心理学毕业论文外文翻译(2).docx

外文文献Self-attribution, sun-sign traits, and the alleged role of favourableness as a moderator variable:long-term effect or artefact?Edgar WunderAbstractThe process of self-attribution is an important factor in the development of beliefs in the validity of presented personality descriptions. Hamilton (2001) proposed that the relative favourableness of astrologically derived personality descriptions is a moderator variable for long-term self-attribution effects based on knowledge of the astrological sun-sign symbolism. Because the sets of traits associated with some sun-signs are thought to be more favourable than those of other sun-signs, she predicts that natives born under a more favourable sign should show a stronger belief in astrology than subjects born under less favourable signs. To test this hypothesis, we studied 1700 German subjects, to see if their belief in astrology varied with respect to their sun-sign. But the mean belief scores were almost exactly the same for all sign groups, providing strong evidence against Hamiltons hypothesis. It is proposed that the conflicting empirical findings of Hamilton (2001) are probably artefacts of the experimental setting, and not long-term effects of self-attribution.Keywords: Self-attribution; Personality descriptions; Confirmatory testing strategies; Astrology; Paranormal belief systems; Favourableness1. IntroductionAn anomaly discovered serendipitously by Mayo, White, and Eysenck (1978), which was subsequently explained by Pawlik and Buse (1979) in terms of attribution theory, managed to become a prominent exemplar for the process of self-attribution: Subjects tended to describe their personality in terms of those traits that pertained to their astrological sun-signs, but only if theyhad some astrological knowledge. The effect was replicated several times (Eysenck & Nias 1981,1982; Fichten & Sunerton, 1983; Jackson, 1979; Kelly, 1982; Smithers & Cooper, 1978), even if no reference to astrology was made until the debriefing of the subjects (Hamilton, 1995; Van Rooij, 1994, 1999), or if the data were gathered originally for a purpose which has nothing to do with astrology at all (Clarke, Gabriels, & Barnes, 1996; Van Rooij, Brak, & Commandeur, 1988),but the effect is stronger when a cue is given to the subjects that the study is about astrology (Van Rooij 1994). Early evidence for sun-sign derived self-attribution effects has already been reported by Silverman (1971) and Delaney & Woodyard (1974). In studies with subjects unfamiliar with the meaning of the astrological sun-sign symbolism, no effect was observed (Fourie, 1984; Jackson & Fiebert, 1980; Kanekar & Mukherjee, 1972;Mohan, Bhandari, &Meena, 1982; Mohan and Gulati,1986; Saklofske, Kelly, & McKerracher, 1982; Silverman & Whitmer, 1974; Veno & Pamment,1979). Thus a real connection between personality and astrological sun-signs can be excluded,in accordance with other studies refuting alleged astrological sun-sign effects on personality(Dahlstrom, Hopkins, Dahlstrom, Jackson, & Cumella 1996; Gauquelin, 1982; Hentschel &Kiessling, 1985). Furthermore, there are not the slightest effects if other astrological factors than sun-signs are studied (Clarke et al., 1996; Russell & Wagstaff, 1983; Startup, 1985), because obviously only very few people know something about the interpretive profile of their horoscope beyond sun-sign astrology. Accordingly, self-attribution effects cannot be expected to occur. Questions remain regarding the concrete self-attribution mechanism responsible for creating this internalisation of subjects astrological knowledge.Lo Iacono (1989) speculates that astrological symbolism may be attributed to the self in a manner that affirms the existence of desired traits, or by virtue of its inherent ambiguity, explains away aspects of the self that are perceived as less attractive. Using this line of reasoning, Hamilton (2001) claims an effect of favourableness of astrology-derived personality descriptions as a moderator variable for the self-attribution process under that condition, since Glick, Gottesman, and Jolton (1989) have found that favourable, or socially desirable, personality descriptions of astrological origin are more likely to be accepted as true than unfavourable ones. In particular, Hamilton (2001) proposes that the characteristics of odd signs (Aries, Gemini, Leo, Libra, Sagittarius, Aquarius)in the astrological tradition also called positive or male signsare perceived as more favourable than those of even signs (Taurus, Cancer, Virgo, Scorpio, Capricorn, Pisces), in the astrological tradition also called negative or female signs. In conclusion, she predicts that subjects born under odd (positive) signs should express a higher degree of belief in astrology than natives of even (negative) signs. If true, this moderator effect should be valid at least for subjects with knowledge in sun-sign traits, and not only under experimental conditions but also, for example,in surveys on belief in astrology, if we assume long-term effects of astrological self-attribution, as Hamilton (1995) did.Indeed, Hamilton (2001) was empirically successful in showing that the personality descriptions of positive signs, excerpted from a book on astrology, were perceived as more favourable than those of negative signs by two samples of (mostly) psychology students, who were not informed about the astrological origin of the statements. In Hamiltons second sample the participants were told immediately afterwards that the personality descriptions were those of astrological signs, subsequently completing a questionnaire on knowledge and belief in astrology, including a question on the sun sign of the participants (controlled by month and day of birth). It turned out, as predicted, that subjects born under a positive sign expressed significantly(P0.05) more belief in astrology than did subjects born under a negative