Effects of Signaled Positive Reinforcement on Problem Behavior Maintained by Negative Reinforcement

We evaluated the effects of providing positive reinforcement for task completion, signaled via the presence of a tangible item, on escape-maintained problem behavior displayed by three typically developing children during one-time 90-min outpatient evaluations. Brief functional analyses of problem behavior, conducted within a multielement design, identified negative reinforcement. Treatment, conducted within a nonconcurrent multiple baseline with reversal design, consisted of a signal for positive reinforcement while continuing to permit escape for problem behavior, thus creating a competition between positive and negative reinforcement. For all participants, problem behavior decreased.     

Under Pressure: The Effects of Stress on Positive and Negative Relationship Behaviors

This study investigates the effects of acute stress on positive and negative relationship behaviors, specifically assurances and attention to alternatives. A sample of 129 college students were randomly assigned to either a high or low stress condition, then were led to believe they had the opportunity to interact with attractive potential relationship partners and list compliments about their current partner. Results indicated that those in the high stress condition gave their partner fewer assurances and paid more attention to alternatives. These results suggest that when individuals experience acute stress, they may engage in fewer positive relationship behaviors and more behaviors that are potentially harmful to their relationship.     

正强化和负强化:概念、争议与神经机制

1975年,Michael首次正式提出应放弃"正强化"和"负强化"术语的使用,引起对"正强化和负强化是否本质上具有区别"这一问题的关注和争议。正负强化究竟本质上是否有区分、如何区分、以及区分它们的意义等问题,得到了众多行为心理学家的深入探讨。多数学者再度阐明正强化和负强化具有不同的心理机制,加以区分具有重要应用意义,主张沿用对它们的区分。最近,对正负强化神经机制的研究取得突破性进展,进一步揭示它们具有截然不同的神经相关过程。我们建议,分析强化作用进行时,机体是否在环境条件作用下已经偏离了基础、正常的心理稳态,有助于规范理解强化物启动的是正还是负强化的神经过程。     

Behavior Therapy and Callous-Unemotional Traits: Effects of a Pilot Study Examining Modified Behavioral Contingencies on Child Behavior

The conduct problems of children with callous-unemotional (CU) traits (i.e., lack of empathy, lack of guilt/lack of caring behaviors) are particularly resistant to current behavioral interventions, and it is possible that differential sensitivities to punishment and reward may underlie this resistance. Children with conduct problems and CU (CPCU) are less responsive to behavioral punishment techniques (e.g., time-out), whereas reward techniques (e.g., earning points for prizes or activities) are effective for reducing conduct problems. This study examined the efficacy of modified behavioral interventions, which de-emphasized punishment (Condition B) and emphasized reward techniques (Condition C), compared with a standard behavioral intervention (Condition A). Interventions were delivered through a summer treatment program over 7 weeks with an A-B-A-C-A-BC-A design to a group of 11 children (7–11 years; 91% male). All children were diagnosed with either oppositional defiant disorder or conduct disorder, in addition to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. Results revealed the best treatment response occurred during the low-punishment condition, with rates of negative behavior (e.g., aggression, teasing, stealing) increasing over the 7 weeks. However, there was substantial individual variability in treatment response, and several children demonstrated improvement during the modified intervention conditions. Future research is necessary to disentangle treatment effects from order effects, and implications of group treatment of CPCU children (i.e., deviancy training) are discussed.     

Exposition Effects on Decision Making: Choice and Confidence in Choice

Many of us believe that, after writing about a subject, we understand it more deeply. Studies in education indicate that writing does indeed enhance comprehension. Three experiments examined whether similar “exposition effects” exist for decision making. In these experiments, subjects were confronted with standard framing problems. Positive exposition effects would require that the influence of alternative frames on subjects' choices be diminished by exposition demands. Control subjects made choices under customary, non-exposition instructions. Others chose after writing rationales for their selections (exposition), after explicitly planning to write such rationales, or merely in anticipation of writing the rationales. Exposition reduced framing effects in each of the experiments. The magnitudes of the effects were greatest for subjects who wrote before choosing. Also, exposition markedly increased subjects' confidence that their choices were appropriate. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.     

Police Officer Performance Under Stress: A Pilot Study on the Effects of Visuo-Motor Behavior Rehearsal

This study examined the effectiveness ofvisuo-motor behavior rehearsal(VMBR) as a method of reducing acute stress and improving police officer performance. Fifty-four recruits were randomly assigned to a treatment and a nontreatment condition prior to undergoing a highly stressful, critical event training scenario involving live fire. A manipulation check showed that participants who received VMBR displayed significantly lower scores on the cognitive state anxiety subscale of the Competitive State Anxiety Inventory-2; somatic state anxiety and self-confidence were unaffected by the VMBR treatment. Most importantly, participants in the VMBR training condition displayed better performance on the critical event scenario, including significantly more assailant hits. The findings are discussed with respect to the four-stage model of stress and human performance of Salas and colleagues.     

Influence of Reinforcement Contingencies and Cognitive Styles on Affective Responses: An Examination of Rolls' Theory of Emotion in the Context of Consumer Choice

This paper examines Rolls' (2005 ) propositions that emotional responses can be systematically related to environmental contingencies and that individual differences are related to emotional responses. In addition, consumer situations, defined functionally in terms of the reinforcement pattern they uniquely portray, as proposed by the behavioral perspective model (BPM) of consumer choice are predictably associated with patterns of self‐reported pleasure, arousal, and dominance ( Mehrabian & Russell, 1974 ). Rolls' argument that individual differences influence conditionality and emotionality is examined via hypotheses from the theory of adaptive–innovative cognitive style ( Kirton, 1976, 2003 ). The results confirm that affective response to consumer environments is consistently predicted by the modeled pattern of operant contingencies, but not the expected relationship between cognitive styles and affective responses.     

Evaluating psychometric properties of Farsi version of the Positive and Negative Perfectionism Scale

This study examined the psychometric properties of the Farsi version of the Positive and Negative Perfectionism Scale. Two samples of 97 (56 women, 41 men) and 115 (67 women, 48 men) undergraduate students at the University of Tehran participated. Findings supported the internal consistency, test-retest reliability, concurrent validity, and factor structure of the Farsi version. Factor analysis provided evidence for two dimensions of perfectionism, Positive and Negative perfectionism. The two dimensions had significant negative and positive correlations, respectively, with measures of psychological distress and health, respectively. The Farsi version of the Positive and Negative Perfectionism Scale presented good psychometric properties for use in research.     

正负性情绪的神经内分泌和免疫反应研究进展

本文回顾了正性和负性情绪对人体神经内分泌和免疫功能的作用以及有关的影响因素。研究显示正性和负性情绪会造成不同的神经内分泌和免疫功能变化,个体的人格特征和遗传因素都与这些变化相关,而正性情绪可以明显消除负性情绪的作用。     

Third Party Power: Some Negative Effects of Positive Incentives

The present study simulated an organizational dispute to examine the effects of reward and coercive third party power on negotiator concessions and negotiator perceptions of the third party. The results indicated that the possibility of third party rewards inhibited negotiator concessions, and the possibility of third party punishments facilitated concessions. This effect was enhanced by negotiator limit. When negotiators had high limits, they made the fewest concessions if the third party could compensate; when negotiators had low limits, they made the greatest concessions if the third party could press. Taken together, the results suggest that negotiators sometimes use concession making as a strategy to affect third party behavior. When negotiators want third parties to provide compensation, as when they have high limits, they reduce their concession making as a way of eliciting the compensation; when they want to avoid third party behavior that is punitive, and they have low limits and room to make concessions, they hasten their concessions to reach agreement quickly and thereby stem the third party's involvement.     

Positive and Negative Timelines: A Technique for Restorying

Families or individuals requesting therapeutic consultation often present in the context of an overwhelming history of stressful and negative life events. Frequently, the pressure of such events obliterates memories of strengths and successes. This is particularly true by the time people reach inpatient psychiatric settings. This article outlines a technique designed to help people bring these events into perspective and to develop positive life stories. The use of Positive and Negative Timelines helps to reinforce competency-based themes in people's lives. A clinical case is used to highlight the technique.     

Music as an Unconditioned Stimulus: Positive and Negative Effects of Country Music on Implicit Attitudes,Explicit Attitudes,and Brand Choice1

An experiment (N = 68) explored how background music in a realistic web advertisement could condition implicit and explicit attitudes toward a novel brand. Conditioning effects were apparent in both traditional explicit attitude measures and also in the Implicit Association Test (IAT). Further, brand choice was predicted by explicit attitudes, but prediction improved significantly when implicit attitudes were considered. Mood‐congruent judgment, demand effects, and conditioning are considered as potential explanations for our results, and we argue that conditioning provides the most parsimonious explanation. Finally, the results are discussed within the context of the associative‐propositional evaluation model ( Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006 ). This model provides a framework for the integration of the implicit attitude construct into the study of consumer behavior.     

The Effects of Positive and Negative Placebos on Human Memory Performances

Two experiments investigated the possible effects of memory-enhancing and memory-impairing placebo capsules (which participants believed to contain active drugs) on participants' performance in a delayed free recall task. In both experiments participants were randomly assigned to either control, positive, or negative placebo conditions, and their memory performance was tested prior to (baseline trial) and after (test trial) the administration of the placebo. Different patterns of results emerged for positive and negative placebos for actual memory performance measures. Whereas negative placebo produces standard placebo effects by impairing both free recall and accuracy scores on test trial, positive placebo does not affect either of these measures (null placebo effect). On the other hand, both positive and negative placebos produce standard placebo effects with respect to participants' self-reports of perceived changes in memory performance: those in the positive placebo group tend to report that the “drug” improved their performance, and those in the negative group tend to report that it impaired it.     

Effects of Positive and Negative Behavioral Feedback on Subsequent Attitude-Related Action

ABSTRACT This study examined the effect of positive and negative behavioral feedback on subsequent behavior The results indicate that positive and negative feedback concerning how well individuals have acted on their attitudinal in the past have different effects on subsequent behavior These effects are moderated by individual differences in self-monitoring and in the frequency with which an individual has acted on his or her attitude in the past–variables which can be seen as reflecting differences in the extent to which individuals see themselves as persons who act on their attitudes, either in general or in regard to a specific attitudes domain Implications of the findings for understanding the literature on labeling and on feedback about energy use are discussed, as are the practical implications for using behavioral feedback in an effort to increase attitude-related action     

Positive and Negative Affectivity and Facet Satisfaction: A Meta-analysis

Although several studies have investigated the dispositional approach to global job satisfaction, less direct attention has been given to the relationship between dispositions and facet satisfaction. The current meta-analysis examined the relationships of trait positive affectivity (PA) and trait negative affectivity (NA) with satisfaction toward the following five job facets: work itself, supervision, co-workers, pay and promotion. In general, results suggested the presence of a dispositional component to facet satisfaction. Moderator analyses examined whether the strength of these relationships depended on the particular scales used to assess dispositions.     

A Comparison of the Effects of Positive and Negative Information on Job Seekers' Organizational Attraction and Attribute Recall

To date there have been no direct studies of how strong negative information from sources outside of organizations' direct control impacts job seekers' organizational attraction. This study compared models for positive and negative information against a neutral condition using a longitudinal experimental study with college-level job seekers (n = 175). Consistent with the accessibility-diagnosticity perspective, the results indicated that negative information had a greater impact than positive information on job seekers' organizational attraction and recall, and this effect persisted 1 week after exposure. The results did not indicate that the influence of information sources and topics that fit together was lessened when the information was negative. The results suggest that job seekers interpret positive and negative information differently and that negative information, when present, has an important influence on job seekers' organizational attraction.     

Effects of Rate of Reinforcement and Rate of Change on Choice Behaviour in Transition

In two experiments with pigeons, a single variable-interval schedule assigned reinforcers to two response keys on a percentage basis. The percentage of reinforcers assigned to each key was changed every few sessions, and subjects' choice responses were recorded before and after each change. In Experiment 1, the overall rate of reinforcement was varied across conditions. The pigeons' choice responses adapted more quickly to a change in the reinforcement percentages when the overall reinforcement rates were higher, but acquisition rates varied by only about a factor of 3, whereas reinforcement rates were varied by about a factor of 9. In Experiment 2, the reinforcement percentages changed about every 8 sessions in Phases 1 and 3, but every 1 or 2 sessions in Phase 2. Pigeons' choice responses adapted to a change in reinforcement percentages more quickly in Phase 2 than in Phases 1 and 3. The results from both experiments pose difficulties for several prominent models of transitional choice behaviour. The results suggest that each successive reinforcer has more impact on a subject's subsequent choice behaviour when the overall rate of reinforcement is lower and when the reinforcement contingencies have changed frequently in the recent past.     

The Effects of a Diversity Learning Experience on Positive and Negative Diversity Perceptions

Using a pretest-posttest research paradigm, we administered the Reaction-To-Diversity Inventory to students enrolled in a workplace diversity course at a regional Midwestern university. Our results show that the diversity experience produced an increase in the number of positive and negative perceptions students associated with workplace diversity. Gender also played a significant role in determining diversity perceptions. We discuss the implications of our findings for the design, implementation, and evaluation of diversity learning experiences in academic and corporate settings.     

Effects of Noncontingent Reinforcement and Choice of Activity on Aggressive Behavior Maintained by Attention

Functional assessments identified that the grabbing behavior of a 24‐year‐old man with intellectual disability was maintained by social positive reinforcement, that is, attention. Aggression was more likely to occur when his social environment changed from high to low attention. An intervention that combined extinction with activity choice and noncontingent reinforcement was most effective at reducing grabbing. The intervention and beneficial effects were maintained over 17 months, although staff retraining was required at 6 and 16 months. Retraining was implemented successfully when aggression increased and procedural integrity had declined. Copyright © 2011 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.