The program for academic survival skills (pass): Effects on student behavior and achievement

The effects of the Program for Academic Survival Skills (PASS), a group behavior management program, on behavioral observation data and standardized achievement test measures were investigated. Fifty-four of the 96 selected low-achieving, low-survival-skill students of normal IQ were assigned to an experimental condition in which their teachers used PASS. The remaining 42 were assigned to a control condition. Results indicated PASS produced significant gains in survival skills during its operation and one week following program termination in both reading and mathematics periods across grades 1–3. Findings for achievement indicated a significant gain for first-grade experimentals only in reading, with a similar but nonsignificant gain for first-grade mathematics.     

Grouping strategies, peer influence, and free time as classroom management techniques with first- and third-grade children

This study systematically investigated the effects of different procedures on classroom behaviors ranging from teacher designated seating groups and seating groups based on sociometric data to peer encouragement and free time reinforcers. Subjects were first- and third-grade children in classrooms using a Follow Through program model. Data were taken on the attending behavior of the children in small groups arranged by the teacher. The level of appropriate attending behavior was low and did not increase when the groups were restructured based on sociometric data. The introduction of instructions to the peer groups to help the child with his or her work brought about a major increase in the third-grade subjects' appropriate behavior. Appropriate attending behavior for the first-grade children did not increase to the predetermined acceptable level until a free time period for each peer group was made contingent upon the appropriate behavior of the subject in each group. Frequencies of verbal interactions suggested peer attention has an effect on the appropriateness of peer interactions.     

Rapid educational rehabilitation for prison inmates

One of the major goals of prisons has been the educational rehabilitation of inmates. Studies have shown that predelinquents as well as delinquents could be motivated to achieve in academic areas through the use of an incentive system. The present study attempted to extend the behavioral yield of such a system with prison inmates. The academic performance of two inmates in math and English were compared when two levels of incentives were made contingent on that performance. The results showed that the two inmates passed academic tests as much as nine times faster under an enriched schedule of incentives than under a standard one. This increase in rate of performance was translated into actual academic achievement as one of the inmates passed 9th through 12th grade algebra in only 14 days. A standardized test confirmed this academic advancement for both inmates. These high rates of performance and academic achievement are even more dramatic in view of the fact that five months prior to this procedure, both inmates had been tested as being below average in intelligence.     

Stimulus control and delayed reinforcement

Pigeons were tested for generalization along the line-orientation dimension, after being trained on various two-component multiple schedules. The first component contained either a variable-interval 1-min schedule of immediate reinforcement or an extinction schedule and was associated with a plain white key (S1). The second component contained a variable-interval 1-min schedule of delayed reinforcement and was associated with a black line on a white background (S2). The major results showed that (a) decremental gradients were obtained around the stimulus associated with the delayed reinforcement component when S1 was associated with extinction, but that incremental gradients were obtained when S1 was associated with immediate reinforcement, (b) the subjects' pretraining did not affect the generalization gradients if sufficient training on the terminal multiple schedule was provided, and (c) changing the S1 schedule from immediate reinforcement to extinction produced behavioral contrast if reinforcement was delayed for 10 sec during S2, but not if it was delayed for 20 sec.     

Response stereotypy without automaticity in pigeons

Previous research has shown that when pigeons are required to peck each of two keys four times in any order for reinforcement, stereotyped response sequences develop though they are not demanded by the task. The present experiment explored whether the functional value of sequence stereotypy was that sequences became automatized, freeing cognitive resources for other activities. Pigeons were exposed to variants of the task requiring four pecks on each key that differed in the degree of task stringency. Concurrent with the sequence task, pigeons were required to process the color of the keys in order to complete successfully either a matching or a conditional discrimination task. The delay between sequence execution and matching or discrimination choice was varied between 0 and 10 sec. Matching and discrimination accuracy were decreasing functions of delay, but the stringency of the concurrent sequence task had no effect on choice accuracy, suggesting that stereotyped sequences were automatized. However, the matching and discrimination tasks produced substantial disruptions of sequence performance, suggesting that stereotyped sequences were not automatized. The data were taken to suggest that response stereotypy need not imply automaticity.     

A test of causal sequences in two models for development of career-orientation in women

To evaluate the tenability of two causal orderings of variables in the development of career-orientation, responses of 92 college senior women to Need Achievement, Dating Frequency, and Career-Orientation items were analyzed. The postulated orderings were derived from two models: a compensatory model implying that failure in a woman's heterosexual affiliation leads to high nAch which, in turn, produces high C-O; an enrichment model suggesting that a woman's high nAch may lead to high C-O which, in turn, decreases heterosexual affiliation. Criteria for temporal sequences as per the Simon-Blalock correlational procedures rendered the enrichment model more tenable.     

