The study provides a test of the interactionist concept of behavioral coherence across situations. Following an approach suggested by D. Magnusson and B. Ekehammer (1978, Journal of Research in Personality, 12, 41-48), individual correlations between self-reported behavior patterns and perceived similarity ratings across anxiety-provoking situations are obtained as measures of coherence. Unlike the Magnusson and Ekehammar study, the present measures of situation cognition and behavior are based on an idiographic sampling of anxiety-provoking situations. As a step toward concept-based measurement of situation cognition, further measures of perceived situational similarity are derived from the script, prototype, and social episodes models in social psychology and correlated with cross-situational similarity of behavioral profiles. It is demonstrated, in comparison with the findings of Magnusson and Ekehammar, that correlations between similarity ratings and behavior patterns increase substantially as a result of an idiographic sampling of situations. Moreover, it is shown that "script," "prototype," and "social episode" measures can be utilized to investigate the covariation between situation cognition and behavior, thus contributing to the clarification of the principles of cognitive representation of situational experience.

Aus der Vielzahl der in amerikanischen Studien untersuchten Einflußgrößen auf die Verantwortungsattributionen von Beobachtern an Täter und Opfer in Vergewaltigungsdelikten wurden die auf Opfer-, Täter- und Beurteilerseite am besten bestätigten Variablen herausgegriffen und einer Vergleichsuntersuchung mit einer deutschen Stichprobe zugrundegelegt: der soziale Status des Opfers, der soziale Status des Täters und die Geschlechtszugehörigkeit der Beurteiler. 75 Versuchspersonen sahen einen Filmausschnitt, in dem eine Frau ihre Vergewaltigung schildert. Vor der Beurteilung der Verantwortlichkeit des Opfers und des Täters erhielten die Vpn unterschiedliche Informationen über den sozialen Status des Opfers und des Täters. Die Ausgangshypothesen wurden nur zum Teil bestätigt. Dem statushöheren Opfer wurde weniger Verantwortung zugeschrieben als dem itatusniedrigen, dem statushöheren Täter wurde mehr Verantwortung zugeschrieben als dem statusniedrigen. Geschlechtsspezifische Unterschiede zwischen den Beurteilern wurden nicht ermittelt. / From the array of variables analyzed by American researchers as determinants of responsibility attributions to rape victims and assailants, three well-established characteristics of victim, assailant, and observer were selected for a replication with a German sample: victim social status, assailant social status, and sex of respondent. Seventy-five subjects were presented with a short film in which a woman described how she had been raped. Before judging the responsibility of both victim and assailant, subjects received differential information about the social status of victim and assailant. The hypotheses received only partial support from the data: The high status victim was attributed less responsibility than the low status victim, the high status assailant was attributed more responsibility than the low status assailant. Sex of respondent did not significantly influence attributions of responsibility to both victim and assailant.

Die Zuschreibung von Verantwortlichkeit an Vergewaltigungsopfer und -täter in sozialen Urteilsprozessen hat sich im Zuge einer stärkeren Anwendungsorientierung der attributionstheoretischen Forschung zu einem eigenständigen Themenschwerpunkt entwickelt. Vor dem Hintergrund eines zunehmenden öffentlichen Problembewußtseins ist zu fragen, welchen Beitrag die Attributionsforschung aktuell undpotentiell zur Klärung der Bedingungen und Konsequenzen von Verantwortungsurteilen über Opfer und Täter von Vergewaltigungsdelikten leisten kann.

Inhalt: 1 Selbstwertdienliche Attributionen von Erfolg und Mißerfolg 2 „Selbstbehinderung" zur Vorbeugung gegen Verantwortlichkeit für Mißerfolg 3 Attributionen in der Öffentlichkeit: Identitätsbehauptung durch Selbstdarstellung? 4 Personale Kontrolle und Attribution 5 Geschlechtsrollen-Identität und Attributionen für Erfolg und Mißerfolg 6 Zusammenfassung

