Middle-class adults'' knowledge of referral sources for problems of vision, dentition, reading, stuttering, and articulation

A survey of 40 middle-class adults representing four age groups 10 yrs apart was conducted to determine to whom they would refer children with problems involving vision, dentition, reading, stuttering, and articulation. Results indicate that the adults were well informed with respect to referral sources for treatment of vision and dentition but inconsistencies were noted in choosing referral sources for reading, articulation, and especially stuttering. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

Dimensions of stuttering and relationship to psychopathology

This article reports two studies. The first attempted to define stable dimensions within the Stuttering Severity (SS) scale. A factor analysis of correlations among its 64 items defined four factor-based subscales, and three additional subscales were developed rationally. Relationships among these seven subscales suggested the existence of two major dimensions. The second study investigated the relationship of the seven subscales to psychopathology. Correlations were obtained among the subscales and MMPI scales for 69 subjects, and were subjected to a second factor analysis. The MMPI scales and the SS subscales clearly loaded on separate factors, indicating little relationship between dimensions of stuttering and psychopathology as defined by MMPI scores. The second analysis also supported the previous identification of two general dimensions for stuttering. Items were selected for two final scales to represent these dimensions, labeled behavior (22 items) and sensitivity (20 items). Norms were developed for them and also for the full 64-item SS scale.     

Effects of vicarious reward and punishment on social imitation in chronic psychotics

Despite considerable evidence that modeling procedures provide effective methods for the acquisition and change of behavior, there is very little research on the effects of vicarious reward, and none on the effects of vicarious punishment, on social imitation in chronic psychotics. Two studies (Goldstein et al., 1973: Gutride, Goldstein and Hunter, 1973) demonstrated the superiority of vicarious reward over no-treatment with adult psychotics. However, in neither study was a model no-consequences group included in order to control for the effects of observation per se; therefore, such findings cannot be clearly attributed to vicarious reinforcement (Thelen and Rennie, 1972). The only other study known to bear on this issue revealed no differences in initial learning between a model-rewarded and a model no-consequences group (Olson, 1971).The present study included model no-consequences control groups in an attempt to examine the effects of vicarious reward and punishment on subsequent interview behavior in chronic psychotics. Drawing on the larger body of vicarious learning research (Bandura, 1969). it was hypothesized that such patients demonstrate higher levels of socially appropriate behavior after observation of a model who is (a) rewarded for appropriate behavior or (b) punished for inappropriate responses, and lower levels of appropriate behavior after exposure to a model who is (c) rewarded for inappropriate behavior or (d) punished for appropriate responses, relative to conditions in which the same modeled behaviors elicit no contingent consequences.     

Development in moral judgment as indicated by rejection of lower-stage statements

Previous failures of preference rating scales to identify developmental differences in moral judgment may have occurred because the focus was on acceptance of high-stage reasons rather than on consistent rejection of lower-stage reasons. Attention focused on seventh-, ninth-, and eleventh-grade students' (N = 178) rejection of the lower-stage statements that they presumably comprehend but have to varying degrees dropped from their spontaneous-production repertoire. Students rated the adequacy of the reasons presented in statements written to exemplify Kohlberg's stages 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Ratings of Stage 1, 2, 3, and 4 statements showed clear age discrimination (all p's < .001). As in previous preference studies, higher-stage items produced no significant age differences. Implications for evaluation of change studies were noted.     

Some conditions that affect admissions of attitude change

Previous research has shown yielders to persuasive communications to be negatively evaluated by observers of the persuasion but positively evaluated by the persuaders. Resisters of persuasion, on the other hand, are evaluated positively by observers but negatively by the initiators of the persuasive effort. Two studies were conducted to determine (a) whether individuals are aware of the differing evaluations of yielders and resisters by persuaders and observers and (b) the extent to which targets of influence attempts strategically employ this information to enhance their images in the eyes of others. Experiment 1, a role-playing study, demonstrated that targets of persuasive appeals are cognizant of the pattern of evaluations provided to yielders and resisters by persuaders and observers. Experiment 2 indicated that targets' public reports of attitude change were shaped so as to produce the most positive evaluations from the audience to those reports. The greatest stated influence occurred in the sole presence of the persuasive agent, an intermediate amount of stated change occurred when both persuader and observer were present, and still less occurred in the sole presence of an observer to the influence attempt. The results of anonymous, private measures of change paralleled in pattern those of the publicly admitted change, but were not significant.     

