Vol.14,No.2 February,1999　

Title
The change of the basic rules in a CG maze
Author
Tooru ISHII (Faculty of Law & Literature, Shimane University)
Summary
Garfinkel(1963) proposed implicitly the hypothesis that we keep the basic rules whenever the rules are legal. I examined it again with 132 subjects in an unfamiliar situation, the virtual maze. In a maze pre-set in PC, subjects wandered five times. On the 4th and 5th trial, they are caught in a "Fire." They have to avoid the fire before reaching the safe exit. A virtual advisor, the "Mate," comes up on occasion. The Mate gives them advice but it's up to the subjects whether or not to follow it. Those 79 subjects (17 males and 62 females) who failed to escape the fire on both 4thand 5th trials were assigned to any of 3 groups. The comparisons of the degrees to which the subjects took the Mate's advice in their escape show 1) that the two groups of subjects hold the original basic rules less persistently than the third when the original ones are breached, 2) that the former two groups try to escape by the newly acquired basic rules after their new ones are breached, and 3) that the third group try to go back to the original ones. The implications of these results were discussed.
Key words
common sense, basic rules, CG maze, simulation, emergency
Title
The effects of the process of risk reduction and the framing of the problem on the value of the achieving zero risk
Author
Kazuya NAKAYACHI (School of Administration and Informatics, University of Shizuoka)
Summary
This study examined the effects of (a) the processes of risk reduction to achieve zero risk and (b) the framings of the problem on the value of achieving zero risk. Respondents assessed WTPs (willingness to pay) to save lives in a hypothetical earthquake. two factors were manipulated in the experiment. These were (1) the process to present risk reduction as an increase in lives saved or a decrease in deaths. The results suggested that the zero risk effect, which meant the identical loss reduction by a protective action against risk was valued more highly when it achieved the "no loss" outcome than when it left some losses, disappeared in the condition where zero risk was achieved by one-to-one actions with corresponding one-to-one costs. rather, people valued the first protective action more highly than the following actions in that condition, particularly when the problem was framed positively. Zero risk effect appeared only in the condition where a single-shot action could achieve zero risk.
Key words
risk, framing, environment, disaster, prospect theory
Title
The relationships of self-esteem and self-presentational style
Author
Makoto KUBO (Faculty of Education, Osaka Kyouiku University)
Summary
This article dealt with the relationship of self-esteem (SE) and self-presentational styles. I predicted that those having high SE would present themselves in a self-enhancing fashion to emphasize positive attributes, while those having low SE would present themselves in a self-protective to avoid boastful self-description because of a fear of potential failure. One hundred and ten undergraduates responded to the questionnaire to measure SE, self-description, and self-presentation. Among those regarded as high or intermediate SE presented themselves by more frequently referring to their positive attributes than to their negative ones, but it was not observed in the self-presentation by those regarded as low SE.
Key words
self-esteem, self-presentation, self-enhancement, self-protection, self-description
Title
Influences of recipients' performance, ability and effort on reward allocation
Author
Kohtaro HARADA (Faculty of Letters, Tokushima Bunri University)
Summary
The present study examined the effects of perceived performance, ability, and effort of recipients on reward allocation. Based on an assumption that performance might be attributed to ability and effort, we predicted that allocators would weight performance in their reward allocation more than ability and/or effort (Hypothesis 1), and that they would weight ability and/or effort in their reward allocation more if they expected they would have exchange interactions with the same recipients in the future than if they did not expect so (Hypothesis 2). Subjects were forth-eight junior college students. They were given information of performance, ability, and effort of two recipients, and asked to allocate reward (24,000 Yen) between the recipients, to rate weights of performance, ability, and effort, and to rate fairness of their own allocation. The results were consistent with hypothesis 1, but inconsistent with hypothesis 2; they showed allocators weighted performance more than ability and effort, but the expectation of future interaction did not influence the weight of them.
Key words
reward allocation, input, fairness, social exchange, equity theory
Title
Experimental studies of the effects of social skills training on reducing loneliness
Author
Atushi AIKAWA (Department of Psychology, Tokyo Gakugei University)
Summary
This study investigated the effects of social skills training on reducing loneliness. the 18 female students reporting the highest degree of self-reported loneliness were randomly assigned to a social skills training (SST) group or a no training control (NTC) group in the first experiment. Subjects in the SST group received eight 40-minute sessions over a 4-week period individually. Although subjects in the NTC group participated the same 1st and 8th sessions as those in the SST group did, they performed six tasks unrelated to social skills from the 2nd to 7th sessions. All subjects were asked to complete a self-reported questionnaire including measures of loneliness and social skills before and after the training sessions. Their behavior in hypothetical interpersonal situations were recorded in videotapes, and were rated by independent scorers in terms of social skills before and after the training. The second experiment was a follow-up test of the training effects 6 months later. The SST group was found to significantly higher in social skills and lower in the self-reported loneliness than the NTC group immediately after the training but not in the follow-up test.
Key words
loneliness, UCLA Loneliness Scale, social skills, social skills training, follow-up test