Robert F. Kidd

Reactions to inequity

This article proposes a model for integrating equity theory, a framework for studying the psychology of the legal process, with some tenets of attribution theory. Attempts to restore equity and redress an injustice are viewed as being related to how responsible the victim and the harmdoer are for causing or contributing to the inequitable situation. Judgments of responsibility rest on causal attributions concerning the locus of causation, intentionality, stability, and controllability of the injustice. Some implications for future theorizing in equity are discussed along with some possible connections between the present attributional analysis and problems in dispute resolution.

Self-reflection, mood, and helpful behavior ☆

Abstract Two pilot studies and two experiments were conducted to test for relationships between mood states, self-reflection, and helpfulness. It was hypothesized that both negative and positive feelings would increase helpful reactions. In the case of negative moods, however, helpfulness would be inhibited if the induced affect engenders self-reflection by associating the bad mood with the persons self-image in a self-referencing process. To test these predictions, female undergraduates read mood-inducing statements that were either (a) negative in content and containing the personal pronoun “I”, (b) negative but not self-referencing, (c) emotionally positive in content, (d) emotionally neutral, or (e) no statements. Afterward, they were asked to complete a questionnaire and to volunteer to participate in a future study. Findings in the first experiment confirmed the hypothesis. Women who had read negative, self-referencing statements were the least likely to comply with a helpful request. The most helpful participants were those who had previously recited the negative, but not self-referencing, and the positive statements. Neutral and control subjects displayed intermediate amounts of compliance with the helping request. Questionnaire results showed that self-reflection was responsible for decreasing the helpfulness of women when negative mood was associated with some aspect of the self. A second experiment successfully replicated the major findings of the pilot studies and the first experiment.

Role of Commitments in the Decision to Stop a Theft

Summary A field experiment was conducted to test the relationship between previous commitments to a theft victim and a bystanders willingness to stop the thief. A pocket calculator was stolen in front of 30 bystanders under one of three experimental conditions. In one condition, the bystander was committed previously to watch the victims calculator (First-Party Commitment). In a second treatment, the bystander made a commitment to the victim to watch the belongings of another student who earlier had been seated nearby (Second-Party Commitment). There was also a third, no-commitment group. Findings showed that direct, first-party commitments to the victim of the theft led to greater bystander intervention than no commitment or second-party commitments.

Affiliation, xenophobia, and the behavioral organization of the young domestic chicken

Evidence was reviewed that the social mediation of responses (variously labeled contagion, imitation, or synchrony, among other terms) is an important factor in the behavioral organization of young precocial birds, and the question was raised as to whether or not specific social affiliations are a prerequisite for such an influence. Experiments were conducted with young chickens to determine if there was more matching of responses among companions (cagemates) than among strangers (noncagemates). In the first study, groups of test naive birds were observed, while, in the second study, naive subjects were confronted with conspecific models that had been prepared to exhibit high rates of particular responses (food pecking or tonic immobility). While there was certain evidence that the chickens were disturbed by the presence of strangers (that is, showed a kind of xenophobia), there was as much matching of peck responses observed in combinations of strangers as was observed in combinations of companions. Correlation coefficients expressing matching of food pecking were positive, large, and highly significant under all social conditions. However, social mediation of the immobility reaction was not consistently obtained. The results were discussed in terms of requirements for a theory of social motivation in this species that takes into account both gregarious and xenophobic tendencies.

Social facilitation in chickens: A different level of analysis

Abstract An assumption of the arousal ( D × H ) model of social facilitation effects is that in an otherwise constant stimulus situation the simple presence or absence of a conspecific has a quantitative influence on the D component, and that the habit hierarchy in the situation ( H ) is unaffected. However, certain evidence from avian subjects seemed inconsistent with the multiplicative effects predicted by the model, and experiments were conducted with the aim of resolving this discrepancy. In general, chickens were tested for consummatory responses in the company of companions, in isolation, or in the company of strangers. Clear findings emerged from these tests that showed that only the companion conditions were “facilitative”. Under the other test conditions there were qualitative (as opposed to merely quantitative) shifts in responses. Apparently, the different social test conditions evoked qualitatively different response hierarchies, and “facilitation” reflected this sort of shift rather than simple quantitative changes in arousal ( D ) across conditions. It was argued, therefore, that the appropriate level of analysis for facilitation effects for animals in a free response situation is not within the ( D × H ) envelope, but rather at the level of S (stimulus situation) in the S → ( D × H ) → R formulation. Implications for the analysis of social facilitation effects in humans were discussed.

Social facilitation of pecking and drinking in “satiated” chickens

Pecking in chickens is a ubiquitous response that does not appear to be exclusively linked to any single motivational state. Because of this, certain earlier findings are ambiguous regarding the extent to which socially mediated pecking in chickens extends to theories of social facilitation effects. In the current research, drinking was identified as a possible alternative response for the study of socially mediated consummatory behavior in chickens. Tests of satiated subjects paired with deprived companions (or tested alone) showed that the pattern and relative amount of the social facilitation of drinking conformed exactly to the pattern for pecking. Therefore, it was concluded that socially enhanced consummatory behavior in the chicken can bear on theories of social facilitation.

LOCUS OF ATTRIBUTION IN PERCEIVED CHOICE

36 college students were involved in a decision task in which the two optional choices were varied to create either a large difference, a small difference, or no difference in attractiveness. It was predicted that conditions which produce high perceived choice, i.e., a small difference in attractiveness, would cause an individual to attribute his decision to an internal factor while conditions mediating low perceived choice, i.e., a large or no difference in attractiveness, would lead to attributions based on an external factor. Data from 36 college Ss confirmed these predictions.