Temporal properties of responding during stimuli that precede response-independent food

Pigeons' keypecks were reinforced with grain on the average of once per minute by schedules that maintained low response rates and by schedules that maintained high response rates. During these schedules, a fixed-duration conditioned stimulus (CS) ranging from 7.5 to 120 sec in duration across conditions terminated with response-independent food. Response rates during the CS were inversely related to CS duration. The rates and the temporal patterns of responding during the shortest CS were similar whether the ongoing schedule maintained high response rates or low response rates. As CS duration increased, the rate and pattern of responding during the CS converged on the rate and pattern of responding maintained by the baseline schedule. These data indicate that changes in responding during stimuli that signal response-independent reinforcement are not homogeneous throughout the CS; that response measures, such as “suppression ratios”, which presume homogeneity may mislead us; and that conditioned suppression and conditioned enhancement may be better talked about in terms of species-specific approach and avoidance than in terms of emotional states.     

Involvement and response language effects in attitude scaling

An analytic procedure was developed for separating the effects of involvement from the number of response language categories the subject employs in judging a set of sentence stimuli. The procedure treats category usage as an independent variable and an aspect of the subject's response language. Category usage was shown to have significant influence on several attitudinal judgment processes: Informational complexity, mean judgment functions, and a successive intervals analysis testing Thurstone's assumption of the effect of involvement on equal category spacing. The decrement in scale responding typically associated with involvement is shown to depend on category usage operating either singly or in interaction with involvement. Some tentative conclusions about category usage as a response language variable are discussed.     

Transgression and altruism: A case for hedonism

A model to account for the positive relationship between transgression and altruism was proposed and tested against three alternative formulations—Guilt, Social Justice, and Self-esteem Bolstering. The proposed model, Negative State Relief, asserts that people in a transgression situation behave charitably in order to reduce a general, negative affective state which is induced by exposure to harm-doing and that if the negative state is relieved by some other means, benevolent activity will be rendered unnecessary. All of the experimental subjects were exposed to an act of transgression; half performed the act themselves while half only witnessed it. In one set of experimental conditions (the relief conditions), a positive event—the receipt of either money or approval—was interposed between the harmful act and a fellow-student's request for aid. In another set of experimental conditions (the norelief conditions), no such positive event occurred. It was found, as predicted, that subjects who received a positive event were significantly less helpful than those who did not, but were not different from a control group which had never been exposed to the transgression. It was also found that harm-doers and harm-witnesses were identical in benevolent tendency. The results were interpreted as favoring a hedonistic conception of the nature of altruism. Finally, it was contended that a U-shaped relationship exists between mood state and helping tendency.     

Process assessment: An examination of reinforcer effectiveness and predictive validity

This research describes an assessment procedure based on measures of actual learning. First-grade children (N = 120) learned five sight vocabulary words under feedback only, and were then assigned to one of five conditions where they learned five additional words either under feedback, praise, candy, praise and candy, or reproof. In a sixth condition (reciprocal to the first treatment), students learned the first five works under praise and the second five under feedback only. Although results indicated no differences in learning rate under different reinforcement conditions, learning measures under feedback accounted for approximately 39% of the variance in achievement (r = .62), with combined reinforcement learning measures slightly improving prediction (r = .68). The order of treatments had no effect on learning rate. Implications for this process approach to assessment are discussed. Directions for future research are suggested.     

