Dr. Ramadhar Singh, Distinguished Professor at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), was honored with the Sir J. C. Bose Memorial Award, by the Indian Science Monitor (ISM), in Bengaluru on January 9, 2014.
Professor Singh was conferred the award and a certificate by Padma Vibhushan M N Venkatachalaiah, Former Chief Justice of India, for his contributions to organizational behavior, human resource management, and cognitive psychology.
Professor Singh's research on how people make inferences when the needed information is missing for judgment and decision has already been featured in the Most underappreciated: 50 prominent social psychologists describe their most unloved work (The Oxford University Press, New York, 2011) and the Faces and Minds of Psychological Science, a website of the Association for Psychological Science, Washington, DC (http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/members/psychological-scientists#singh).
Click here (http://www.iimb.ac.in/webpage/ramadhar-singh) to read full-profile of Professor Ramadhar Singh.
Some of his contributions:
I. General Contributions
1. Leadership
In a series of four experiments carried out on Indian participants, Singh, Bohra, and Dalal (1979) demonstrated an averaging rule for information about group atmosphere, task structure, and position power in judgments of situational favorableness for leaders (Fiedler, 1967). This demonstration was in sharp contrast to the existing additive model of situational favorableness (Nebeker, 1975) but better accounted for Fiedler's evidence for the correlation between leadership style and performance. In another series of four experiments, Singh (1983) showed that Fielder's Least Preferred Co-Worker (LPC) scale of task-versus-relation style among leaders lacked construct validity. The foregoing two publications of Singh, coupled with those of others, rendered the contingency model of leadership effectiveness rather obsolete in the literature.
2. Imputations about Missing Information in Decision Making
People usually know something about a person and infer other attributes such as motivation, ability, and sincerity. Information available for these inferences is hardly complete. To make a judgment, therefore, people may impute values to missing information from the given information. Singh first demonstrated an averaging rule in prediction of performance from information about both motivation and ability (Singh & Bhargava, 1986) and the multiplying rule in prediction of gift size from information about both generosity and income (Singh, 1991). Given such success in rule diagnosis from information presented about both necessary causes, Singh demonstrated that the missing motivation or generosity information is imputed a constant value (usually around the nominal neutral point) but the imputed value to the missing ability or income information increases with the increasing value of the given motivation or generosity information.
The foregoing contribution was featured in Arkin (2011), Most underappreciated: 50 prominent social psychologists describe their most unloved work. Importantly, the Association of Psychological Science has identified this contribution for Singh's inclusion in the website that has a collection of profiles under the theme "I'm a Psychological Scientist."
3. Similar Attitudes and Attraction
Singh has been one of the leading contributors to Byrne's (1971) attraction paradigm. His studies have led to resolution of several issues. First, in his doctoral research, he demonstrated that the similarity-attraction link is mediated by the underlying affective states induced by the stimuli used (Singh, 1974). Later, he along with NUS students showed that the attitude similarity and attraction link is indeed mediated by multiple mediators of inferred attraction, respect, and affect. Importantly, his recent work suggests a greater potential of the sequential multiple-mediator model rather than a parallel multiple-mediator model (Singh, Yeo, Lin & Tan, 2007; Singh, Ng, Ong, & Lin, 2008; Singh, Chen, & Wegener, 2014).
Second, Rosenbaum (1986) claimed that only dissimilar attitudes lead to repulsion but similar attitudes are irrelevant to attraction. Research at NUS (Singh & Tan, 1992) refuted this repulsion hypothesis rather convincingly. By creating a control condition of no-attitude information, they showed that both similar and dissimilar attitudes influence attraction. However, the dissimilarity effect is stronger than the similarity effect. This similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry led to a new view on developmental differences in attraction. Attraction responses of children below 11 years support the repulsion hypothesis; those of 15 years and adults, in contrast, support the similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry hypothesis. Such age-trends in attraction were explained by the person positivity bias that serves as anchor for the relative effects of similar and dissimilar attitudes (Tan & Singh, 1995).
Later, another method was developed to unpack the similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry effects into person positivity bias (Singh & Teoh, 1999) and information weighting (Singh & Ho, 2000). By crossing the dissimilar versus similar levels of similarity in one attitude survey with those in another attitude survey, it was demonstrated that the asymmetry occurs in weighting of dissimilar and similar attitudes. Specifically, dissimilar attitudes take on greater weights than similar attitudes (Singh & Ho, 2000). Using the Stroop's (1935) color-naming task, Jia and Singh (2009) showed that such asymmetry in weights occur at the level of attention to the presented dissimilar and similar attitude statements on computer screen. More important, such default asymmetry can be turned into equal attention by freeing cognitive resources. Clearly, then, equal and unequal attention to similar and dissimilar attitudes is moderated by the cognitive resources.