sign (N=92).Hamilton (2001) states: The present study suggests that the effect of favorableness is likely to be at least fairly long-lasting since our participants had, presumably, been exposed to their own sun sign descriptions well before entering the study. If this supposition is true, the difference in belief in astrology between natives of odd vs. even sun-signs should be independent of Hamiltons priming procedure (i.e. first to give subjects the task to rate personality descriptions, and then debrief them that the descriptions were based on sun-sign astrology).The following study is a more direct test of the alleged long-lasting effects of the relative favourableness of odd vs. even sun-sign personality characteristics on the belief in astrology,because it avoids this kind of priming, which has to be regarded as a possible source of artefacts.2. Study2.1. MethodOne thousand seven-hundred subjects were recruited by a call for participants in a study of the validity of astrology in German newspapers, radio and television programs. Of the subjects 64.4% were females. Ages ranged from 12 to 83 years, with a mean of 38.3 years. The subjects backgrounds were representative of all segments of German society. Originally the data were not gathered for the purpose of testing Hamiltons hypothesis, but for a matching experiment similar to the one reported by Carlson (1985), see Wunder (in preparation). The subjects were motivated to take part in this study by the promise of an individual interpretation of their horoscope given by an astrologer.In the first step of this complex experiment (Wunder, in preparation), all subjects had to complete a short questionnaire, asking for date and time of birth, gender and ratings for two items on belief in astrology (If you know the horoscope of a stranger, you know a lot about his character, The sign or horoscope of a person has an influence on his/her course of life) on five-point scales(strongly agree, tend to agree, uncertain, tend to disagree, strongly disagree).This questionnaire also asked for ratings for four items on experience and knowledge of astrology (I know the personality traits of my sign well, I know my ascendant, I have already invested some time in learning more about astrology, I have already visited an astrologer for a personal consultation), with only Yes or No being possible answers. Wunder (2002) gives details of the frequencies, correlations, and factor analysis for the answers on these six items on belief, knowledge and experience in astrology.3. DiscussionThe findings from our study raised serious doubts as to whether Hamiltons interpretation of her results is correct. Maybe the effect of favourableness, shown by Hamilton (2001), is nothing more than an artefact dependent on the experimental settings. If favourableness is really a moderator variable for the long-term internalisation of sun-sign personality traits due to self-attribution under non-experimental conditions, as Hamilton (2001) proposes, this effect should be detectable in our database. But it is not. However, since our sample size is a large one (N=1700), even very tiny effects had a chance of becoming significant. Germany has no independent tradition regarding the meaning of the sun-sign symbolism.Indeed many popular books on astrology are translations of the works of American authors. Nevertheless, it may be argued that the failure to replicate Hamiltons finding could be due to cross-cultural differences between Germany and the United States regarding the perceived favourableness of certain personality traits. Individuals from a society in which “masculine”values are generally more respected than “feminine” ones will probably prefer the “male” or odd signs, while individuals from a “feminine” society will tend to prefer the “female” or even signs.Hofstede (1998) has done a lot of comparative empirical work on the dimension of masculinity/femininity in different cultures. However, his tabulation of the Masculinity Index (MAS) for 50 countries (Hofstede 1998, p. 9) shows that Germany and the United States are very close on the dimension of masculinity (the range of MAS is from 0 to 100, Germany scores 66,the United States 62; for comparison: Sweden scores 5, Japan 95). Therefore, it seems not to be plausible to argue that the conflicting results of Hamilton (2001) and our study may be due to cross-cultural differences between Germany and the United States on the perceived favourableness of “masculine” or “feminine” values. Also, note that our results show no interaction effect with gender.Another difference between the two samples is that the current participants, unlike Hamiltons,knowingly volunteered to participate in a study of astrology in order to receive a personalized horoscope.As a consequence, the sample comprised quite a lot of people highly interested in astrologyperhaps this attenuated, one might argue, any differences between positive and negative sun-sign natives. In this case we should expect differences in belief in astrology between natives of odd signs and natives of even signs at least among those participants who scored lowest on experience and knowledge of astrology. But in any case, i.e. independent of the degree of experience and knowledge of astrology, there was no significant effect. Therefore this attempt to explain the different results of the two studies also seems not to be too promising. A crucial difference between Hamiltons experimental setting and the typical non-experimental conditions is the fact that the evaluation of the accuracy of ones sun-sign personality description in everyday life is usually done by a verification strategy concentrating only on ones own sunsign and not by comparing the traits with those of other sun-signs. Van Rooij (1994) describes this process in the following way: A knowledgeable person knows which traits he is supposed to have, according to his or her