Polydipsia induced by a schedule of brain stimulation reinforcement

Rats pressed a lever for a signaled brain stimulation reinforcement on either fixed-interval or fixed-ratio schedules. Both schedules induced polydipsia, with a median water intake of 22.5 ml (about four times the control level) in 3-hr sessions. The stimulation did not directly elicit drinking or other behaviors. In a second experiment, two out of four rats became polydipsic during extinction following a continuous schedule of brain stimulation reinforcement. The results were compared with previous attempts to induce polydipsia with a schedule of brain stimulation reinforcement and were discussed in terms of polydipsia as a model of human “compulsive” behaviors.     

Motivation to manage among women: Studies of business managers and educational administrators

Studies were undertaken in a department store and in four school districts to determine if managerial motivation is related to management success indexes and whether female managers have less managerial motivation than males. The measure of managerial motivation used was the Miner Sentence Completion Scale. Managerial motivation did prove to be significantly related to the success of female managers, but no consistent differences in the managerial motivation of male and female managers were found. The results are interpreted in terms of their implications for the vocational guidance of females and for research in the area of managerial talent supplies.     

Interaction-priming: a method of reinstating patient-family relationships

The probability of successful discharge for long-term mental hospital patients has been found to depend on strong family and social relationships (Chapman, Day and Burstein, 1961 ; Chase and Silverman, 1943; Paul, 1969; Meichenbaum, 1966; Ullmann, 1967). Yet, long-term institutionalization often results in the weakening of these relationships. These findings suggest that successful discharge would be facilitated by procedures that maintained or restored these social relationships. The present study attempted to develop such a procedure, based on the principles of Response Priming (O'Brien, Azrin and Henson, 1969) and Reinforcer Sampling (Ayllon and Azrin, 1968). Response Priming views complex behavior such as family visits as chains of responses and states that the probability of the completion of the chain (visit) increases during later portions of the chain. The present procedure applies this principle by not requiring visitors to engage in those behaviors remote from the completion of the chain, but rather, by making visits available to them at the terminal portion of the chain. This was done by not requiring visitors to come to the hospital to visit the patient, but rather, by directly transporting the patient to the visitor's home. The Reinforcer Sampling rationale (Ayllon and Azrin, 1968) suggests that future visits would likely increase if visits were reinforcing to the family and the patient. Thus, the patients' behavior was analyzed during visits in the families' homes. Between visits, instruction was given to the patients for improving the reinforcing quality of these types of behavior for subsequent visits. The rationale was that the Response Priming Procedure would produce visits and the Reinforcer Sampling Procedure would show the families and patients that being together was enjoyable. The relationships should, therefore, be maintained and, hopefully, thereby increase the likelihood of successful discharge for the long-term hospitalized patients.     

Quasireinforcement: Control of behavior by second-order interval schedules

Pigeons were trained on a variable-interval 66-sec schedule of reinforcement that was segmented into either fixed- or variable-interval 10-sec components. Three-second access to food followed some components according to the overall VI 66-sec schedule, but 3-sec periods of nonreinforcement followed the other components. With both FI 10-sec and VI 10-sec segments, overall response rates were generally higher when the completion of unreinforced segments was signaled by a red key (never paired with food) than when it was unsignaled. Response rates during the red-key periods dropped to zero. Brief presentations of the red key engendered the distinctive (FI or VI) patterns of responding which would be expected if each segment were followed by food. These data demonstrate behavioral control by brief stimuli which are not paired with primary reinforcement and show that such control may develop even when the sequences of behavior required to produce food or brief stimuli are variable in duration.     

Effects of US-Presentation and CS-termination contingencies on avoidance extinction following partial and continuous reinforcement

The present study assessed the role of both the US-presentation (punishment) and CS-termination contingencies on the maintenance of the shuttlebox avoidance responding in gerbils following acquisition under either partial reinforcement (PR) or continuous reinforcement (AV). Following PR, a stronger relationship obtained between delay of CS termination CR frequency than was found between delay of punishment and extinction performance. Following AV training, however, delay of CS termination and delay of punishment were equally effective determinants of avoidance extinction. These results were interpreted in terms of both the enhanced efficacy of the CS-termination contingency, possibly due to its increased informational value, and the attenuation of punishment suppression in PR-trained Ss.