4. Intergroup Relations
Singh's work also suggests that people behave as politicians who claim superiority of their in-group in one aspect (in-group bias) but do not exhibit such preferences in another aspect (fair-mindedness). Besides, Singh's experiments have questioned the utility of cross-categorization of groups as a means of bias reduction.
Based on social categories of age, gender, nationality, race, and religion, people tend to categorize members as belonging to their group (in-group) or not belonging to their group (out -group). Also, people tend to favor the in-group but discriminate against the out-group. Singh, Choo, and Poh (1998) found that most of the published studies had used just one measure of the bias, and that even those which had used more than one measure highlighted the bias in one measure but dismissed the evidence against no bias in another measure.
Given the evidence for similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry in attraction and the concern for fairness in most democratic societies of the modern world, Singh first took up the issue of out-group denigration versus in-group bias in intergroup perception. Toward this goal, they created a control condition of no-information about the social category of the target person and contrasted it with two other experimental conditions of out-group and in-group by race. By taking the measures of competence and attraction, moreover, they investigated that participants may show bias in competence to claim superiority of the in-group, but no bias in attraction, to make a positive self-presentation as a fair-minded person. There was an overwhelming support for out-group denigration. Importantly, the discrimination was in competence ratings but not in attraction ones. It was demonstrated, therefore, that intergroup perception is a compromise between the norms of in-group bias and fair-mindedness, and that the claim of in-group bias as the only norm of intergroup discrimination was erroneous.
In a collateral research, Singh, Yeoh, Lim, and Lim (1997) showed that crossing of out-group versus in-group by race with out-group versus in-group by nationality added to the discrimination instead of diluting it as is commonly believed to be.
5. Impression Formation
Singh's studies of impression formation confirm a universal finding that people judge others along sociability and competence. Whereas sociability leads to inferences about one's intent to cooperate, competence leads to inferences about one potency to carry out the intention (Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007).
Since 1946, it was believed that warm and cold are central traits in forming impressions of personality. Evidence for the similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry in attraction led Singh, Onglatco, Sriram, and Tay (1997) to investigate the warm-cold asymmetry in impressions of personality. They created a control condition of no-information about the target person and contrasted it with two other experimental conditions of warm and cold targets. All four experiments obtained the warm-cold asymmetry: The effect of warm trait in impressions was much smaller than that of cold trait. Further, intellectual traits led to inferences about intellect more than sociability of the target but social traits led to inferences about sociability alone (Singh, Onglatco et al., 1997).
In subsequent two articles, Singh and Teoh (2000) demonstrated that extreme, relative to moderate, social traits lead to greater attraction but not inferences about intellect or respect. In contrast, extreme, relative to moderate, intellectual traits lead to greater respect but smaller attraction. Apparently, extremely intellectual person poses threat to others.
European social psychologists view social traits as other-profitable and intellectual traits as self-profitable. Accordingly, Singh et al. (2009) investigated the mediators of the effect of other- and self-profitable traits on attraction. Consistent with the previous findings, the effect of the valence of social traits on attraction was mediated by trust in the benevolence of the target but that of the intellectual traits on attraction was mediated more by respect than trust. When both social and intellectual traits were crossed with each other, the effects of the valence of social and intellectual traits on attraction were solely mediated by the respective trust and respect.
II. Cross-Cultural Contributions
1. Prediction of Performance
How do people predict performance of a person from information about his or her motivation and ability? Heider (1958) proposed a multiplying rule: Performance = Motivation x Ability. Anderson and Butzin (1974) presented evidence for this rule in prediction of performance by American adults. The multiplying rule was further shown to be developing from the additive rule over ages as if the rule-usage were driven by cognitive development (Kun, Parsons, & Ruble, 1974; Surber, 1980)
Singh, Gupta, and Dalal (1979) took issue with such cognitive explanation. To them, the patterns in the Motivation x Ability effect that imply the additive (i.e., no Motivation x Ability interaction effect) and multiplicative (i.e., divergence toward the right in the Motivation x Ability effect) rules can better by accounted for by the underlying causal beliefs than by cognitive capacity of the participants to employ the integration rules. For example, the pattern of divergence that suggests a multiplying rule may also arise out of an elitist causal belief of Americans that effort or trying is more effective with persons of higher ability than those of lower ability. In contrast, the additive effects of motivation and ability that reflects on the constant-weight averaging rule may be a consequence of an egalitarian causal belief of Indians that each person, regardless of native ability, has equal opportunity to improve his or her lot.
Consistent with the foregoing causal belief interpretation, prediction of examination performance by college students in India did obey the prediction of the averaging rule. Importantly, the same rule held with predictions by children as well as adults in India (Gupta & Singh, 1981). When prediction of performance in nonacademic tasks was studied, the age-trends in prediction of performance reported in America (Kun et al., 1974; Surber, 1980) were rather reversed in India (Srivastava & Singh, 1988): The additive pattern developed from the divergent pattern. Interestingly, the relative-weight averaging rule found by Surber (1981a, 1981b) was never found in India (Singh & Bhargava, 1985, 1986). Collectively, these findings from India (Gupta & Singh, 1981; Singh, Gupta et al., 1979; Singh & Singh, 1994; Srivastava & Singh, 1988) offered a causal belief explanation of the various patterns in the Motivation x Ability effects on performance as an alternative to the cognitive development explanation given in the American studies. Hau and Salili (1996) also confirmed the prevalence of such egalitarian causal belief among Chinese adults of Hong Kong.
