The design and evaluation of a worksharing system for experimental group living

Failure to share household chores equitably may be a major cause of the high failure rate of experimental group-living arrangements. A behavioral approach to worksharing based on a point system was implemented in one experimental group and its most important components experimentally evaluated. Experiment I showed that awarding credits produced more work than not awarding credits. Experiment II showed that making credits contingent on the outcome of a detailed inspection produced more work than awarding credits noncontingently. Experiment III demonstrated that awarding rent reductions contingent on credit earnings produced more work than awarding rent reductions noncontingently. Other evaluative data suggest that the resulting living arrangement is cheaper, more effective, and more satisfactory to the residents when compared to the most popular alternative living arrangements.     

A developmental shift in processes underlying successful belief-desire reasoning

Young children's failures in reasoning about beliefs and desires, and especially about false beliefs, have been much studied. However, there are few accounts of successful belief-desire reasoning in older children or adults. An exception to this is a model in which belief attribution is treated as a process wherein an inhibitory system selects the most likely content for the belief to be attributed from amongst several competing contents [Leslie, A. M., & Polizzi, P. (1998). Developmental Science, 1, 247-254]. We tested this model with an ‘avoidance false belief task’ in which subjects predict the behavior of a character, who wants to avoid an object but who is mistaken about which of three locations it is in. The task has two equally correct answers—in seeking to avoid the location where she mistakenly believes the object to be, the character might equally go to the location where the object actually is, or to the remaining empty location. However, the model predicts that subjects will prefer one of these answers, selecting the object's actual location over the empty location. This bias was confirmed in a series of five experiments with children aged between 4 and 8 years of age. A sixth experiment ruled out two rival explanations for children's biased responding. Two further experiments found the opposite bias in adults. These findings support one selection model as an account of belief-desire reasoning in children, and suggest that a different model is needed for adults. The process of selecting contents for mental state attributions shows a developmental shift between 8 years of age and adulthood.     

Peripheral information extraction: A developmental examination of reading processes

Three experiments examining the information extraction processes are presented. In Experiments I and II, adults and children were presented paragraphs to read and search for specified targets, respectively. Two types of typographical (spatial) manipulations were used: case of the letters within the paragraphs was as normally experienced, or in alternating upper and lower case letters. Spacing between words was either as normal, filled with a neutral symbol, or absent. The response measures were reading and search speed in words per minute. Sensitivity to case (word shape) and space (word boundary) increased as a function of experience and was different for reading compared with search. In Experiment III subjects were asked to judge whether briefly presented pairs of letters were the same or different. Retinal (spatial) location was varied from trial to trial; dependent measure was reaction time. Results showed a developmental progression in response time with complex interactions. Theoretical interpretations of these data are discussed in support of the initial stage of Hochberg's peripheral to cognitive search guidance model.     

Theft reduction through personnel selection: A control group design in the supermarket industry

A quasi-experimental design was used to compare the effectiveness of preemployment integrity tests at six supermarket chains. Two of the supermarket chains had used some type of overt integrity test and four had not. Responses to an anonymous survey of 234 employees at these six chains were analyzed. Respondents from the chains that did not use preemployment integrity tests perceived significantly higher dollar amounts of employee theft than did respondents for the test-using companies. Implications for the usefulness of preemployment integrity tests are discussed.     

Long-term group psychotherapy for children with pervasive developmental disorders: evidence for group development

This article highlights the clinical progress of three long-term psychotherapy groups for children with pervasive developmental disorders. Unique aspects of working with such children are addressed as well as their movement through the phases of group development. Clinical observations suggested that these groups did in fact pass through observable phases of cohesion, differentiation, and intimacy. Further, these children demonstrated noticeable social development both inside and outside the groups. They identified strongly with their groups, and after the settling-in period, there was remarkably little resistance to participation, especially given the children's tendencies for social avoidance. Vignettes are provided to illustrate both group developmental phases and noteworthy psychological experiences of the clinical process with children who have been diagnosed with pervasive developmental disorders.     

