Search results

AbstractNinety‐nine students (mostly women) at a German university were asked to write down how they could tell that they like someone, love someone, and arc in love with someone (or, in other words, what characterized each sentiment if experienced by them). A taxonomy of 47 characteristics (or indicators) was developed to code the responses for each of the three sentiments. Most frequently mentioned were positive mood in the other's presence (61 % for liking and 53% for love) and arousal (62% for being in love). The most distinctive (or unique) characteristic of liking was desire for interaction with the other; of love, trust in the other; and of bcing in love, arousal. Categorizing the characteristics into a cognitive, an affective, and a behavioral level, a complex pattern of main effects and interaction effects was found through analyses of variance. Gender differences were found but are not discussed because of the small male sample (n= 13). Our findings are discussed with respect to the scales developed by Rubin, Hatfield, and Sternberg, and they are placed in the context of recent research on subjective definitions of attraction sentiments (especially love).

Students of education at a large West German city university (n 154) filled out the UCLA twenty-item loneliness questionnaire (revised version) and also responded to some additional questions. The scale proved satisfactory on various criteria. Average loneliness is very close to a US
comparison sample, with no gender differences. (Details on individual items and on scale construction have been reported by the same authors in a German publication.) Significant correlations with self-rated shyness, social contact difficulty, and lack of physical attractiveness were found.
No significant d4ffcrences between men and women were found on these correlations, though there was a trend towards higher coefficients among men.

Two experiments were conducted with 94 male subjects who were run in dyads. Half of the dyads attained a gain and half a loss as a result of their work on a verbal task. In the first experiment subjects received information about their own and their partner's contributions - ability
and effort - with respect to the given task, and were then asked to allocate the gain or loss. Contrary to our hypothesis differences in effort were not taken into account to a greater extent than differences in ability. In the second experiment subjects had to allocate the amount gained/lost
after receipt of information on intra-dyadic differences in performance; after that they were informed about ability and effort as in the first experiment. When differences in performance were thus explainable through differences in ability - in contrast to effort - a significant number of
allocators moved to discount differences in contributions. The different meanings of information on effort and on ability in the two experiments are discussed in the context of models of cognitive algebra.

The assumption was examined that allocations based on the need principle of distributive justice are dependent upon characteristics of the allocation situation. In a questionnaire experiment, 96 male subjects indicated how they would allocate money between two hypothetical persons
who needed different sums of money. Experimental variations included: The possibility/impossibility of entirely satisfying the recipients' needs with the available amount of money; and the interpersonal attraction between the recipients. It was found that the needier person received
a larger share (a) when the available sum of money was sufficient to satisfy the persons' needs as opposed to when it was insufficient; (b) when the needier person contributed as much as his partner toward earning the money rather than less; and (c) when the recipients were close friends
rather than superficial acquaintances.

Twenty-eight students of a school class were put into dyads of high and low attraction. After working on a verbal task, all dyads attained a financial payoff. From studies about responsibility attribution in cooperative and competitive social contact, the hypothesis was deduced that
there would be less self-attribution of responsibility for the (positive) joint outcome in dyads of high attraction. This was confirmed by the results. The potential significance for problems of distributive justice is discussed.

The first purpose of this investigation was to evaluate the social-emotional and rational-cognitive explanations of group risky shift on choice dilemmas (hypothetical life situations) by comparing shift in groups of low Mach (emotional) and high Mach (non-emotional) subjects. Consistent
with the rationalcognitive explanations of group shift, group composition was not observed to affect shift magnitude.The second purpose was to examine the effects of Machiavellian beliefs on social functioning. Mixed support was obtained for hypotheses derived from prior theory and research
on the Machiavellian personality. The perceptions of high Machs, as compared with low Machs, concerning the direction of shift, were more in line with their actual shift, providing evidence for the proposition that the former are more astute social observers.

AbstractEighty‐one female students at a German university were asked to indicate in writing (a) how they would come to like, love, and be in love with someone, and (b) how in their case liking, loving, and being in love with someone would come to an end. The responses were analyzed using a comprehensive list of 117 determinants developed for this study, which were grouped into four causal categories–P (person), O (other), P×O (relational), and E (environmental) conditions. Regarding the rise of attraction, the most frequent determinant for liking and for being in love was the existence of positive attributes of O (69% and 63%); for love, it was the existence of positive feelings from O (29%). Regarding the decline of attraction, the most frequent determinant for liking was negative behavior on O's part (42%); for love, abuse of one's trust by O (25%); and for being in love, disillusionment with regard to O (44%). Further analyses (including ANOVAs) involved the mean frequencies for the four causal categories. Concerning the rise of attraction sentiments, P causes were predominant for love and O causes were predominant for liking and for being in love; P×O causes were particularly infrequent for being in love. Concerning the decline of attraction sentiments, only for liking was one causal category predominant (O causes). E causes were hardly mentioned for both the rise and the decline focus. The findings are discussed in the context of both the more traditional research on "objective" determinants of attraction and, in particular, of recent research on the subjective (common‐sense or implicit) understanding of liking, love, and being in love.

Two hundred and forty-seven students at a large West German city university were presented with the UCLA Loneliness Scale (a 20-item questionnaire; Russell, Peplau, & Cutona, 1980), with the Freiburg Personality Inventory (FPI; Fahrenberg, Selg, & Hempel, 1978;a personality
assessment instrument widely used in German-speaking countries), and with various other questions. Loneliness was found to be correlated with several of the personality subscales of the FPI (psychosomatic complaints, depression, and neuroticism; negative correlations with social skills, self-esteem,
extraversion, and masculinity). As in our prior research, a negative correlation was found with self-rated physical attractiveness. Participants giving internal and stable attributions of any loneliness they experienced had higher loneliness scores than did participants giving different attributions.
Also, some relationships with social environmental variables were found (e.g., residential mobility was associated with loneliness). A subsample of students being clients at the University Psychological Advisory Service (n = 27) were also investigated. Our results by and large corroborate
the findings from prior loneliness research with US samples.