Suchergebnisse

There is accumulating evidence that decision makers (DMs) are sensitive to the distribution of resources among themselves and others, beyond what is expected from the predictions of narrow self-interest. These social preferences are typically conceptualized as being static and existing independently of information about the other people influenced by a DM's allocation choices. In this article, we consider the reactivity of a DM's social preferences in response to information about the intentions or past behavior of the person to be affected by the DM's allocation choices (i.e., how do social preferences change in relation to the other's type). This article offers a conceptual framework for characterizing the link between distributive preferences and reciprocity, and reports on experiments in which these two constructs are disentangled and the relation between the two is characterized.

Research on human density has indicated that how people perceive a high-density situation strongly influences their behavior, and that density itself rarely has a direct unmediated effect on human behavior. The purposes of the present study were to (1) determine if there are individual differences in the perception of density, (2) clarify the nature of these individual differences if they exist, and (3) assess the dimensions underlying people's perceptions of situations of varying density. Subjects (n = 30) made pairwise similarity judgments of 12 neutral-secondary situations (Stokols, 1976) which varied on type of activity, group size, and spatial density. A Tucker and Messick (1963) approach to multidimensional scaling revealed sizable individual differences in perception of the situations. Three groupings of subjects were identified. Each grouping was similar in that the two major dimensions underlying perceptions were Spatial Constraint and Social Constraint. The major difference between groups of subjects was the relative emphasis assigned to the two dimensions. Results were discussed in the context of an interactionist perspective on density research, and the practical importance of the findings was considered.

Abstract This study investigated individual differences in different aspects of early number concepts in preschoolers. Eighty 4‐year‐olds from Oxford nursery classes took part. They were tested on accuracy of counting sets of objects; the cardinal word principle; the order irrelevance principle; and predicting the results of repeated addition and subtraction by 1 from a set of objects. There were marked individual differences for most tasks. Most children were reasonably proficient at counting and 70% understood the cardinal word principle. Based on the results of a repeated addition and subtraction by 1 task, the children were divided into three approximately equal groups: those who were already able to use an internalized counting sequence for the simplest forms of addition and subtraction; those who relied on a repeated 'counting‐all' procedure for such tasks; and those who were as yet unable to cope with such tasks. In each group, significant relationships between some, but not all, of the numerical tasks were found. However, for almost any two tasks, it was possible to find individuals who could carry out either one of the tasks but not the other. Thus, even before formal instruction, arithmetical cognition is not unitary but is made up of many components.