The present study was conducted to examine the self-reported social standards of socially efficacious and non-efficacious individuals. Converging evidence from different research domains, including studies on self-attentional processes and standard-setting in performance motivation, suggests that the socially anxious person may have standards for him or herself that are beyond that person's perceived abilities; alternatively, standards may be so high that they are beyond the reach of even the most socially confident person. Ninety-six male undergraduate students were dichotomized into low and high social-efficacy groups on the basis of their response to a measure of self-efficacy and anxiety in social situations. The subjects were told they would be interacting with a female research assistant in order to practice before meeting another subject. The success of the practice interaction was manipulated by varying the assistant's behavior and feedback by the experimenter so that subjects believed they handled the conversation well or not well; a third condition was included with no feedback. Subjects were asked to rate their standards using a visual scale that displayed different levels of social interaction. The standards rated were: (1) the level of interaction that they consider successful, (2) the level of interaction that they would be happy with, (3) the level of interaction they think the experimenter wants, and (4) the level of a typical interaction. Additional measures were included to assess other aspects of standard and to determine the success of the manipulations. The results revealed that there is a consensus among high and low social-efficacy persons of what constitutes a successful interaction. The distinguishing feature appeared to be what level of interaction high and low efficacy persons are happy with and the level of interaction they felt capable of achieving. Low efficacy subjects had lower expectations and lower minimum goals of satisfaction whereas high efficacy subjects expected to achieve a level of interaction at least as high as their personal standard and beyond the level that they thought most others achieve. Further, when the interaction was successful, high efficacy subjects thought the situation demanded a lower level of interaction than they were capable of; low efficacy subjects, given the same successful experience, reported the demands of the situation to be higher than they felt capable of. The results hint at a dysfunctional standard-setting process in socially anxious persons whereby success is interpreted in a manner that may maintain anxiety. The implications that these results have for the treatment of shyness, and future directions for research on standard-setting are discussed. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate

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This study was an attempt to investigate the relationship between aspects of the parental relationship and the level of functioning of their children. The discrepancies between role perception and role expectation within the parental relationship were selected as the major focus of this study. The principal hypothesis stated that parents of high functioning children would demonstrate greater interpersonal role congruities than parents of low functioning children. Based upon previous research studies and parent ratings obtained from the Interpersonal Check List, 12 specific sub-hypotheses were stated.Subjects for this study were parents of children who had been evaluated by teachers on the Behavior Rating Form. The children were students in grades one through six at Burris School, Muncie, Indiana. Based upon ratings on the Behavior Rating Form and a specific selection criteria, the children were grouped to form low and high functioning groups. The parents of these children were then designated as either low or high group. Fifty-one parents comprised the low group and 55 parents made up the high group. Each set of parents was mailed and asked to complete the following materials: cover letter, Background Information Sheet, two Parent Check Lists (Interpersonal Check List), and a stamped return envelope. In completing the Interpersonal Check List each parent made four ratings: self as parent, spouse as parent, ideal mother, and ideal father. Mailed returns and follow-up yielded 67% usable returns in the low group and 65% usable returns in the high group.Various statistical analyses of the demographic variables of the two groups indicated that the only statistical difference was that the fathers in the high group had a higher educational level than fathers in the low group. The groups did not statistically differ for race, education of mothers, income, previous marriage, or number of children.DOM and LOV scores were derived from the Interpersonal Check List and absolute discrepancy values were computed for each set of parents according to the 12 specific sub-hypotheses. A one-way multiple analysis of variance was performed to test the principal hypothesis that the groups differed in vectors of means on the discrepancy measures. The principal hypothesis was not accepted and the specific sub-hypotheses were not interpreted.Based upon the design and statistical analysis it was concluded that parents of children with various levels of functioning, as measured by a classroom rating form, do not differ in reported role perceptions and expectations, as measured by the Interpersonal Check List.

The aim of this study was to describe false consensus in romantically involved couples. False consensus is the tendency of the perceiver to overestimate the degree to which other people agree with his or her beliefs, opinions and behavioral choices. Previous research has demonstrated false consensus in a variety of situations and circumstances, but prior to this study false consensus had not been measured in couples. This study asked two research questions: (1) Does false consensus occur at the same rate in romantically involved couples that it occurs in non-couples? (2) Does false consensus occur less in romantically involved couples in longer-term relationships? In order to examine these questions this study surveyed 143 couples using modified versions of the Relationship Beliefs Scale (RBS) and the Attitudes Toward Divorce Scale (ATDS). The scale were modified to measure false consensus by adding the question “Do you believe that your partner agrees with your view on this item?” to each item. The results indicated that while false consensus does occur in couples it occurs at a lower rate than in non-couples. This study did not find a relationship between false consensus and length of time in the relationship. Clinical implications are discussed. / Department of Counseling Psychology and Guidance Services

Thesis (M.S.)--Auburn University, 2008. / Abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 49-53).

Thesis (M.S.)--Catholic University of America. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, November, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 87-93).

Thesis (M.S.)--Ohio University, November, 2003. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 87-93)

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Department of Psychology, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.

According to Treisman (Treisman and Schmidt, 1982) feature detection occurs in parallel, while the correct integration of detected features into an object requires focal attention. She has proposed that in the absence of attention, subjects will perceive "illusory conjunctions", or invented objects constructed out of features actually present in a display. The present experiments were designed to examine how the presence of expectations might affect the feature integration process and the construction of illusory conjunctions. The results of these experiments suggest that expectations do affect the perception of simple objects: subjects make more illusory conjunctions in the absence of expectations, and the perception of expected objects is the most accurate. However, the data indicate that expectations do not exert this influence by guiding the feature integration process, because subjects do not tend to construct expected objects out of features appearing in a display. As a result, it is likely that expectations are influential not by determining the construction of object files, but by speeding up the identification of the features of expected objects, so that focal attention can be applied, and object files constructed, more efficiently. As a result, the perception of expected objects can be accurately accomplished in a shorter amount of time. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate