Bill Underwood

Perspective-taking and altruism

Reviews the evidence regarding the development of altruism and suggests that various forms of perspective-taking (perceptual, social, empathic, moral) might be the mediators of this development. Previous reviews in this area have generally concluded that the evidence relating perspective-taking and

Disinhibition of aggression through diffusion of responsibility and dehumanization of victims

The present study tested derivations from social learning theory on the disinhibition of aggression through processes that weaken self-deterring consequences to injurious conduct. Subjects were provided with opportunities to behave punitively under diffused or personalized responsibility toward groups that were characterized in either humanized, neutral, or dehumanized terms. Both dehumanization and lessened personal responsibility enhanced aggressiveness, with dehumanization serving as the more potent disinhibitor. Escalation of aggression under conditions of dehumanization was especially marked when punitiveness was dysfunctional in effecting desired changes. The uniformly low level of aggression directed toward humanized groups, regardless of variations in responsibility and instrumentality of the conduct, attested to the power of humanization to counteract punitiveness. Results of supplementary measures are consistent with the postulated relationship between self-disinhibiting processes and punitiveness. Dehumanization fostered self-absolving justifications that were in turn associated with increased punitiveness. Findings on the internal concomitants of behavior performed under different levels of responsibility suggest that reducing personal responsibility heightens aggressiveness more through social than personal sources of disinhibition.

Attention, Negative Affect, and Altruism: An Ecological Validation

This field study attempted to replicate the finding that sadness decreases generosity and also to test the plausi bility of the suggestion that sadness decreases generosity because it decreases the radius of attention. Donations to a well-known charity were collected both prior to and after movies which had independently been rated as sad or neutral. The sad movies produced significantly lower donation rates than the neutral movies. An attention manipulation did not alter this relationship, suggesting that the negative mood effect is not mediated by a decreased radius of attention.

Environmental noise, perceived control, and aggression.

Summary The effects of aversive noise on aggressive responding were examined under conditions of control or no control over termination of the aversive noise. It was hypothesized that the effects of control would differ under conditions of high and low noise, with control decreasing aggression under high stress. College males (N = 48) were exposed to either loud noise or soft noise under conditions of control or no-control over termination of the noise. Contrary to previous findings control did not reduce aggression under loud noise; however it did lead to increased aggression under soft noise. These results are discussed in terms of predictions derived from Seligmans learned helplessness theory.

Generalization of feedback about performance

The effect of success and failure on interpretation of ambiguous feedback was examined under conditions in which the ambiguous feedback was on a task that was either similar or dissimilar to the one at which subjects succeeded or failed. Subjects who received success feedback were more likely than controls or failure subjects to interpret ambiguous feedback as indicating success. Failure subjects were less likely than controls to interpret the feedback as indicating success. Subjects who performed on a task similar to the original training were more likely to generalize on the basis of their previous experience than were those who performed on a dissimilar task. There was greater generalization to the dissimilar task on the part of failure subjects than success subjects. These results are interpreted in terms of previous findings on success and failure. Analogies between the results of failure subjects and reactive depression were examined.

Mood, Attention and Generosity

The present study was a field investigation of the effects of negative mood states and attention on generosity. The investigators wanted to compare donation rates rollowing a sad movie with the rate following an affectively neutral movie. One problem posed by the use of such selfselected samples as people who choose to attend sad and neutral movies is that they may represent very different populations, which can render the