Harold Cook

Cooperative Behavior and Locus of Control Among American and Chinese-American Boys

ABSTRACT The present study investigated cooperative behavior and the effect of locus of control in 139 American (n = 64) and Chinese-American (n = 75) boys aged 8 to 10 years. Subjects blocked on ethnicity and locus of control were randomly paired into groups of internal, external, and mixed locus-of-control dyads, yielding a 2 × 3 between-subjects design. Each pair played a cooperative board game, with latency to achieve a goal the major dependent measure. The results indicated that (a) overall, Chinese-Americans were more external than Americans and, when matched on locus of control, were more cooperative than Americans; (b) external dyads were more cooperative than internal or mixed dyads; and (c) in mixed dyads, Chinese-Americans were more cooperative than Americans. The findings suggest the importance of the role that cultural context plays in the socialization process.

Narcissism, affect, and gender: An empirical examination of Kernberg's and Kohut's theories of narcissism.

The activation of narcissistically affirming and disaffirming early memories were used to assess Kernbergs and Kohuts propositions regarding the roles of hostile, depressive, and positive affect in narcissistic character structures. After completing the Narcissis-tic Personality Inventory participants wrote either an early memory of pride, an early memory of shame, an unspecified memory, or no memory before completing the Projective Affect Scale and Multiple Affect Adjective Checklist. ANOVAs were conducted on participants ratings of hostile, depressive, and positive affect. The results indicated that for high relative to low narcissists, prideful and nonspecific memories resulted in less hostility, less pride, and more positive affect. Shameful memories resulted in higher projected hostility for high narcissists. Shame was negatively related to narcissism for males and positively related for females. Even to the casual observer of psychoanalysis it is apparent that issues of narcissism have taken center stage in recent years. The concept of narcissism has been pivotal in revisions of psychoanalytic theory, and the treatment of pathological narcissism central to innovations in analytic technique.

Locus of Control and Cooperative Behavior in 10-Year-Old Children

Abstract A game-like task was used to evaluate the cooperative behavior of 10-year-old same-sex dyads that were paired homogeneously or heterogeneously on a premeasure of locus of control. Pairs of girls were relatively more cooperative than were boys, and dyads of internal locus of control boys who displayed relatively little cooperation on initial trials became more cooperative as the game progressed. In addition, male dyads heterogeneous in terms of locus of control (an internal and an external), who also displayed little cooperation initially, became even less cooperative over trials.

Age and Sex Differences in the Cooperative and Noncooperative Behavior of Pairs of American Children

Game playing behavior of same and mixed sex pairs of 5-, 8-, and 11-year-old American children was compared, using a game in which cooperative behavior maximized reward. Pairs of 8- and 11-year-old children were relatively more cooperative and attained significantly more Joint Reward Goals than 5-year-old pairs. Older pairs were not maximally cooperative, however, in terms of all the dependent measures; in adjusting for initial differences on practice trials, 5-year-olds and 8-year-olds took less time than the 11-year-olds, and 11-year-old pairs of boys took significantly more time than all other pairs. In addition, cooperative behavior increased across trials, especially for the 11-year-old children.

Transfer of Prior Learning to Verbal Instruction

Using a proactive model of transfer of learning, two hypotheses were tested about how specific, experimentally induced differences in prior instruction determine the results of subsequent verbal instruction. In an experiment, 352 children from inner city schools in Los Angeles were individually randomly assigned to six treatments and individually taught and tested. The results supported the two hypotheses about transfer, indicating that transfer depended upon the congruence between the students’ previous learning in the experiment and subsequent instruction.

MERE REPETITION OF A VERBAL CUE IN PROBLEM SOLVING

Latency to solution of a measurement of circumference problem requiring the use of a string was employed to determine the repetition effect of 1, 15, 30, and 60 repetitions of a cue relevant to problem solution, a cue irrelevant but phonetically related, and an irrelevant cue. Latency to solution was significantly slower for subjects in the 60-repetition condition and faster for those in the 0-repetition control and 1-repetition conditions.

Effectiveness of a verbal reinforcer subsequent to satiation in preschool children

Satiation implies a loss of meaning or reduction in the effectiveness of a stimulus following its continued repetition. It was hypothesized that satiation should reduce the effectiveness of a verbal reinforcer. Ss were assigned randomly to treatment groups in a 2 by 2 by 5 factorial design. During a baseline phase, Ss in a free-operant task dropped marbles into either of two holes, and a low preference side was determined for each S. Each S then continually repeated aloud “good” (a positive reinforcer) or “plant” (a neutral word) for 20, 15, 10, 5, or 0 sec. In the conditioning phase, each S was verbally reinforced by E (“good” or “plant”) for each marble-drop response made to his low-preference side. Analysis of variance showed a significant main effect for duration of repetition (p <.01).

