According to Fiedler's Contingency Model of Leadership Effectiveness, group performance is a function of the leader-situation interaction. A review of past validations has found several problems associated with the model. Meta-analytic techniques were applied to the Contingency Model in order to assess the validation evidence quantitatively. The…

This report summarizes a series of studies on the ability to structure acoustic material as a measure of musical aptitude. It is divided into two sections. Section one explains the general approach of the study. Behavioralism as a research approach which rejects inner states of being in favor of studying concrete operations, the importance of…

Self-efficacy theory maintains that self-efficacy expectancy, a belief about one's ability to perform a behavior successfully, is independent of outcome expectancy, a belief about the likelihood of the behavior leading to a specific outcome. To examine this hypothesis, subjects (N=95) read communications that differed in descriptions of the…

This is a review of research relating to the attributes of portrayals which play a role in affecting aggressive behavior. The effects of portrayal can occur at any of three successive stages: acquisition, disinhibition/stimulation/arousal, performance. The older the individual, the more likely the influence is to be in all three stages of…

This report describes a series of studies designed to construct and validate a set of text materials necessary to the pursuance of a long-term research project on information analysis and integration in semantically rich, naturalistic domains, primarily in the domain of the stock market. The methods and results of six separate experiments on…

TWO EXPERIMENTS WERE CONDUCTED TO CLASSIFY AND TO CONDITION REWARD RESPONSIVENESS IN KINDERGARTEN CHILDREN. IN THE FIRST EXPERIMENT, 207 CHILDREN WITH A MEDIAN AGE OF 6.0 WERE CLASSIFIED ACCORDING TO THEIR RESPONSIVENESS TO A HIERARCHY OF REWARDS. AFTER TWO SESSIONS INVOLVING TWO-CHOICE INSTRUMENTAL CONDITIONING TASKS, 60 PERCENT OF THE CHILDREN…

The definition of film attributes must bridge the gap between technical descriptions of the attributes (e.g., the arrangement of the visual material) and expected psychological effects of the attributes. Interaction effects between learner traits, learning objectives, and a film's attributes should be expected, since each attribute contributes to…

College students were instigated by a confederate and then interacted with that same person on a reaction time completion task. The confederate informed half of the treatment subjects of the response strategy he intended to adopt. The other half received an irrelevant message. Subjects in both message conditions then competed against the…

This study investigated whether infants who were given increased amounts of response-contingent stimulation would evidence positive and nonspecific transfer of learning to situations requiring new responses to control environmental events. Subjects were thirty 3-month-old biologically normal home-reared infants. Infants in the group assigned to a…

This paper attempts to clarify some of the misunderstandings which have arisen in relation to a behavior analysis of child development. Five frequent criticisms of the approach are discussed. The first concerns the confusion of behavior analysis with learning theories. Although many of the concepts of behavior analysis arose from learning…

Research was conducted to investigate two general classes of human attention models, early-selection models which claim that attentional selecting precedes memory and meaning extraction mechanisms, and late-selection models which posit the reverse. This research involved two components: (1) the development of simple, efficient, computer-oriented…

Navy personnel research conducted a comprehensive review of the literature on computer simulation studies to determine whether simulation methodology could be used to improve scientific understanding of psychosocial and sociotechnical systems. The literature search indicated that computer simulation could provide tools for the study of…

In the last half dozen years, the field of personality psychology has been asked to reconsider certain premises that traditionally have guided conceptualization and research. The most influential questioner and critic has been Mischel. The essential criticism, advanced and buttressed in a number of ways, is an empirical one: namely, the research…

Instead of looking at the impact of specific third party actions or behaviors on negotiation outcomes, the authors studied the effects of anticipated intervention on the negotiation process. Third party power (ability to force an agreement on deadlocked negotiations or merely recommend one) and generalized reputation (favorable or unfavorable)…

This report examines the extent and nature of marihuana use in the U.S. It presents information on the social and psychological influences as well as the toxicological and pharmacological effects. It also analyzes effects on behavior and discusses theraputic aspects of the drug. (Author/HMV)