2. Outcome Allocation
Outcome allocation becomes more equitable with age in America (Hook & Cook, 1979) but not in Asia (e.g., Bond, Leung, & Wan, 1982; Leung & Bond, 1984; Leung & Park, 1986; Sinha, 1985; Singh & Huang, 1994). To explain this cultural difference, Singh and his students at the National University of Singapore (NUS) proposed that age affects perception of inputs of the claimants, and that a combination of perceived inputs and cultural values (meritocracy in America versus group harmony in Asia) determine outcome allocation.
It is usually assumed that decision makers express their subjective psychological judgments along the response measure in a linear way. Given such assumption, an allocation is regarded as fair if one's outcome is proportional to his input (Farkas & Anderson, 1979). Singh's earlier studies also supported the linear use of the response measure (Singh & Bhargava, 1985; Singh, 1983). Nevertheless, experiments on outcome allocation and on fixation of pay and workload raised doubt against a strictly linear use of the response measure. When Singh assumed that equity judgments to be at best ordinal and used MONANOVA, a tool that rescales ordinal judgments into interval ones, the model best supported was subtraction: An outcome is viewed as "fair" as long as the relative position of that outcome in the distribution of outcomes is the same as the relative position of the input in the distribution of inputs (Singh, 1995, 1996).
Given the evidence for the subtractive rule in outcome allocation, Singh and his NUS students showed that the perception of input does become more precise with age in both Asia and America. However, the American age-trend in outcome allocation is reversed in Asia primarily due to greater response distortions by Asian adults (Singh, Chong, Leow, & Hui, 2002). By instructing Indian managers to pursue the goals of dividing outcome fairly versus minimizing conflict between the claimants, Singh (1997) further demonstrated that these goals do influence response distortions more than rule usage, a point suggested by Bond et al. (1982).
Thus, research by Singh and his collaborators showed that input perception and outcome allocation go together in the United States and hence American data were inadequate in separating the age effects in input perception from those in outcome allocation. By presenting Asian data wherein input perception and allocation behavior differed, they demonstrated that culture differs in articulation of goal-driven fair responses, not in the use of the cognitive development-driven proportional equity rule as it was believed to be from the American findings.
3. Cultural Differences in Responding to Wrongdoing
In responding to wrongdoings, people simultaneously pursue the goals of social control and fairness to the wrongdoer. In a fruitful collaboration with Philip E. Tetlock of Ohio State University, Singh has recently begun studies to understand the universals and culture-specific differences (i.e., why and how do people punish norm-violators? how does culture impact this? (Tetlock et al., 2007; Tetlock, Self, & Singh, 2010).
American studies often used blame as a measure of causal or dispositional attribution. By using separate measures of blame and causal attribution, however, Singh and his collaborators showed that cultures differ in the assignment of blame, not in causal attribution. Specifically, Westerners blame the person more, but the group less, than do Easterners. So, the universal dispositional attribution leads to culture-specific assignment of blame which, in turn, determines punishment (Singh, Simons, Self, Tetlock, Bell, et al., 2012). In case of groups, however, there are two routes to collective punishment. One is through dispositional attribution to group (internal characteristics of the members of the group like personality); another is through collective blame (blaming the entire group) (Singh, Simons, Self, Tetlock, Zemba, et al., 2012). In both cases, however, culture affects the assignment of blame, not causal attribution, to either the person or his group.
Collectively, such East-West differences in responses to wrongdoing suggest that morality is a better criterion for cultural comparisons than causal attributions emphasized by Nisbett (Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001; Peng & Nisbett, 1999). Moreover, people are now expected to monitor and control the misdeeds of individuals from their social circle more in Asia than in America.
The foregoing culture-specific ways of punishment led Singh, Ramasamy, Self, Simons, and Lin (2013) to provide a social explanation for the well-known Piagetian (1965) cognitive explanation for age differences in punishment from intent and consequence information. The increasing importance of intent and decreasing importance of consequence over age in punishing the norm-violators is not driven as much by cognitive maturity to understand intentionality as by social maturity to be fair with the accidental wrongdoings. Further, severity of consequence loses importance with age because adults find social order to be safer than do children (Singh et al., 2013). Such conceptual clarity was possible only because the measures of attribution, blame, and punishment were included in the same developmental study. Supporting the social perspective, another study also disclosed that the so-called severity bias (i.e., greater the severity of consequence, the greater is the punishment for the perpetrator) is not due to dispositional attribution as it is commonly believed to be, but due to the desire to prevent norm-violations in the future (Singh & Lin, 2011). Put simply, deterrence is more crucial than either dispositional attribution or retribution in punishing the harm doers.