Der vorliegende Beitrag betrachtet Vergewaltigung und sexuelle Nötigung als soziale Probleme, die das Zusammenwirken von allgemeinen gesellschaftlichen Normen und vorherrschenden Einstellungen zu sexueller Gewalt gegen Frauen widerspiegeln. Ausgehend von einem kurzen Überblick über die juristischen und alltagspsychologischen Definitionen von Vergewaltigung und sexueller Nötigung stehen zwei Fragestellungen im Mittelpunkt: Zunächst werden sozialpsychologische Befunde zur Zuschreibung von Mitverantwortung an Opfer von Vergewaltigungen diskutiert, in denen Einflußvariablen auf Opfer-, Täter- und Beurteilerseite (z.B. sozialer Status des Opfers und Geschlechtsrollenorientierung des Beurteilers) identifiziert werden, die die Verantwortungszuschreibung an das Opfer bestimmen. Im zweiten Teil werden die psychologischen Konsequenzen einer Vergewaltigung für das Opfer unter Bezug auf das von Burgess und Holmstrom (1974) diagnostizierte Vergewaltigungstrauma-Syndrom diskutiert sowie neuere Ansätze zur therapeutischen Betreuung vergewaltigter Frauen vorgestellt. / In this paper, rape and sexual assault are regarded as social problems reflecting the interplay between general social norms and predominant attitudes towards sexual violence against women. Starting from a brief review of legal and common sense definitions of rape, two issues are addressed: Firstly, social psychological findings pertaining to the attribution of responsibility to rape victims are reviewed. The impact of various victim, assailant, and observer variables (e.g. victim's social status and observer's sex role attitudes) on ratings of the extent to which the victim is held responsible for being raped is examined. In the second part of the paper, the psychological consequences of rape for the victim are discussed along with recent suggestions for the psychological counselling of rape victims.

A study is reported which investigates the fakeability of personality profiles as measured by a standard personality inventory, the Freiburger Persönlichkeitsinventar (FPI). Unlike previous studies investigating laypersons' ability to fake a global good or bad impression, the present study examined individuals' ability to fake a specific personality profile. Four groups of subjects were instructed to fake their FPI scores so as to present themselves as high vs low scorers on the "social orientation" dimension or high vs low scorers on the "achievement orientation" dimension. The results clearly demonstrate that subjects are successful in manipulating their scores on the critical dimensions according to instruction. Moreover, they also fake related scales in a way that corroborates the intended image of a person with a high (or low) achievement (or social) orientation. The overall pattern of results reveals that subjects were able to distort their responses in a way that reflects their intuitive understanding of the dimensional structure of the FPI. The implications of the present findings for the use of personality inventories as valid diagnostic instruments are discussed.

Content: Synopsis The Attitudes toward Rape Victims Scale: Psychometric Data from 14 Countries Scale Construction and Validation - Study One: Preliminary Analyses - Study Two: Test-Retest Reliability - Study Three: Construct Validity Cross-cultural Extensions - United States - United Kingdom - Germany - New Zealand - Canada - West Indies - Israel - Turkey - India - Hong Kong - Malaysia - Zimbabwe - Mexico - Metric Equivalence Discussion

Content: 1 Persons and Situations: Cornerstones of Modern Personality Psychology 2 The Issue of Consistency in Personality:Sixty Years of Controversy 3 In Defence of Traits: New (and Revived) Perspectives 4 Modern Interactionism: An Alternative Framework for Personality Research 5 Implementing the Interactionist Programme:Three Exemplary Areas of Research 6 Improving Personality Measurement:The Nomothetic Road to the Study of Consistency 7 Personality Psychology is about Individuals:Rediscovering the Idiographic Legacy 8 The Role of the Situation in Personality Research 9 Personality Psychology in the Nineties: An Outlook

Contenuto: 1. Persone e situazioni: pietre angolari nella moderna psicologiadella personalità 2. La questione della costanza nella personalità: sessant'anni dicontroversia 3. In difesa dei tratti: nuove (e rinnovate) prospettive 4. II «moderno interazionismo»: una cornice alternativa alla ricercasulla personalità 5. Realizzare il programma interazionista: tre aree esemplaridi ricerca 6. Migliorare la misurazione della personalità: la via nomoteticaallo studio della costanza 7. La psicologia della personalità riguarda gli individui: la riscoperta dell'eredità idiografica 8. II ruolo della situazione nella ricerca sulla personalità 9. Psicologia della personalità negli anni Novanta: uno sguardo d'insieme

This research has three interrelated foci: (i) engineering and testing a cognitive model of expert memory, (ii) the study of intellectual reserve capacity and (iii) the use of a testing-the-limits methodology to magnify and delineate age differences in limits of reserve capacity. The assumption is that age differences are magnified if studied at high levels of expertise or task difficulty. Results from age-comparative point training studies in expert memory are reported. Both young and elderly subjects reached high levels of skilled memory, confirming the model. However, despite this sizeable reserve capacity, when compared to IQ-eguivalent young adults, superior elderly showed decline in upper limits of function.