Ed M. Edmonds

Attitudes concerning crimes related to clothing worn by female victims

Male and female college students were shown one of two slides featuring a female model wearing either sexy or nonsexy clothes. The subjects were then asked to answer a set of questions based upon the supposition that the model might be either robbed or raped. Responses indicated that the model wearing sexually oriented clothes was seen as more likely to be either robbed or raped, more likely to provoke such an attack, and more likely to be responsible for the attack if she were to be assaulted. Furthermore, the model’s assailant was held to be less accountable if the model was assaulted while wearing sexy clothes than while wearing sexually conservative clothes. The results are discussed with respect to attribution theory and the literature concerning crimes against women, particularly rape.

The watched pot still won’t boil: Expectancy as a variable in estimating the passage of time

The proverbial watched-pot phenomenon was literally produced by exposing two groups of subjects to a pot of water on a hot plate. The experimental subjects were requested to signal when the water began to boil; the control group was given no such instructions. All subjects were then asked to estimate the length of a 240-sec interval; the experimental group gave significantly longer time estimates than did the control group. The results are interpreted as supporting an expectancy interpretation of the watched-pot effect.

Effects of knowledge of results on mixed schema discrimination

In a mixed schema task, Ss learned to distinguish among different schemata both with and without knowledge of results (KR). KR did not appear to assist schema learning. These results indicate that humans can discriminate higher order variables (schemata) without external assistance.

Male-female estimates of opposite-sex first impressions concerning females’ clothing styles

Men and women college students recorded their impressions of a model dressed either conservatively or in clothing judged to be sexually provocative, and also attempted to estimate the impressions of a typical member of the opposite sex. The results indicated a generally negative bias toward women wearing provocative clothing. The most striking finding was that females greatly overestimated the extent of male rape motivation.

The estimation of time as a function of positive, neutral, or negative expectancies

Positive, neutral, and negative expectancy conditions were varied to determine their effects on time perception. Subjects were led to believe that their participation would result in a “pleasant,” an “unpleasant,” or a subjectively neutral experience. Intervals of 60 and 240 sec were estimated under each expectancy condition. The results indicated that the positive expectancy group tended to overestimate the actual interval (time passed relatively slowly), whereas the neutral and negative expectancy groups tended to underestimate the actual interval. The results are related to theories of time perception.

Female clothes preference related to male sexual interest

Male and female college students rated 40 pictures of women’s apparel in terms of the extent to which men would be sexually aroused by women wearing the various styles of clothes. These ratings correlated.85, indicating that females are very knowledgeable concerning the sexual impact of clothing styles upon men. A second phase of the study demonstrated that women who perceive themselves as being sexually attractive have a marked preference for those clothes judged to be most sexually exciting for men. The results are discussed with respect to possible social implications and the degree of female awareness concerning sexual cue control.

The role of schemata in perceptual learning

Ss (N = 66), discriminating among patterns representing different schema families, performed better when pretrained with patterns having another schema than when pretrained with random patterns. This result indicates that humans discriminate dimensional aspects (concept of a schema) of stimuli rather than discrete cues.

Predictions of opposite-sex attitudes concerning gender-related social issues

Men and women college students indicated the extent of their agreement with statements concerning sex-role stereotyping, adversarial sexual beliefs, sexual conservatism, acceptance of interpersonal violence, and rape-myth acceptance, and they also predicted the opinion of a typical member of the opposite sex. In all comparisons, the opinions of the men and the women were not significantly different. Although the men were very accurate in predicting the women’s opinions, the women consistently predicted that the men were more negatively biased than the actual opinions expressed by the men would indicate.

SCHEMA DISCRIMINATION WITHOUT EXTERNAL REINFORCEMENT

In two discrimination tasks, Ss readily learned to distinguish members of a schema family from non-members. This learning occurred in an insightful manner without external reinforcement.

Students' Performance as a Function of Sex, Noise, and Intelligence

289 sixth-grade students were randomly assigned to be administered either the Standard Progressive Matrices or the STEP Reading Test, Form 3 (STEP III). Students given the Matrices were assigned to one of eight groups defined by the possible combinations of two classroom noise conditions (40 dbA vs 70 dbA), two sex (boys vs girls), and two levels of intelligence (above average vs below average). The same assignment procedure was used for the STEP III. Students given low noise performed better on the Matrices than did students under high noise. For the STEP III scores, there was an interaction between intelligence and level of noise. No evidence for sex differences was found on either test. The results, while not supporting previous findings concerning an interaction between noise and sex, indicate that the effects of intelligence and noise on classroom performance vary as a function of task familiarity.