Vallacher, Robin R.

Two studies tested the optimality hypothesis of action identification theory (Vallacher & Wegner, 1985). This model predicts that personally difficult activities are enjoyed when they are identified in relatively low-level, "how-to" terms, whereas personally easy activities are enjoyed when they are identified in higher level, comprehensive terms. In Study 1, participants (N = 172) attempted to solve either high- or low-difficulty anagrams under various identities for their behavior. In Study 2, expert and novice artists (N = 55) drew a picture under either a high or low identity for the act of drawing. In both studies, results provided support for action identification theory's model of task enjoyment.

Argument is made for the use of variation permissive methods in the study of social judgment; one such dynamic method which purports to track on-line social evaluation (the mouse paradigm) is then introduced. The methodology of the mouse paradigm, which involves updating 'moment-to-moment' feelings via manipulation of a cursor by computer mouse, permits a wide range of experimental contrivance. Three varieties (SCALE, 1D and 2D), which differ in the amount of virtual (on screen) freedom of movement and psychological constraint, were tested with stereotyped targets (negative, ambivalent and positive) to determine any differences in their absolute distance time series and the extent to which aspects of these time series remained correlated with traditional scale-ratings of positivity and stability in feelings about targets. Results indicated a sharp difference between the two-dimensional (2D) variety and the one-dimensional varieties (SCALE and 1D), a finding which supports contention that the 2D variety possesses an appropriate balance of freedom and constraint.

Impression formation has in the past always been viewed as an instantaneous one time event. In this experiment impression formation was viewed as a process occurring over time. Subjects received descriptions of a hypothetical individual and then gave trait judgments indicating how they perceived this person. Subjects continued to receive information and make judgments through ten successive trials. Correlations were performed between seven major variables evaluated over the course of the trials. Results showed that the major work of impression formation occurs early in the process and that less is accomplished as time goes on. It was also found that an information processing point of view accommodated much of the results quite nicely.

A critical discrepancy in the self-evaluation literature concerns whether self-uncertainty leads to accurate or biased self-evaluations. After discussing the prior research which has rendered this discrepancy, I propose an experiment to reach a resolution to the discrepancy. Principles of action identification theory are used in proposing that the link between self-uncertainty and self-evaluation is moderated by the amount of evaluative threat inherent to the situation in which the self-evaluation is taking place. The experiment established that subjects who are induced to identify their actions in low level terms are more likely to exhibit biases when pursuing self-evaluations of their social ability, with the biases manifested in these subjects' preferences to be evaluated in non-diagnostic ways. The implications of this general finding and suggestions for further research are discussed.

The primary goal of this research was to determine if the emergence process of action identification could be applied to the way a person perceives another's actions and therefore predict contrasting judgments of right and wrong. Specifically, subjects read transcripts depicting a crime of either grand theft or murder under an induced high or low level of action identification, followed by one of two closing arguments which summarized the position of either the defense or the prosecution. Judgments of blame were obtained from all subjects. Results suggest that the emergence process is more general than originally conceived and can be applied to person perception. As predicted, compared to high level subjects, low level subjects who read about the crime of grand theft, were more influenced by whatever closing argument they read. Implications and future research directions are discussed.

Action identification theory asserts that people undertake action with a particular identity for what they are doing, and that this identity is resistant to change. Emergence of a new understanding of action occurs when the person thinks about some detail of the action and is then exposed to a new higher level identity for the act. To test the emergence hypothesis with respect to sexual behavior, subjects were asked to think about having sex and list either the high level aspects (i.e., consequences and implications of having sex) or lower level aspects (i.e., details of having sex). Subjects then read an article identifying sex as responsible behavior or physical pleasure. As predicted, subjects induced to think about the act of having sex in terms of its details expressed their cognitive representation of the act in a way which conformed with the target emergent identity (pleasure or responsibility) to which they were exposed.

Human subjects perform simple, relatively unconstrained, game-like computer tasks. "Meso-level" measures of behavioral complexity and time-dependencies (including entropies, grammatical complexity estimates and run statistics) are derived and computed. Individual behavioral differences in the resulting complexity measures are robust and, in a temporal-forcing paradigm, are statistically significantly related to the same individual's scores on a range of personality and demographic variables. Through an experimental manipulation and the statistical selection of maximally useful predictor sets personality and demographic variables are united in a "macro-level" temperament typology, based on "micro-level" behavioral tendencies. Further, I can compute a parameter value of a one dimensional dynamical system, the symmetric tent map, matched to the symbol sequence "meso-level" parities of the subject. When this parameter is used in the iterated map, it produces sequences that are of the same autocorrelation "category" and share much of the fine structure of the autocorrelograms of the subjects to which the map parameter had been matched.