Attunement of Encoding Affect, Attention and Their Effect on Memory of Mood of Narrative

Two explanations have been postulated by Bower (1981) to account for the findings from studies on the effect of mood on memory. First a “mood-congruity” explanation, indicates that material whose mood matches the mood of a learner at encoding is recalled more than when the mood and material are mismatched. Second a “Pollyanna” explanation indicates that material that induces or enhances a happy mood will be recalled better than material that inhibits a happy mood. The present study attempted to explore the aforementioned explanations and findings reported by Bower, Gilligan and Monteiro (1981). Fifty-four graduate students were blocked on sex and randomly assigned to one of 9 conditions comprised of 3 mood induction treatments (happy, sad or neutral). Subjects, run individually, initially filled out a mood adjective checklist and were then instructed to read a one page biography (affect induction) about a “happy”, “sad” or “neutral” person. Subjects in the “happy” condition were also instructed to “smile” when they read the story, in the “sad” condition to “frown” and in the “neutral” condition “just to read the story”. Immediately after reading the story, subjects were asked to rate their mood on a 5-point scale (from “happy” to “sad”). Then all subjects were told to listen to a taped story and told (attention orienting) to “pay careful attention to the happy elements of the story.” The story, an adaptation of the “Happy Andre, Sad Jack” story (Bower et al, 1981), consisted of 34 ideation elements that were “happy”, 34 elements that were “sad” and 12 elements that were “neutral.” Subsequent to listening to the story, subjects were asked to recall as much of the story as they could remember. Each response, scored by two judges, was correct if it matched an ideation element of the story. Preliminary data analysis reveal: (1) that the independent index of affect induction (the 5-point happy-sad rating) resulted in the “happy” condition being significantly different from “neutral”, which was significantly different from “sad.” (2) Females recalled overall more than males. (3) “Happy” material overall was recalled significantly better than “sad” material. (4) The highest recall was obtained with the “happy” affect conditions for both “happy” and “sad” materials, whereas the “sad” affect condtions resulted in the lowest recall of both “happy” and “sad” materials. More specifically the worst condition for recall (for both “happy” and “sad” material) was a “sad” affect coupled with the “sad” attentional orienting set, even though the “sad” attentional instructions specifically called for subjects to attend to the “sad” material. The best combination of affect and attention were for the “happy” affect and “neutral” or “happy” attention conditions (for both “happy” and “sad” material). The results raise questions concerning the mood congruency and Pollyanna explanation. It appears that the influence of affect and the internal state it produces effects memory in a complex manner, especially when attentional processes are evoked which inevitably produce motivational changes — the notion of an attunement of affect, attention and memorial processes provide a framework for modifying Bower’s explanation.

Dimensional salience and speeded sorting of orientation by kindergarten and fourth-grade children

Perceptual sensitivity and cognitive processing hypotheses relating to orientation perception in kindergarten and fourth-grade children were tested. Assessment of dimensional salience for orientation and form revealed that subjects at both grade levels identified geometric figures as being alike on the basis of form regardless of orientation condition. The effects of dimensional salience and orientation condition on speeded sorting were then investigated. Kindergarten results supported the cognitive processing prediction that orientation sorting times would vary as a function of orientation condition, but no differences were obtained for the fourth-grade subjects. In addition, the results indicated a substantial improvement in kindergarten performance when sorting on the basis of form as compared with orientation. Dimensional salience had much less effect on fourth-grade sorting times.

Generality and Generalization of Social Reinforcer Efficacy Subsequent to Satiation

Abstract One hundred preschoolers were randomly assigned in a 2 × 2 × 5 design to determine the effect of (a) a source of satiation—either subject or experimenter, (b) a reinforcer—either the repeated word or a semantically related word, and (c) the level of satiation—0, 10, 20, 30, or 40 repetitions. After a baseline phase in a two-choice marble-drop task, the children repeated or heard the experimenter repeat the word good; then, during a conditioning phase, they were reinforced with good or yes for responses made to their baseline low preference side. An extinction phase followed. The results tended to support prior findings of a curvilinear relationship across the level of satiation. In addition, satiation on the word good altered the reinforcer effectiveness of the word yes.