References
Anderson, N. H., & Butzin, C. A. (1974). Performance = Motivation× Ability: An integration-theoretical analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 30(5), 598.
Arkin, R. M. (Ed., 2011). Most underappreciated: 50 prominent social psychologists describe their most unloved work. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bond, M. H., Leung, K., & Wan, K. C. (1982). How does cultural collectivism operate? The impact of task and maintenance contributions on reward distribution. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology, 13(2), 186-200.
Byrne, D. (1971). The attraction paradigm. New York: Academic Press.
Farkas, A. J., & Anderson, N. H. (1979). Multidimensional input in equity theory. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(6), 879.
Fiedler, F. E. (1967). A theory of leader effectiveness. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Fiske, S. T., Cuddy, A. J. C., & Glick, P. (2007). Universal dimensions of social cognition: Warmth and competence. Trends in cognitive sciences, 11(2), 77-83.
Gupta, M., & Singh, R. (1981). An integration-theoretical analysis of cultural and developmental differences in attribution of performance. Developmental Psychology, 17(6), 816.
Hau, K. T., & Salili, F. (1996). Prediction of academic performance among Chinese students: Effort can compensate for lack of ability. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 65(2), 83-94.
Heider, F. (1958). The psychology of interpersonal relations. New York: Wiley.
Hook, J. G., & Cook, T. D. (1979). Equity theory and the cognitive ability of children. Psychological Bulletin, 86(3), 429.
Jia, L., & Singh, R. (2009). Asymmetrical attention allocation to dissimilar and similar attitudes.
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45, 1259-1265.
Kun, A.,Parsons, J. E., & Ruble, D. N. (1974). Development of integration processes using ability and effort information to predict outcome. Developmental Psychology, 10(5), 721.
Leung, K., & Bond, M. H. (1984). The impact of cultural collectivism on reward allocation. Journal of Personality and Social psychology, 47(4), 793.
Leung, K., & Park, H.J. (1986). Effects of interactional goal on choice of allocation rule: A cross-national study. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 37(1), 111-120.
Nebeker, D. M. (1975). Situational favorability and perceived environmental uncertainty: An integrative approach. Administrative Science Quarterly, 281-294.
Nisbett, R. E., Peng, K., Choi, I., & Norenzayan, A. (2001). Culture and systems of thought: Holistic versus analytic cognition. Psychological review, 108(2), 291.
Piaget, J. (1965/1932). The moral judgment of the child. New York: The Free Press.
Peng, K., & Nisbett, R. E. (1999). Culture, dialectics, and reasoning about contradiction. American Psychologist, 54(9), 741.
Rosenbaum, M. E. (1986). The repulsion hypothesis: On the nondevelopment of relationships. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 51(6), 1156.
Sinha, K.K. (1985). Developmental trends in distributive justice: An information integration
analysis. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Bihar, Muzaffarpur, India.
Singh, R. (1974). Reinforcement and attraction: Specifying the effects of affective states. Journal of Research in Personality, 8(3), 294-305.
Singh, R. (1983). Leadership style and reward allocation: Does least preferred co-worker scale measure task and relation orientation? Organizational Behavior & Human Performance, 32(2), 178-197.
Singh, R. (1991). Two problems in cognitive algebra: Imputations and averaging-versus-multiplying. In N. H. Anderson (Ed.), Contributions to information integration theory (Vol. II, Social, pp. 143-180). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Singh, R. (1995). " Fair" allocations of pay and workload: Tests of a subtractive model with nonlinear judgment function. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 62(1), 70-78.
Singh, R. (1996). Subtractive versus ratio model of "fair" allocation: Can the group level analyses be misleading? Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 68(2), 123-144.
Singh, R. (1997). Group harmony and interpersonal fairness in reward allocation: On the loci of the moderation effect. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 72(2), 158-183.
Singh, R., & Bhargava, S. (1985). Motivation, ability, and exam performance: Tests of hypotheses of cultural difference and task difficulty. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 21(5), 466-479.
Singh, R., & Bhargava, S. (1986). Constant-weight versus relative-weight averaging in the prediction of exam performance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Singh, R., Bohra, K. A., & Dalal, A. K. (1979). Favourableness of leadership situations studied with information integration theory. European Journal of Social Psychology, 9(3), 253-264.
Singh, R., Chen, F., & Wegener, D. T. (2014). The similarity-attraction link: Sequential versus parallel multiple-mediator models involving inferred attraction, respect, and positive affect. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, Revision under review.
Singh, R., Chong, S. K., Leow, H. C., & Hui, T. C. (2002). Cognitive and social effects in allocation behavior: A new view on loci of developmental differences. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 5, 21-47.
Singh, R., Choo, W. M., & Poh, L. L. (1998). In-group bias and fair-mindedness as strategies of self-presentation in intergroup perception. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24(2), 147-162.
