The "Positivity Bias" inEvaluations of Public Figures:Evidence Against Instrument Artifacts

The "positivity bias" is a term used to describe the consistentfavorable evaluation of public figures found in surveys overthe past 40 years. This paper explored several possible artifactualexplanations for this bias,focusing on the survey instrumentitself. Two experiments varied the labeling and ordering ofscale endpoints, the affective value of the initial contextevaluated, and the presence or absence of a prestigious jobtitle associated with the nameof the public figure. None ofthe variations produced significantly different levels of positivitythan the standard control condition used in each experiment.RichardR. Lau is a graduate student in social psychology at the Universityof California, Los Angeles. David O. Sears is Professor of Psychologyand Political Science at UCLA. Richard Centers is Professorof Psychology at UCLA. This research was supported in part byGrant #SOC73-09153 A03 from the National Science Foundationto David O. Sears. The authors wish to expess their thanks toMark Williams, who did most of the coding and checking involvedin the survey.     

Marital alternatives and the regulation of sex

The relationship between the occurrence of extramarital affairs (as an indicator of the reduction of normative constraints) and commuter marriage (as an indicator of the reduction of structural constraints) was examined. It was found that when couples set up two separate homes they were not more likely to have affairs than when they shared a single home (or that the reduction of structural constraints does not necessarily lead to the reduction of normative constraints). In contrast to other studies that stress opportunity as a key factor in the occurrence of extramarital affairs, this study suggests that attitudes toward affairs are neither enforced nor weakened by opportunity. Two underlying orientations to marriage, which exist simultaneously in different segments of the population, were uncovered: one involving an attachment to the family as institution and one involving an attachment to the family as companionship.     

Planning and management by objectives

The purpose of this article is to shed some light on the relationship between management by objectives and planning. Specifically, 294 managers in banking and manufacturing were studied. The results of that study are presented in this article.