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POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE INFORMATION IN MATCHING PROBLEMS
Author(s) -
DONALDSON MARGARET
Publication year - 1959
Publication title -
british journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.536
H-Index - 92
eISSN - 2044-8295
pISSN - 0007-1269
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8295.1959.tb00702.x
Subject(s) - psychology , equivalence (formal languages) , negative information , social psychology , matching (statistics) , value (mathematics) , developmental psychology , statistics , mathematics , discrete mathematics
Two tasks are used, for the successful performance of which it is necessary to prefer negative information to its formally equivalent positive counterpart. The subjects are 19 children aged 14 years to 14 years 6 months, who are observed individually, and 90 students in a Scottish teachers' training college who are tested as a group. Results confirm previous findings that formal equivalence of positive and negative information does not ensure psychological equivalence. Further, in certain circumstances, positive and negative information may be regarded as equivalent in certain respects but not in others. Although negative statements are recognized as combining to ‘equal’ a positive one, the equality may be incomplete since this derived positive is not always allowed the same value for purposes of further inference as a directly stated positive. Bruner, Goodnow & Austin (1956) suggest that avoidance of ‘in‐the‐head’ transformation may explain the tendency to shun negatives; but this does not seem adequate to account for the present findings. These authors also speak of ‘inability or unwillingness’ to use negative information. In this study, evidence both of inability and of unwillingness is obtained.