Critical processes in serial short-term memory: A developmental study

Two experiments are described which were designed to test the possible involvement of two operations in developmental auditory serial short-term memory (SSTM), namely rehearsal proficiency and item identification. The experiments provided mainly negative support for the notion that these operations are critical in developmental SSTM. As an alternative, the possibility that developmental differences in SSTM might have their origins in the processing of speech sound patterns was discussed.     

Conditional reasoning in context: A developmental dual processes account

The way individuals interpret “if p then q” conditionals varies with content and context, often resulting in a biconditional reading. Surprisingly, truth table tasks reveal the existence of two different types of biconditional interpretations: equivalence, as for promises and threats, and defective biconditional, as for causal conditionals or indicative conditionals involving binary terms. The aim of this study was to determine how the interpretation of indicative conditionals is affected in children, adolescents, and adults, by restricting their context of enunciation to only one possible alternative for both the antecedent and the consequent. Moreover, we wanted to determine what is the exact nature of the biconditional interpretation induced by these restricted contexts. For this purpose, third, sixth, and ninth graders and adults performed a truth-value task on indicative conditionals presented either in restricted on non-restricted contexts. Restricted contexts had no effect on children who have a conjunctive interpretation of the conditional, but elicited a predominant defective biconditional reading in adolescents and adults. These results corroborate the developmental dual process account of conditional reasoning proposed by Gauffroy and Barrouillet (2009).     

Leadership and regressive group processes: A pilot study

Various perspectives on leadership within the psychoanalytic, organizational and socio‐biological literature are reviewed, with particular attention to research studies in these areas. Hypotheses are offered about what makes an effective leader: her ability to structure tasks well in order to avoid destructive regressions, to make constructive use of the omnipresent regressive energies in group life, and to redirect regressions when they occur. Systematic qualitative observations of three videotaped sessions each from N = 18 medical staff work groups at an urban medical center are discussed, as is the utility of a scale, the Leadership and Group Regressions Scale (LGRS), that attempts to operationalize the hypotheses. Analyzing the tapes qualitatively, it was noteworthy that at times (in N = 6 groups), the nominal leader of the group did not prove to be the actual, working leader. Quantitatively, a significant correlation was seen between leaders’ LGRS scores and the group’s satisfactory completion of their quantitative goals (p = 0.007) and ability to sustain the goals (p = 0.04), when the score of the person who met criteria for group leadership was used.     

A multiple option observation system for experimental studies: MOOSES

The purpose of this article is to outline the development of the Multiple Option Observation System for Experimental Studies (MOOSES), a flexible data collection package for applied behavioral research. Several data collection options are available to users of MOOSES. Event-based recording, interaction-based recording, duration recording, and interval recording are available to the users and can be used individually or together, depending upon the research question. The collection program can incorporate any of the keys on the keyboard. Function keys on the top or side are used for toggle (duration states) type data collection. Types of analysis include frequency and duration of discrete events, frequency of general behavior states, frequency and duration of events within behavioral states, percent interval analysis, sequential analysis, and interobserver agreement. Data obtained from MOOSES is easily incorporated with other data for further statistical analysis with standard statistical packages or popular spreadsheet programs. Applications of MOOSES and its uses in social interaction research are presented. Comparisons with other similar systems are provided.     

A hybrid approach to experimental control

In the present article, I describe a new, hybrid approach to experimental control that combines the best features of general-purpose programs and specific-experiment programs. First, experimental control objects are developed in an object-oriented programming environment. Then, an XML file is used to select and arrange those control objects in order to carry out an experiment. A wide range of experiments can be implemented by specifying the arrangement of the control objects in the XML file, while, at the same time, the set of control objects can be easily extended for more demanding applications. An overview of a system using this approach is provided, along with some examples.     

