No abstract

Two studies were conducted to determine whether manipulation of personal control influences the experience of crowding. In the first experiment, the positioning of four confederates in an elevator maneuvered a naive subject to a place in front of or on the opposite front side to the panel of floor selection buttons. Subjects standing in front of the "control" panel felt significantly less crowded and saw the elevator as significantly larger than subjects in the opposite position. In the second experiment, participants in a series of group process tasks were initially assigned at random to a role that gave them no control over the group's activities, control over the onset and administration of the activities, or control over their termination. All groups were composed of six male students who met in either small (high density) or large (low density) rooms. Persons with control felt significantly less crowded than persons without control, and the type of delegated control interacted with density in influencing evaluations of room ambience and personal comfort. High-density rooms were judged to be less pleasant and more crowded than low-density rooms. The results suggest that control mediates responses to density and is directly related to the experience of crowding.We wish to thank Lynn Spitzer, Joe Johnson, Larry Kaufman, and Adam Wilokovsky for conducting Experiment 1 and Scott Prussing, Henry Delgado, and Cato Ealy for their assistance in conducting Experiment 2. We are also grateful to Josh Auerbach and Bob Abelson for their assistance in the analysis of the data. Barry Collins provided valuable comments on an earlier draft of this manuscript.Requests for reprints should be sent to Judith

Two studies focused on the effectiveness of various types of information in different contexts. Two informational foci (i.e., external and internal) were employed, and subjects were either familiar or unfamiliar with a potentially stressful setting. It was assumed that one's degree of familiarity with the context would render different types of concerns more salient and that these would more effectively be met by one type of information than by the other. In the first experiment, it was hypothesized and found that situational information was more effective than emotional information for unfamiliar subjects, whose primary concerns in the setting were external. In contrast, emotional information was effective in reducing stress and facilitating performance for familiar subjects, whose concerns were primarily internal; but situational information was also effective for these individuals. Study 2 was done to explore why situational information was effective in reducing stress for both familiar and unfamiliar individuals. The results indicated that situational information, if accurate, not only can serve a reinforcing "consensual validation" function that addresses people's general concerns about the "reasonableness" of their responses but can also reduce distress.

One reason that physical attractiveness affects person perception judgments is that it is easily available information. It was hypothesized that when another characteristic, such as intelligence is made apparent, that it will evoke a stereotype similar to that evoked by attractiveness. A videotaped stimulus person, whose level of intelligence and attractiveness were manipulated, was rated by 68 subjects. The findings suggest that impressions are formed on the basis of all available information, rather than being primarily influenced by physical appearance, as previous studies have implied.

Background: Children’s television viewing has been of concern to parents, educators and health care providers for almost as long as the television itself has been in existence. Objective of present study was to investigate the effect of cartoon viewing on the immediate motor executive function of 4-6 year old children.Methods: 279 children, aged 4-6 year old children were administered the Seguin Form board test to confirm they were all developmentally equal. These children were then randomly assigned to watch a fast paced television cartoon, a slow paced cartoon or colour an image. Following this they were then given 3 tasks to assess motor executive function, including the colour match, 4 two piece puzzle and separating coloured beads. The time taken to complete the task was noted and the data was analyzed.Results: Children who watched the fast-paced cartoon performed slower on the motor executive function tasks than the children in the other two groups. (p<0.001).Conclusions: Even ten minutes of viewing a fast paced television cartoon had immediate negative effects on 4-6 year old children’s motor executive function. Parents should be aware that fast paced cartoon shows could at least temporarily impair young children’s motor executive function.