CONCEPTUAL STRUCTURE AND GROUP PROCESSES IN AN INTER-NATION SIMULATION. PART I. THE PERCEPTION OF SIMULATED NATIONS,
Abstract
The purposes of the study were to uncover the general structure of the concept used to perceive social groups acting as simulated nations, to determine whether the complexity and content of this perceptual concept would shift under varying situational stresses and to discover whether differences in the complexity of this specific concept could be traced to a measure of generalized cognitive complexity. The theory advanced was that complexity would relate to stress in a curvilinear fashion. Moderate stress should induce greater complexity in social perception than either too mild or too intense stress. In addition it was expected that at most stress levels differences in complexity can be related to differences in the characteristic levels of cognitive complexity in perceivers. In order to examine these points, the complexity of the social group concept as it functioned in the Internation Simulation was studied. The simulation allowed seven, three-man nations to operate in a complex decision making environment for four days. In 10 different runs of the simulation, one half of the nations were manned by persons of high generalized complexity, while half were staffed with more generally simple persons. Generalized complexity was measured with the Situational Interpretation Test. Four runs involved the intense stress of war, four peace runs were of moderate stress and two peace runs were classed as mild stress. In general the study found that by multidimensional scaling meaningful dimensions in the concept employed to perceive simulated nations could be discovered. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Apr 01, 1962
- Accession Number
- AD0657350
Entities
People
- Michael J. Driver
Organizations
- Educational Testing Service