Singh, R., Gupta, M., & Dalal, A. K. (1979). Cultural difference in attribution of performance: An integration-theoretical analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 37(8), 1342.
Singh, R., & Ho, S. Y. (2000). Attitudes and attraction: A new test of the attraction, repulsion and similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry hypotheses. British Journal of Social Psychology, 39(2), 197-211.
Singh, R., & Huang, A. S. T. (1995). Locus of age effects in "fair" allocations. Asian Journal of Psychology, 1, 36-44.
Singh, R., & Lin, X. (2011). Severity effect on compensation and imprisonment recommendations: Deterrence as a mediator in Singapore. Asian Journal of Social Psychology, 14(1), 36-49.
Singh, R., Ng, R., Ong, E. L., & Lin, P. K. F. (2008). Different mediators for the age, sex, and attitude similarity effects in interpersonal attraction. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 30(1), 1-17.
Singh, R., Onglatco, M. L. U., Sriram, N., & Tay, A. B. G. (1997). The warm-cold variable in impression formation: Evidence for the positive-negative asymmetry. British Journal of Social Psychology, 36(4), 457-477.
Singh, R., Ramasamy, M. A., Self, W. T., Simons, J. J. P., & Lin, P. K. F. (2013). Age-moderated effects of consequence and intent information on punishment: An intuitive prosecutorial interpretation. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 174(1), 1-24.
Singh, R., Simons, J. J. P., Self, W. T., Tetlock, P. E., Bell, P. A., May, J., ... Sziemko, W. J. (2012). From wrongdoing to imprisonment: Test of a causal-moral model. IIMB Management Review, 24(2), 73-78.
Singh, R., Simons, J. J. P., Self, W. T., Tetlock, P. E., Zemba, Y., Yamaguchi, S., ... Kaur, S. (2012). Association, culture, and collective imprisonment: Tests of a two-route causal-moral model. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 34(3), 269-277.
Singh, R., Simons, J. J. P., Young, D. P. C. Y., Sim, B. S. X., Xiau Ting Chai, Singh, S., & Siao Ying Chiou. (2009). Trust and respect as mediators of the other- and self-profitable trait effects on interpersonal attraction. European Journal of Social Psychology, 39(6), 1021-1038.
Singh, R., & Singh, P. (1994). Prediction of performance using motivation and ability information: New light on integrational capacity and weighting strategies. Cognitive Development, 9(4), 455-496.
Singh, R., & Tan, L. S. C. (1992). Attitudes and attraction: A test of the similarity-attraction and dissimilarity-repulsion hypotheses. British Journal of Social Psychology, 31(3), 227-238.
Singh, R., & Teoh, J. B. P. (1999). Attitudes and attraction: A test of two hypotheses for the similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry. British Journal of Social Psychology, 38(4), 427-443.
Singh, R., & Teoh, J. B. P. (2000). Impression formation from intellectual and social traits: Evidence for behavioural adaptation and cognitive processing. British Journal of Social Psychology, 39(4), 537-554.
Singh, R., Yeoh, B. S. E., Lim, D. I., & Lim, K. K. (1997). Cross-categorization effects in intergroup discrimination: Adding versus averaging. British Journal of Social Psychology, 36(2), 121-138.
Singh, R., Yeo, S. E. L., Lin, P. K., & Tan, L. (2007). Multiple mediators of the attitude similarity-attraction relationship: Dominance of inferred attraction and subtlety of affect. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 29(1), 61-74.
Srivastava, P., & Singh, R. (1988). Age and task differences in prediction of performance form motivation and ability information. Child Development, 59(3), 769.
Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18(6), 643.
Surber, C. F. (1980). The development of reversible operations in judgments of ability, effort, and performance. Child Development, 1018-1029.
Surber, C. F. (1981a). Effects of information reliability in predicting task performance using ability and effort. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 977-989.
Surber, C. F. (1981b). Necessary versus sufficient causal schemata: Attributions for achievement in difficult and easy tasks. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 17(6), 569-586.
Tan, D. T. Y., & Singh, R. (1995). Attitudes and attraction: A developmental study of the similarity-attraction and dissimilarity-repulsion hypotheses. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 21, 975-975.
Tetlock, P. E., Self, W. T., & Singh, R. (2010). The punitiveness paradox: When is external pressure exculpatory - And when a signal just to spread blame? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.
Tetlock, P. E., Visser, P. S., Singh, R., Polifroni, M., Scott, A., Elson, S. B., ...
Mazzocco, P. (2007). People as intuitive prosecutors: The impact of social-control goals on attributions of responsibility. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 195-209.
Dr. Ramadhar Singh, Distinguished Professor at Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB), was honored with the Sir J. C. Bose Memorial Award, by the Indian Science Monitor (ISM), in Bengaluru on January 9, 2014.