sun-sign. For example, an Aries-person learns from astrology that Aries-persons are said to be impulsive.He starts observing his behaviour and indeed notices that from time to time he is impulsive. Because he is focused on the impulsive moments he does not pay equal attention to the moments that he is not impulsive. Now, everybody is impulsive once in a while, but by this process of selective self-observation the person might indeed get to think of himself as impulsive.To summarise, the belief in the accuracy of sun-sign personality descriptions arises from a combination of fundamental attribution error, confirmatory testing strategies, and selective selfobservation and recall (see also Glick & Snyder, 1986). Since trait collections for astrological signs can generally be described as ambiguous hodgepodges, where everyone can find something suitable if he or she only wants to (Lillqvist & Lindeman, 1998), it may be no surprise that effects of favourableness fail to turn up under non-experimental conditions.This is because the intra-variance of favourableness within one sign is much more pronounced than the inter-variance of favourableness between signs, while comparisons between signs in any case do not take place or are at least very unusual in everyday life, where interest is focussed on ones own sign only.Hamilton (2001) herself wrote: “Note that the negative astrological signs may have been negative only in comparison to the positive sign descriptions.” This is an important point, because all sun-signs have to offer a lot of positive traits, which are true in at least some situations, easy to accept as a desirable description of oneself (Lillqvist & Lindeman, 1998). So what might have happened to the subjects under the experimental conditions introduced by Hamilton? After being informed that the personality descriptions were based on astrological signs, some of Hamiltons subjects may have recognized that their own sign matched the personality description they just rated as more unfavourable in comparison to another one. To escape this annoying conclusion, those subjects may have reduced their committed belief in astrology immediately, but this does not need to be a long-term effect. The possible counter-argument, that the subjectsown sun-sign was not always among the personality descriptions presented beforehand, is not valid, because even in this case a subject may compare his knowledge about the traits of his own sign with the personality descriptions of the other signs presented, which may be perceived as more favourable in such a direct comparison, resulting in a reduction of the belief in astrology.To sum up, in direct comparison the trait collections for odd signs may indeed sound more favourable than those of even signs, but since those comparisons are not the way astrological statements are evaluated under non-experimental conditions, this difference should be irrelevant for the formation of belief in astrology outside the laboratory.Whether or not this kind of reasoning is the right approach to reconcile the conflicting results of Hamilton (2001) and our study, it illustrates the importance of context when collecting data to investigate how processes of self-attribution works.Who believes in astrology?: Effect of favorableness of astrologically derived personality descriptions on acceptance of astrology Margaret HamiltonAbstractParticipants judged contemporary personality descriptions of odd-numbered astrological Sun signs to be more favorable than descriptions of even-numbered signs. Those born with the Sun in an odd-numbered sign expressed more belief in astrology than those born under an even-numbered Sun sign. These findings suggest that one determinant of acceptance of astrology is the favorableness of the character analysis it offers. Implications for previous research on belief in astrology are discussed.DiscussionRespondents with middling levels of belief in, and knowledge about, astrology judged contemporary personality descriptions of odd-numbered astrological Sun signs to be more favorable than contemporary descriptions of even-numbered signs. It appears, then, that the traditional division within Western astrology between the six masculine, odd-numbered, and fortunate zodiac signs and the six feminine, even-numbered, and relatively unfortunate ones remains.Natives of odd-numbered signs expressed more belief in astrology than those whose Sun signs were even-numbered. These results suggest that one determinant of acceptance of astrology is the favorableness, or social desirability, of the particular character analysis it offers. Those for whom astrological theory provides a more attractive self-portrait are more likely to express belief in the validity of astrology. Note that the negative astrological signs may have been “negative” only in comparison to the positive sign descriptions. In both Study 1 and Study 2, the average favorableness ratings for the negative signs were at, or slightly above, the scale midpoint. Thus, it may not be that unflattering self-portraits are repelling some potential believers born under negative signs but rather that the more frankly flattering descriptions offered the positive sign natives, exert a greater attraction than the mixed portraits confronting those born under negative signs.These results are similar to those of Glick et al. (1989), who found that high school students initially skeptical about astrology were more likely both to accept the personality description it offered them and to increase their belief in astrology as a whole, if that description were favorable. Glick et al., however, assessed change of belief immediately following presentation of the personality analyses; they did not investigate how long-lasting this increase was likely to be. The present study suggests that the effect of favorableness is likely to be at least fairly long-lasting since our participants