Social value-need patterns in mental retardates.

Bolduc, Thomas E.

doi:10.1037/h0041684

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 9 publications

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“…Social responsibility, as well as our desire for parsimony, dictates that the situational dynamics obtaining in our experiments be carefully examined before theoretical superstructures of the type noted above are presented. Before modern-day demons are attributed to the retarded, minimal experimental rigor should be expended in controlling for such known variables as pre-institutional social deprivation experienced (Clarke & Clarke, 1954;Zigler, 1961b), institutionalization (Bolduc, 1960;Zigler, 1961a, in press), the reluctance and wariness of adults exhibited by retardates (Cruickshank, 1947;Shallenberger & Zigler, 1961), expectancy of reinforcement (Stevenson & Zigler,19S8), and the differential effectiveness of social reinforcers (Zigler et al, 1958).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Concept-switching in middle-class, lower-class, and retarded children.

Zigler¹,

J²

1962

The Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology

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mation about the type of test they had chosen. Subjects did not show a comparable preference for articles which emphasized the faults of the tests they had rejected. These findings have been supported by Rosen (1961) who replicated the study by Mills et al. However, Rosen also found that subjects preferred an article which advocated a change from their chosen to their nonchosen type of examination over an article which advocated the reverse type of change. It is difficult to reconcile this finding with the contention that people prefer to receive communications which support their own views, and Rosen has suggested that subjects may welcome either supportive or adverse information about their chosen alternative. This possibility was also noted by Mills et al. who, like Rosen, were concerned with "irrevocable" choices. It seems reasonable to hypothesize that subjects who are free to change their chosen course of action will be even more receptive to adverse information than were the subjects in the investigations conducted by Mills et al. and by Rosen.The two studies which are most widely quoted as indicating that people are more receptive to supportive than to adverse information do not provide sufficient support for that proposition. Indeed, the Brodbeck ( 1956) data favor an opposite conclusion. Probably there arc conditions which induce people to seek supportive information, and other conditions which create a susceptibility to adverse information. A great deal of additional research is likely to be needed before we shall be able to reach firm conclusions. REFERENCES

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