Competency-based training in behavioral consultation

The design of competency-based training in behavioral consultation is described as involving the specification of objectives, training procedures, and evaluation techniques. The relationship of training and evaluation to behavioral-consultation training objectives and the benefits to a competency-based training approach are discussed.     

Evaluating programs in applied settings through behavioral consultation

A behavioral consultation school psychology service model is presented which provides a vehicle for services and communication of process and outcome measures in program evaluation research. Within the context of the problem-solving perspective of applied behavior analysis, the consultation model (a) promotes process and outcome evaluation across a wide variety of settings, situations, and time; (b) leads to use of an applied research technology with wide applicability in educational settings; and (c) provides a communication technology for the program evaluation process through a four-stage problem-solving strategy. It is argued that the professional behavioral school psychologist can provide technical expertise to function as a system change agent within this evaluation model.     

The effect of an overheard ethnic slur on evaluations of the target: How to spread a social disease

An experiment was conducted to assess the effects of an ethnic slur on evaluations of a targeted minority group member by those who overheard the slur. White subjects plus four confederates participated in a study ostensibly concerned with debating skills. Two of the confederates, one of whom was black, were always picked to engage in a debate which the others were to evaluate. The black debator either won or lost the debate. After the debate, one confederate-evaluator criticized the black in a manner that either did or did not involve an ethnic slur; in a control condition, no such comment was made. Based on the notion that ethnic slurs activate negative schemata regarding members of the targeted minority group, it was predicted that when the black debator lost the debate, the ethnic slur would lead to lower evaluations of his skill. This hypothesis was supported. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings were discussed.     

Hypothesis analysis of sameness-difference learning-set by capuchin monkeys

Sameness-difference discriminations were presented to capuchin monkeys and hypothesis analysis was applied to the data. Learners and nonlearners evidenced differences in overall performance and in relative strengths of hypotheses. Learners initially displayed markedly more random than position responding whereas nonlearners evidenced more position than random responding and remained particularly prone to position habits. Stimulus preference and aversion, suppressed by learners by the end of training, reemerged at the onset of two-object discriminations containing previously preferred and aversive stimuli. Hypothesis analysis indicated that when preferred stimuli were positive the correct hypothesis was more evidenced, and stimulus preference or aversion as well as random hypotheses were less evidenced, than when aversive stimuli were positive.     

Spatial egocentrism and the effect of an alternate frame of reference

The present study contrasted two possible explanations of spatial egocentrism in spatial perspective tasks. By one account children's judgments in perspectivetaking tasks are based on relations between the self (ego) and the target array. By the second account, children's judgments are based on relations between the target array and the larger spatial field. Sixty children in first, third, and fifth grades (ages 7, 9, and 11 years, respectively) solved both a standard and a modified version of a spatial perspective task. In the modified procedure, subjects observed a model of the experimental room that was rotated to appear as the actual room would appear to a hypothetical viewer. Using the model as an alternative frame of reference improved the performance of subjects in all age groups. In the standard procedure most errors were egocentric. In the modified procedure, subjects showed no systematic egocentric errors for rotations of 90 or 270°. The results supported the hypothesis that systematic egocentric errors are due to subjects realistically maintaining the relation of the array to the immediate spatial field, rather than maintaining the ego-array relation.     

Distortion in control attributions for real life events

A pool of life events was prerated as either positive or negative and likely or unlikely to recur. Undergraduate subjects then rated their control over their own life events and the average student's control over his/her life events. As predicted, subjects self-attributed more control over positive than negative events and self-attributed more control than they attributed control to others for positive events. However, self-attributions and attributions to others of control for negative events did not differ. Results thus provided support for self-enhancement but not for self-protection. It was also predicted that control motivation would lead subjects to (a) self-attribute more control for recurrent than nonrecurrent events, (b) self-attribute more control than they attribute to others over all events, and (c) self-attribute more control than they attribute to others for recurrent but not nonrecurrent events. The first and second of these predictions were confirmed, providing support for the operation of control motivation on real life events.