Browsing by Author "Anderson, Craig A."
Now showing 1 - 7 of 7
Results Per Page
Sort Options
Item A demonstration of belief perseverance for hypothetical social theories(1984) Sechler, Elizabeth S.; Anderson, Craig A.; Howell, William C.; Watkins, Michael J.Two groups of subjects were induced to form opposing beliefs about the relationship between two social variables, preference for risk and performance in firefighter jobs. Specifically, one group created a causal explanation for a positive relationship (high risk preference related to high performance and low risk preference related to low performance), whereas the other created an explanation for the opposite, negative relationship. Subsequent assessment of subjects' own beliefs revealed a tendency to believe in whichever relationship they had explained. Both groups then examined and evaluated inconclusive "case histories" (half supporting a positive relationship and half supporting a negative relationship). A new assessment of subjects' beliefs showed that this new evidence had little if any effect; subjects' evaluations of the new evidence gave no indication that the groups had evaluated the evidence differently. Why beliefs that are newly formed, and based on no valid evidence survive non-supportive evidence is unclear, but a few ideas are briefly discussed and possible directions for future research are proposed.Item Attributional style and common problems in adaptation: depression, loneliness, and shyness(1984) Arnoult, Lynn H.; Anderson, Craig A.; Brelsford, John W.; Klineberg, Stephen L.A questionnaire study was conducted to examine relationships between attributional style and some common problems in adaptation. College students completed scales measuring depression, loneliness, and shyness. In addition, they completed a questionnaire measuring attributional style on four causal dimensions (locus, globality, stability, and controllability), for four types of situations (interpersonal success, noninterpersonal success, interpersonal failure, and noninterpersonal failure). The results of a series of regression analyses led to the following conclusions: (a) Controllability is the most important dimension in predicting depression, loneliness, and shyness; (b) Locus of attributions for failure contributes significantly to prediction of these problems? (c) The globality and stability dimensions do not add significantly to problem prediction? (d) Attributional style predicts each one of the three problems especially well when attributions are measured for the types of situations that are particularly relevant to that problem. These results have implications for attributional models of depression, loneliness, and shyness.Item Effects of causal explanations and conclusive evidence on subsequent beliefs(1985) Kellam, Kathryn Laney; Anderson, Craig A.; Lane, David M.; Martin, Randi C.An experiment to determine the effects of conclusive evidence on weakly-based beliefs was presented. The subjects explained a hypothetical relationship between two variables, and it was found that the subjects' opinions were systematically influenced as a result of their explanations. The subjects' judgments of conclusive evidence were not influenced by their earlier explanations, however. When the subjects' beliefs were measured after viewing the evidence, the following results emerged. The subjects' stated opinions were not affected by their earlier explanations, but were affected by the evidence that the subjects had viewed. However, when the subjects had to predict the outcome of an experiment designed to discover the true relationship between the variables of interest, there was a clear effect of the explanation manipulation and no effect of the actual evidence. In addition, a policy-capturing measure revealed a relationship between theory biases and the subjects' use of information.Item Effects of imagining self-relevant behavioral scripts on subsequent intentions and behavior(1985) Godfrey, Sandra S.; Anderson, Craig A.; Howell, William C.; Martin, Randi C.This experiment examined the effects of imagining oneself acting out specific behavioral scripts on subsequent intentions and behavior. The imagination process was varied according to: (1) outcome of the script (decided to perform the behavior or decided not to); (2) amount of time allowed to imagine each scene in the script (fifteen seconds or three seconds ); and (3 ) order of the scenes (logical or jumbled ). Subjects' intentions were assessed by pre- and post-imagination rating scales. Later subjects were given an opportunity to perform the behaviors. The ratings shoved intention changes that corresponded with the outcome of the scripts that were imagined, but there were no significant effects of time or of order. The correlations between the behavioral responses and the post-imagination intentions were significantly higher than the correlations between the behavioral responses and the pre-imagination intentions. The results indicate that intentions and possibly behavior were affected by the imagination process.Item The effect of group discussion on evaluations of job applicants(1983) Peek, Amanda; Dipboye, Robert L.; Anderson, Craig A.; Thomas, Jay C.; Hall, William C.Two experiments examined the effect of group discussion on subsequent evaluations of job applicants. The hypothesis was tested that discussion would polarize the evaluations of applicants such that the average post-discussion evaluation would be more extreme in the same direction as the average of the prediscussion evaluations. The relationship between polarization and quality of the evaluations was also examined. Measures of evaluation quality included interrater reliability and accuracy of recall of applicant and job characteristics. Subject groups were employed under two Discussion conditions: discussion of applicants or discussion of an irrelevant topic. Experiment 1 found a marginal polarization effect and an increase in interrater reliability following discussion of applicants. Experiment 2 also found a marginal polarization effect but no differences between conditions on interrater reliability or recall accuracy. Combined results suggest discussion may serve to polarize evaluations of job applicants, although each individual experiment did not statistically confirm the hypothesis.Item The effect of task characteristics on the availability heuristic for judgments under uncertainty(1983) Fontenelle, Gail; Howell, William C.; Lane, David M.; Anderson, Craig A.The present study sought to generalize the effect of the availability heuristic to more complex tasks and across various task categories. The experimental design involved the manipulation of event characteristics in order to induce a heuristic processing strategy for designated available events. The effect of these manipulations was investigated for three types of response measures and across a range of event frequencies. Results demonstrated the generalizability of the availability heuristic across complex tasks and three types of response measures -- frequency estimation, probability estimation, and choice predictions. The availability of an event in memory produced an overestimation of the frequency and probability of event occurrences. Similarly, choice predictions judged available events as more likely to occur. However, this effect was not consistent across all levels of assigned event frequencies. The present study extended the generalizability of the availability heuristic to more complex tasks and provided an exploratory step toward defining the degree to which basic findings hold across a range of task characteristics.Item The role of imagination stereotype maintenance(1985) Slusher, Morgan Paul; Anderson, Craig A.; Howell, William C.; Carpenter, S. L.The present studies examine how failures in reality monitoring contribute to stereotype maintenance. In one study, subjects imagined members of occupational groups within specific contexts that could be relevant to a trait stereotypic of that group. Subjects tended to incorporate the stereotyped trait into the imagination. In another experiment, subjects read sentences that matched traits (stereotyped and nonstereotyped) with occupations with equal frequency. Subjects also imagined members of each occupation in situations relevant to particular stereotypic traits. In subsequent judgments of presentation frequency, subjects overestimated stereotypic occupation-trait combinations, replicating earlier studies. More importantly, subjects further overestimated the presentation frequency of imagined stereotypic combinations, indicating failure of subjects to distinguish between their imaginations and actual presentations. Thus, stereotype-based imaginings led to inflated association of groups with their stereotypic traits. The possible role this "imaginal confirmation" process may play in the maintenance of stereotypes is also discussed.