Dual processes in decision making and developmental neuroscience: A fuzzy-trace model

From Piaget to the present, traditional and dual-process theories have predicted improvement in reasoning from childhood to adulthood, and improvement has been observed. However, developmental reversals—that reasoning biases emerge with development—have also been observed in a growing list of paradigms. We explain how fuzzy-trace theory predicts both improvement and developmental reversals in reasoning and decision making. Drawing on research on logical and quantitative reasoning, as well as on risky decision making in the laboratory and in life, we illustrate how the same small set of theoretical principles apply to typical neurodevelopment, encompassing childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and to neurological conditions such as autism and Alzheimer’s disease. For example, framing effects—that risk preferences shift when the same decisions are phrased in terms of gains vs. losses—emerge in early adolescence as gist-based intuition develops. In autistic individuals, who rely less on gist-based intuition and more on verbatim-based analysis, framing biases are attenuated (i.e., they outperform typically developing control subjects). In adults, simple manipulations based on fuzzy-trace theory can make framing effects appear and disappear depending on whether gist-based intuition or verbatim-based analysis is induced. These theoretical principles are summarized and integrated in a new mathematical model that specifies how dual modes of reasoning combine to produce predictable variability in performance. In particular, we show how the most popular and extensively studied model of decision making—prospect theory—can be derived from fuzzy-trace theory by combining analytical (verbatim-based) and intuitive (gist-based) processes.     

Work‐place bullying: A group processes framework

Work‐place bullying is primarily conceptualized in the literature from an individual or interpersonal perspective with a focus on the victim. The impact of the broader organizational context on bullying has also been considered to a lesser extent. Only a small amount of research exists, however, regarding the group‐level processes that impact on the incidence and maintenance of bullying behaviour. We adopt a group level perspective to theoretically discuss and explain the processes involved in the occurrence and maintenance of work‐place bullying behaviours. Using Social Identity Theory ( Tajfel & Turner, 1986 ) and Social Rules Theory ( Argyle, Henderson, & Furnham, 1985 ), two conceptual frameworks are presented that consider work‐place bullying at the intra‐group and inter‐group levels. Several propositions are put forward regarding the likelihood of bullying in work groups. Suggested directions for empirical research are addressed and practical implications are also discussed.     

Conscious thoughts from reflex-like processes: A new experimental paradigm for consciousness research

The contents of our conscious mind can seem unpredictable, whimsical, and free from external control. When instructed to attend to a stimulus in a work setting, for example, one might find oneself thinking about household chores. Conscious content thus appears different in nature from reflex action. Under the appropriate conditions, reflexes occur predictably, reliably, and via external control. Despite these intuitions, theorists have proposed that, under certain conditions, conscious content resembles reflexes and arises reliably via external control. We introduce the Reflexive Imagery Task, a paradigm in which, as a function of external control, conscious content is triggered reliably and unintentionally: When instructed to not subvocalize the name of a stimulus object, participants reliably failed to suppress the set-related imagery. This stimulus-elicited content is considered ‘high-level’ content and, in terms of stages of processing, occurs late in the processing stream. We discuss the implications of this paradigm for consciousness research.     

A meta-analysis of estimated effect sizes for group versus individual control treatments

A meta-analysis was conducted combining results from nine studies, using seventy-five outcome measures of 349 subjects. Only studies that contrasted group, individual, and control treatments with a pretest-posttest design were selected. Estimates of effect sizes were calculated for group, individual, and control treatments across all studies, according to treatment modality (psychotherapy, counseling, or psychoeducation), type of control (no treatment or some treatment), date of the study (1955-1969 or 1977-1982), and the subjects' age (adult, adolescent, or child). Results indicated that both group and individual treatments had a measurable effect that was consistently greater than that of controls. Further, (1) counseling produced much more of an effect than either therapy or psychoeducation; (2) the more recent treatments produced larger effects than the older studies; and (3) group treatments were more effective than individual methods in the treatment of adolescents, but were less effective in the treatment of children.