Robert Ervin Cramer

Taste potentiation of auditory aversions in rats (Rattus norvegicus): a case for spatial contiguity.

An aversion for an auditory stimulus was established in laboratory rats when a tone was spatially and temporally contiguous with a novel taste in a food conditioned stimulus compound followed by toxicosis. The procedure involved varying the location of the tone relative to a novel tasting food. During toxicosis conditioning, one group ate sweet food with a speaker located in the food, two groups ate sweet food with the speaker displaced (near or far) from the food, and a fourth group was presented with a tone without food available. It was found that the potentiation of auditory aversions required both the presence of a novel taste and spatial contiguity between the taste and the tone.

Human agency and associative learning: Pavlovian principles govern social process in causal relationship detection.

Estimates of a workers causal relationship (CR) to production obeyed associative principles, despite the participants’ a priori beliefs that workers are responsible or “at cause” for production. In three experiments, social analogues of conditioned stimuli (workers) and unconditioned stimuli (company production information) were manipulated in familiar Pavlovian paradigms. The findings included (1) CR acquisition, (2) unconditioned stimulus-intensity effects, and (3) CR blocking. The research plan employed an approach that Neal Miller (1959) termed “extension of liberalized S-R theory” and drew on the Rescorla-Wagner model to integrate the experimental results, to illuminate the empirical data of social attribution research, and to guide the study of causal relationship detection using social stimuli.

Sex Differences in Subjective Distress to Unfaithfulness: Testing Competing Evolutionary and Violation of Infidelity Expectations Hypotheses

According to an evolutionary psychology perspective, mens and womens processing of threats to their sex-linked mate selection strategies cause sex differences in infidelity distress. An alternative account assumes that the distress results from mens and womens processing of expectation violations regarding the content of an unfaithful partners actions with a rival. Logistic regressions supported the conclusion that the participants sex—but not the processing of expectation violations—was the best predictor of the most distressing infidelity presented in forced-choice, mutually exclusive, and combined formats. Our results also indicated that the sex differences in infidelity distress were neither limited to using data from a forced-choice response format nor caused by the distinct inferences that men and women draw about the relation between love and sex.

Identifying the ideal mate: More evidence for male-female convergence

Male and female students participated in an experiment designed to test specific hypotheses fromsexual strategies theory (Buss & Schmitt, 1993) regarding their preferences for certain personal and physical traits in a potential mate. Participants distributed 50 points among a number of trait-pairs. The items consisted of a consensually valued trait-pair, “biologically relevant” trait-pairs, and a reference to ethnic and cultural similarity. In Condition 1 participants distributed the points among the trait-pairs without any additional information about the potential mate; Condition 2 participants distributed the points after being asked to assume the potential mate possessed some biologically relevant traits. Males, compared to females, assigned more points to trait-pairs signalling highreproductive value, and females, compared to males, assigned more points to trait-pairs signalling highresource potential. Male and female participants in Condition 2, compared to control participants, distributed more points among the opposite genders’ preferred traits. Discussion focused on speculation that assuming a potential mate possessed biologically relevant traits increases the desirability of other traits related to the solution of common and genderspecific long-term mating problems.

Hard-driving and speed-impatience components of the type A behavior pattern as predictors of physiological arousal, subjective arousal and challenge seeking

Male and female subjects first worked on a cognitive task under conditions of either low or high challenge followed by a physical exercise task. Heart rate, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, subjective arousal, subjective fatigue, and preferred levels of challenge for subsequent tasks were assessed. The results indicated that subjects with high Hard-Driving scores reported lower subjective arousal while working on the cognitive tasks and preferred to work on more challenging cognitive and physical exercise tasks in a subsequent phase of the experiment. In contrast, subjects with high Hard-Driving scores, high Speed-Impatience scores, or high overall Type A scores did not evidence higher physiological arousal in response to either the cognitive or the physical exercise tasks. Utilization of the components of the Type A pattern yielded greater specificity of results and suggests that Type As are at greater risk from coronary disease for reasons other than those that have been traditionally hypothesized.

Male attractiveness: masculinity with a feminine touch

Female subjects either listened to prerecorded responses, or read verbatim transcripts, of two males answering 10 questions on topics such as car repairs, career opportunities, and romantic interests. One set of answers was constructed to reflect stereotypical masculine activities and interests; the second set, to reflect stereotypical masculineand feminine activities and interests. Following exposure to the males’ answers, subjects rated theandrogynous male more likable, intelligent, moral, mentally healthy, appropriate, and honest than themasculine male. Correlational results indicated, however, that, for the androgynous male, masculinity was positively related to, and femininity was negatively related to, a number of personal dimensions. Hierarchical regression analyses supported a “masculine model” of personal evaluation.

Motivating and Reinforcing Functions of the Male Sex Role: Social Analogues of Partial Reinforcement, Delay of Reinforcement, and Intermittent Shock.

After listening to a masculine male, female subjects learned an instrumental escape response reinforced by the opportunity to listen to an androgynous male. The results of three experiments revealed a striking correspondence between conventional learning variables and social analogues of acquisition, partial reinforcement, delay of reinforcement, and intermittent shock. Subject responses to a postconversation questionnaire indicated that the comments made by the androgynous male were judged as more appropriate and more honest, and he was rated as more likable, more intelligent, more moral, and more mentally healthy, than his masculine counterpart. Discussion focused on the importance of investigating male sex role action using additional theoretically relevant social analogues of conventional learning variables and other familiar learning paradigms.

Spatial contiguity, not cue-to-consequence, is the issue in taste-potentiated noise-illness associations: Comment on Holder, Bermudez-Rattoni, and Garcia (1988).

Holder, Bermudez-Rattoni, and Garcia (1988) allege to have failed to corroborate findings from our laboratory (Ellins, Cramer, & Whitmore, 1985; Ellins & von Kluge, 1987) that taste-potentiated noise-illness associations can be established under conditions of spatial contiguity. We maintain that Holder et al. have provided additional experimental support for our contention that spatial contiguity is an important factor in the taste-potentiation of nongustatory stimuli. In addition, we take issue with their conclusion that the results of our research are incompatible with the conditioning principle of cue-to-consequence.

Delay of reinforcement and delay shifts in dyadic communication

Participation in dyadic communication can be reinforced by the opportunity to speak in reply. Social analogs of delay of reinforcement and shifts in delay of reinforcement were investigated. In an experimental conversation modeled on discrete-trials instrumental conditioning, instrumental response speeds were faster when the opportunity to speak in reply was immediate rather than delayed (p <.005). Subjects shifted from short- to long-delay matched speeds with constant long-delay controls, while subjects shifted from long- to short-delay matched speeds with constant short-delay controls (N = 128).

Distributive justice reasoning in hearing and hearing-impaired children

Abstract The development of distributive justice reasoning was examined in four populations, hearing and hearing-impaired children, ages 9 and 11 years. In addition, two methods for scoring Enrights Distributive Justice Scale (1981) were considered. As expected, hearing children scored higher than did hearing-impaired children, suggesting that hearing-impaired children have more limited opportunities for socialization, resulting in a lag in the acquisition of the concept of distributive justice reasoning. Consistent with previous results, older children and children of higher socioeconomic status scored higher than did younger children and children of lower socioeconomic status; no differences were found for gender and there were no interactions among the factors. Finally, the traditional method advocated by Enright and a scoring technique based on interval scaling revealed comparable results, although the interval scoring method appeared to be somewhat more robust. Discussion included ways in which social interactions of hearing-impaired children might be improved to develop increased social perspective taking.