Professor Singh was conferred the award and a certificate by Padma Vibhushan M N Venkatachalaiah, Former Chief Justice of India, for his contributions to organizational behavior, human resource management, and cognitive psychology.
Professor Singh's research on how people make inferences when the needed information is missing for judgment and decision has already been featured in the Most underappreciated: 50 prominent social psychologists describe their most unloved work (The Oxford University Press, New York, 2011) and the Faces and Minds of Psychological Science, a website of the Association for Psychological Science, Washington, DC (http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/members/psychological-scientists#singh).
Click here (http://www.iimb.ac.in/webpage/ramadhar-singh) to read full-profile of Professor Ramadhar Singh.
Some of his contributions:
I. General Contributions
1. Leadership
In a series of four experiments carried out on Indian participants, Singh, Bohra, and Dalal (1979) demonstrated an averaging rule for information about group atmosphere, task structure, and position power in judgments of situational favorableness for leaders (Fiedler, 1967). This demonstration was in sharp contrast to the existing additive model of situational favorableness (Nebeker, 1975) but better accounted for Fiedler's evidence for the correlation between leadership style and performance. In another series of four experiments, Singh (1983) showed that Fielder's Least Preferred Co-Worker (LPC) scale of task-versus-relation style among leaders lacked construct validity. The foregoing two publications of Singh, coupled with those of others, rendered the contingency model of leadership effectiveness rather obsolete in the literature.
2. Imputations about Missing Information in Decision Making
People usually know something about a person and infer other attributes such as motivation, ability, and sincerity. Information available for these inferences is hardly complete. To make a judgment, therefore, people may impute values to missing information from the given information. Singh first demonstrated an averaging rule in prediction of performance from information about both motivation and ability (Singh & Bhargava, 1986) and the multiplying rule in prediction of gift size from information about both generosity and income (Singh, 1991). Given such success in rule diagnosis from information presented about both necessary causes, Singh demonstrated that the missing motivation or generosity information is imputed a constant value (usually around the nominal neutral point) but the imputed value to the missing ability or income information increases with the increasing value of the given motivation or generosity information.
The foregoing contribution was featured in Arkin (2011), Most underappreciated: 50 prominent social psychologists describe their most unloved work. Importantly, the Association of Psychological Science has identified this contribution for Singh's inclusion in the website that has a collection of profiles under the theme "I'm a Psychological Scientist."
3. Similar Attitudes and Attraction
Singh has been one of the leading contributors to Byrne's (1971) attraction paradigm. His studies have led to resolution of several issues. First, in his doctoral research, he demonstrated that the similarity-attraction link is mediated by the underlying affective states induced by the stimuli used (Singh, 1974). Later, he along with NUS students showed that the attitude similarity and attraction link is indeed mediated by multiple mediators of inferred attraction, respect, and affect. Importantly, his recent work suggests a greater potential of the sequential multiple-mediator model rather than a parallel multiple-mediator model (Singh, Yeo, Lin & Tan, 2007; Singh, Ng, Ong, & Lin, 2008; Singh, Chen, & Wegener, 2014).
Second, Rosenbaum (1986) claimed that only dissimilar attitudes lead to repulsion but similar attitudes are irrelevant to attraction. Research at NUS (Singh & Tan, 1992) refuted this repulsion hypothesis rather convincingly. By creating a control condition of no-attitude information, they showed that both similar and dissimilar attitudes influence attraction. However, the dissimilarity effect is stronger than the similarity effect. This similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry led to a new view on developmental differences in attraction. Attraction responses of children below 11 years support the repulsion hypothesis; those of 15 years and adults, in contrast, support the similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry hypothesis. Such age-trends in attraction were explained by the person positivity bias that serves as anchor for the relative effects of similar and dissimilar attitudes (Tan & Singh, 1995).
Later, another method was developed to unpack the similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry effects into person positivity bias (Singh & Teoh, 1999) and information weighting (Singh & Ho, 2000). By crossing the dissimilar versus similar levels of similarity in one attitude survey with those in another attitude survey, it was demonstrated that the asymmetry occurs in weighting of dissimilar and similar attitudes. Specifically, dissimilar attitudes take on greater weights than similar attitudes (Singh & Ho, 2000). Using the Stroop's (1935) color-naming task, Jia and Singh (2009) showed that such asymmetry in weights occur at the level of attention to the presented dissimilar and similar attitude statements on computer screen. More important, such default asymmetry can be turned into equal attention by freeing cognitive resources. Clearly, then, equal and unequal attention to similar and dissimilar attitudes is moderated by the cognitive resources.
4. Intergroup Relations
Singh's work also suggests that people behave as politicians who claim superiority of their in-group in one aspect (in-group bias) but do not exhibit such preferences in another aspect (fair-mindedness). Besides, Singh's experiments have questioned the utility of cross-categorization of groups as a means of bias reduction.
