In their investigations of cooperation, social psychologists have been concerned primarily with its consequences (generally, as compared with those of competition). The important question of the antecedents of cooperative relationships has received relatively little consideration. The present research deals with the question of the conditions necessary for the development of cooperation in a rather extreme type of dyadic relationship. The objective requirements of the situation are such that it is to each person's advantage to induce the other one to help him. However, their knowledge of the objective structure of the relationship is quite incomplete and their opportunities for explicit communication about it are extremely limited.The experimental situation in question is the one investigated by Sidowski, Wyckoff, and Tabory (1956) and Sidowski (1957). The two subjects objectively have total control over each other's outcomes. Each has two possible responses, one that helps the other and another that hurts him. In the terms suggested by Thibaut and Kelley (1959), it is a situation of mutual fate control. Although mutual fate control is not the only type of interdependence that requires cooperation among the participants, it is a basic element in many such situations. There are numerous
A new demographic instrument, the Life History Questionnaire (LHQ) is described. The LHQ elicits demographic data longitudinally providing a questionby-year matrix of responses. Variables derived from the LHQ are used to predict success in Navy diver training. The utility of the LHQ both for prediction and as a research tool is discussed.
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