Evaluative reactions to the viewing of pseudo-dance sequences: selected temporal and spatial aspects

Factors Affecting the Magnitude and Proportionality of Solutions to Problems of Coordination

Three experiments were conducted to assess the nature and generality of people's solutions to problems of temporal and numerical coordination in which interests are primarily opposed. In Exp. I, subjects were placed in a timing task with a group of nonpresent others and were asked to make a simple pushbutton response when they believed they would be exactly the Nth person in their group to do so. In Exp. II, groups of randomly chosen respondents in the Boston metropolitan area took part in a mail contest in which a cash prize was awarded to the Nth person in a group to return a postcard. In Exp. III, subjects were placed in a simulated auction setting in the laboratory and were required to compete with a group of nonpresent others in order to make the Nth bid in their group. Five variables were manipulated, two of which proved to be significant in all three studies. Thus, it was found that the wider the temporal or numerical continuum with which an individual is provided, and the higher the ordinal position he is required to occupy in relation to other members of his group, the larger the magnitude of his judgments. Subjects' coordination judgments were further analyzed in relation to the objectively imposed and subjectively defined contexts within which they were made. The findings indicate that coordination judgments are fundamentally alike in the three experiments, and are made not in absolute, but in proportional, fashion.