Based on social categories of age, gender, nationality, race, and religion, people tend to categorize members as belonging to their group (in-group) or not belonging to their group (out -group). Also, people tend to favor the in-group but discriminate against the out-group. Singh, Choo, and Poh (1998) found that most of the published studies had used just one measure of the bias, and that even those which had used more than one measure highlighted the bias in one measure but dismissed the evidence against no bias in another measure.
Given the evidence for similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry in attraction and the concern for fairness in most democratic societies of the modern world, Singh first took up the issue of out-group denigration versus in-group bias in intergroup perception. Toward this goal, they created a control condition of no-information about the social category of the target person and contrasted it with two other experimental conditions of out-group and in-group by race. By taking the measures of competence and attraction, moreover, they investigated that participants may show bias in competence to claim superiority of the in-group, but no bias in attraction, to make a positive self-presentation as a fair-minded person. There was an overwhelming support for out-group denigration. Importantly, the discrimination was in competence ratings but not in attraction ones. It was demonstrated, therefore, that intergroup perception is a compromise between the norms of in-group bias and fair-mindedness, and that the claim of in-group bias as the only norm of intergroup discrimination was erroneous.
In a collateral research, Singh, Yeoh, Lim, and Lim (1997) showed that crossing of out-group versus in-group by race with out-group versus in-group by nationality added to the discrimination instead of diluting it as is commonly believed to be.
5. Impression Formation
Singh's studies of impression formation confirm a universal finding that people judge others along sociability and competence. Whereas sociability leads to inferences about one's intent to cooperate, competence leads to inferences about one potency to carry out the intention (Fiske, Cuddy, & Glick, 2007).
Since 1946, it was believed that warm and cold are central traits in forming impressions of personality. Evidence for the similarity-dissimilarity asymmetry in attraction led Singh, Onglatco, Sriram, and Tay (1997) to investigate the warm-cold asymmetry in impressions of personality. They created a control condition of no-information about the target person and contrasted it with two other experimental conditions of warm and cold targets. All four experiments obtained the warm-cold asymmetry: The effect of warm trait in impressions was much smaller than that of cold trait. Further, intellectual traits led to inferences about intellect more than sociability of the target but social traits led to inferences about sociability alone (Singh, Onglatco et al., 1997).
In subsequent two articles, Singh and Teoh (2000) demonstrated that extreme, relative to moderate, social traits lead to greater attraction but not inferences about intellect or respect. In contrast, extreme, relative to moderate, intellectual traits lead to greater respect but smaller attraction. Apparently, extremely intellectual person poses threat to others.
European social psychologists view social traits as other-profitable and intellectual traits as self-profitable. Accordingly, Singh et al. (2009) investigated the mediators of the effect of other- and self-profitable traits on attraction. Consistent with the previous findings, the effect of the valence of social traits on attraction was mediated by trust in the benevolence of the target but that of the intellectual traits on attraction was mediated more by respect than trust. When both social and intellectual traits were crossed with each other, the effects of the valence of social and intellectual traits on attraction were solely mediated by the respective trust and respect.
II. Cross-Cultural Contributions
1. Prediction of Performance
How do people predict performance of a person from information about his or her motivation and ability? Heider (1958) proposed a multiplying rule: Performance = Motivation x Ability. Anderson and Butzin (1974) presented evidence for this rule in prediction of performance by American adults. The multiplying rule was further shown to be developing from the additive rule over ages as if the rule-usage were driven by cognitive development (Kun, Parsons, & Ruble, 1974; Surber, 1980)
Singh, Gupta, and Dalal (1979) took issue with such cognitive explanation. To them, the patterns in the Motivation x Ability effect that imply the additive (i.e., no Motivation x Ability interaction effect) and multiplicative (i.e., divergence toward the right in the Motivation x Ability effect) rules can better by accounted for by the underlying causal beliefs than by cognitive capacity of the participants to employ the integration rules. For example, the pattern of divergence that suggests a multiplying rule may also arise out of an elitist causal belief of Americans that effort or trying is more effective with persons of higher ability than those of lower ability. In contrast, the additive effects of motivation and ability that reflects on the constant-weight averaging rule may be a consequence of an egalitarian causal belief of Indians that each person, regardless of native ability, has equal opportunity to improve his or her lot.
Consistent with the foregoing causal belief interpretation, prediction of examination performance by college students in India did obey the prediction of the averaging rule. Importantly, the same rule held with predictions by children as well as adults in India (Gupta & Singh, 1981). When prediction of performance in nonacademic tasks was studied, the age-trends in prediction of performance reported in America (Kun et al., 1974; Surber, 1980) were rather reversed in India (Srivastava & Singh, 1988): The additive pattern developed from the divergent pattern. Interestingly, the relative-weight averaging rule found by Surber (1981a, 1981b) was never found in India (Singh & Bhargava, 1985, 1986). Collectively, these findings from India (Gupta & Singh, 1981; Singh, Gupta et al., 1979; Singh & Singh, 1994; Srivastava & Singh, 1988) offered a causal belief explanation of the various patterns in the Motivation x Ability effects on performance as an alternative to the cognitive development explanation given in the American studies. Hau and Salili (1996) also confirmed the prevalence of such egalitarian causal belief among Chinese adults of Hong Kong.
