Social and Behavioral Sciences

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https://hdl.handle.net/11416/978
This collection includes scholarly output from both faculty and students in Social and Behavioral Sciences.

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Browsing Social and Behavioral Sciences by Author "Darby, Bruce W."

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Children's reactions to apologies
    (American Psychological Association, 1982-10) Darby, Bruce W.; Schlenker, Barry R.
    In 2 experiments, 221 kindergartners and 1st, 4th, and 7th graders judged actors who committed a transgression under conditions of low or high responsibility and low or high consequences. The actor's motives were good or bad and the act was intended or accidental. The actor then either did nothing or employed 1 of 3 increasingly elaborate apologies. As hypothesized, the actor's predicament was most severe, producing the harshest judgments when (a) the actor had high responsibility for committing an inadvertent act that produced high consequences, and (b) the act was the result of a bad rather than good motive or was intended rather than accidental. More elaborate apologies produced less blame and punishment and more forgiveness, liking, positive evaluations, and attributions of greater remorse. The judgments of the 7th graders were more affected by the actor's apology than those of the younger Ss. These age differences reflect the younger Ss' poorer ability to integrate social information and appreciate the implications of social conventions. However, the younger Ss' judgments were similar to those of older Ss.
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    Children's reactions to transgressions: Effects of the actor's apology, reputation and remorse
    (Wiley, 1989-12) Darby, Bruce W.; Schlenker, Barry R.
    This experiment examined children's reactions to a transgression in which one child's property was damaged by another who (a) had a reputation as a good or bad child, (b) apologized or did not, and (c) later expressed remorse when talking about the incident or was happy and unremorseful. As expected, actors who had a good reputation or were remorseful were seen as more likable, as having better motives, as doing the damage unintentionally, as more sorry and as less blameworthy. Further, actors who were good and remorseful were punished least, suggesting that punishment was applied in a rehabilitative fashion. The actor's reputation determined how his or her actions were interpreted: bad actors were seen as more worried about punishment when they expressed remorse and older children thought they apologized merely to avoid punishment. Interestingly, apologies were effective in reducing punishment and making the actor seem more likable, and this was true irrespective of the other factors. The apology‐forgiveness script may be such an ingrained aspect of social life that its appearance automatically improves the actor's position. The reactions of second and fifth graders were generally similar, although the younger children displayed less coherent relationships between judgements.
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    Children's understanding of social anxiety
    (American Psychological Association, 1986-09) Darby, Bruce W.; Schlenker, Barry R.
    Second-, fourth-, and seventh-grade children evaluated story characters who were either highly or less motivated to impress an audience and had either high or low expectations of being able to accomplish their self-presentational goals. As predicted according to a self-presentation model of social anxiety, both factors were related to judgments of the character's social anxiety, especially for the older children. For all age groups, actors who expected to do poorly rather than well were regarded as more anxious, as more likely to exhibit nervous responses and to have communication difficulties, and as less likely to be successful in accomplishing their goal, and they were evaluated less favorably. The actor's motivation had different effects on younger versus older children: Second graders attributed less anxiety to highly motivated actors, whereas older children attributed greater anxiety to them. For all age groups, high motivation was expected to have a channeling effect on behaviors that would increase interpersonal effectiveness. A finding that was consistent with the literature on social-cognitive development was that older children displayed greater differentiation in their cause-effect inferences, and they better appreciated the complex implications of social anxiety.
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    School drop-out prevention: A multifaceted program for the improvement of adolescent employability, academic achievement, and personal identity
    (SAGE Publications, 1990-04) Cross, Tracy; Darby, Bruce W.; D'Alonzo, Bruno J.
    There is a growing effort in this country to find effective ways to deal with the drop-out problem. Among those involved in this search are policy-makers, business persons, educators, psychologists and parents. One result of this effort was the passage of the Job Training Partnership Act (JTPA) in 1982 and amended in 1986. In addition to the JPTA involvement in adult training and employment programs, the legislation has enabled summer programs to be established in some locations around the country for high school students who are considered to be "high-risk" in terms of their likelihood of dropping out of school.