sexual content in their…

This paper points out that the available research on communication rules tends to be descriptive (or humanistic) in nature and characterized by a conspicuous absence of prediction along with experimental methods and parametric interpretations of social behavior. The paper first argues that current scientific methodology is consistent with a…

This paper is a critical comment and reaction to a 1965 article by G. A. Miller entitled "Some Preliminaries to Psycholinguistics." The subject matter is verbal control of behavior. Seven specific aspects of the Miller address are discussed. (WD)

This document constitutes the narrative portion of the Annual Progress Report of the Center for Research in Human Learning for the period 15 June 1967 to 15 June 1968. It was submitted to the National Science Foundation, the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, and the Graduate School of the University of Minnesota as an…

This report comprises a description of the linguistic research carried out at the University of Arizona in 1967 on the subject of language rules. The approach originally envisaged was to consider the possibility that rules of language are informed and supported by, take their existence only within, and are thus virtually inseparabl" from, the…

Groups of students were required to respond to the same eight two-person games, two variants each of four qualitatively different separable games including Prisoner's Dilemma. The games were generated by varying a payoff parameter which altered the potential maximum per trial difference between payoffs for the two players. The groups differed…

Academic psychology and education are too much theoretically and methodologically committed; they need "field commitment"--an orientation which allows the people who are working with problem children or adults to use any technique, any tools at their disposal that will enable them to perform most proficiently in a given situation. Until people…