2. Outcome Allocation
Outcome allocation becomes more equitable with age in America (Hook & Cook, 1979) but not in Asia (e.g., Bond, Leung, & Wan, 1982; Leung & Bond, 1984; Leung & Park, 1986; Sinha, 1985; Singh & Huang, 1994). To explain this cultural difference, Singh and his students at the National University of Singapore (NUS) proposed that age affects perception of inputs of the claimants, and that a combination of perceived inputs and cultural values (meritocracy in America versus group harmony in Asia) determine outcome allocation.
It is usually assumed that decision makers express their subjective psychological judgments along the response measure in a linear way. Given such assumption, an allocation is regarded as fair if one's outcome is proportional to his input (Farkas & Anderson, 1979). Singh's earlier studies also supported the linear use of the response measure (Singh & Bhargava, 1985; Singh, 1983). Nevertheless, experiments on outcome allocation and on fixation of pay and workload raised doubt against a strictly linear use of the response measure. When Singh assumed that equity judgments to be at best ordinal and used MONANOVA, a tool that rescales ordinal judgments into interval ones, the model best supported was subtraction: An outcome is viewed as "fair" as long as the relative position of that outcome in the distribution of outcomes is the same as the relative position of the input in the distribution of inputs (Singh, 1995, 1996).
Given the evidence for the subtractive rule in outcome allocation, Singh and his NUS students showed that the perception of input does become more precise with age in both Asia and America. However, the American age-trend in outcome allocation is reversed in Asia primarily due to greater response distortions by Asian adults (Singh, Chong, Leow, & Hui, 2002). By instructing Indian managers to pursue the goals of dividing outcome fairly versus minimizing conflict between the claimants, Singh (1997) further demonstrated that these goals do influence response distortions more than rule usage, a point suggested by Bond et al. (1982).
Thus, research by Singh and his collaborators showed that input perception and outcome allocation go together in the United States and hence American data were inadequate in separating the age effects in input perception from those in outcome allocation. By presenting Asian data wherein input perception and allocation behavior differed, they demonstrated that culture differs in articulation of goal-driven fair responses, not in the use of the cognitive development-driven proportional equity rule as it was believed to be from the American findings.
3. Cultural Differences in Responding to Wrongdoing
In responding to wrongdoings, people simultaneously pursue the goals of social control and fairness to the wrongdoer. In a fruitful collaboration with Philip E. Tetlock of Ohio State University, Singh has recently begun studies to understand the universals and culture-specific differences (i.e., why and how do people punish norm-violators? how does culture impact this? (Tetlock et al., 2007; Tetlock, Self, & Singh, 2010).
American studies often used blame as a measure of causal or dispositional attribution. By using separate measures of blame and causal attribution, however, Singh and his collaborators showed that cultures differ in the assignment of blame, not in causal attribution. Specifically, Westerners blame the person more, but the group less, than do Easterners. So, the universal dispositional attribution leads to culture-specific assignment of blame which, in turn, determines punishment (Singh, Simons, Self, Tetlock, Bell, et al., 2012). In case of groups, however, there are two routes to collective punishment. One is through dispositional attribution to group (internal characteristics of the members of the group like personality); another is through collective blame (blaming the entire group) (Singh, Simons, Self, Tetlock, Zemba, et al., 2012). In both cases, however, culture affects the assignment of blame, not causal attribution, to either the person or his group.
Collectively, such East-West differences in responses to wrongdoing suggest that morality is a better criterion for cultural comparisons than causal attributions emphasized by Nisbett (Nisbett, Peng, Choi, & Norenzayan, 2001; Peng & Nisbett, 1999). Moreover, people are now expected to monitor and control the misdeeds of individuals from their social circle more in Asia than in America.
The foregoing culture-specific ways of punishment led Singh, Ramasamy, Self, Simons, and Lin (2013) to provide a social explanation for the well-known Piagetian (1965) cognitive explanation for age differences in punishment from intent and consequence information. The increasing importance of intent and decreasing importance of consequence over age in punishing the norm-violators is not driven as much by cognitive maturity to understand intentionality as by social maturity to be fair with the accidental wrongdoings. Further, severity of consequence loses importance with age because adults find social order to be safer than do children (Singh et al., 2013). Such conceptual clarity was possible only because the measures of attribution, blame, and punishment were included in the same developmental study. Supporting the social perspective, another study also disclosed that the so-called severity bias (i.e., greater the severity of consequence, the greater is the punishment for the perpetrator) is not due to dispositional attribution as it is commonly believed to be, but due to the desire to prevent norm-violations in the future (Singh & Lin, 2011). Put simply, deterrence is more crucial than either dispositional attribution or retribution in punishing the harm doers.
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