No abstract

This study reports evidence supporting the following propositions: (1) Group discussion and consensus concerning decisions that involve actual risk and payoffs lead to greater risk taking than occurs in the absence of such discussion and consensus. (2) The mechanism that underlies this group-induced shift toward greater risk taking consists of a diffusion or spreading of responsibility. Using risks and payoffs based on monetary gain and 108s for problem-solving performance} the above propositions received strong confirmation for male college subjects. The results of various experimental manipulations provided positive support for viewing diffusion of responsibility as the causal factor at work.

Does group interaction lead to greater conservatism or to greater risk taking in decisions than would obtain were the decisions arrived at individtrally-or is there an averaging effect? This question was investigated with a procedure in which the protagonist in each of 12 everyday life situations must choose between two courses o~action, one of which involves considerably more risk than the other but also is much more rewarding if successful. The S must decide on the lowest level of probability for the success of the risky alternative that he would deem sufficient to warrant its choice. A total of 218 liberal arts university students participated in the study. In the experimental condition, the~s first arrived at individual decisions concerning each of the 12 situations; then, the~r were brought together in discussion groups of six with the request that they reach a group consensus on each decision; and afterward, they were asked to make all their decisions privately once again. Some £s also made private decisions yet another time two to six ,.reeks later. The group members! judgments of one another's relative degrees of influence and of popularity within the group also were obtained. There were 14 all-male and 14 all-female groups. 'In the control condition, Sa made their decisions individually each of two times with one week intervening, under instructions the second time that encouraged them to change rather than simply to recall their earlier decisions. It was found that (1) group decisions exhibit greater risk taking than appears in pre-discussion individual decisions; (2) post-discussion private

The study of beliefs, attitudes, and stereotypes about the old is impeded by a number of conceptual and methodological difficulties. These are discussed, and possible future alternative directions are outlined. Some of the major sources of difficulty include confusion between attitudes and beliefs, the neglect of attitude-behavior relations, the discrepant outcomes generated by within-Ss and between-Ss designs in the person-perception paradigm, and the inherent defects in generalized attitude scales. There is good reason to believe that investigators in the present domain are unaware of the degree to which their empirical outcomes reflect the specific methods employed rather than the construct under study. Greater methodological awareness and a more theoretical orientation are deemed essential to future progress in the field.

For several years we have been concemed with two modes of thinkmg m young children, which, it turns out, bear directly upon what has assumed the proportions of a controversy m recent psychological history The nature of the controversy might be put somewhat as follows: Is there an aspect of cognitive functionmg which can be appropnately labeled "creativity" that stands apart from the traditional concept of general mtelhgence? A close appraisal of the quantitative findmgs available on this subject led us to a pessimistic answer. We shall pass some of these findmgs qmckly m review Our exammation of this hterature opened up to us, however, the possibility of a valid distmction between creativity and mtelhgence that had not, m our view, been sufficiently pursued and developed The next step, therefore, was empurical research in terms of this distmction FmaUy, if creativity and mtelhgence could be validly distmguished, we were mterested in studymg the possible psychological correlates that might distmguish mdividual differences on these two dimensions considered jomtly Specifically, we were concemed with correlates m such areas as the child's observed behavior m school and play settings, his aesthetic sensitivities, his categonzmg and conceptualizmg activities, his test anxiety and defensiveness levels We can, of course, give but an overview of this work For a complete presentation, see Waliach and Kogan (1965)