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.     

Application of the Theory of Planned Behaviour in Behaviour Change Interventions: A Systematic Review

This paper reviews studies explicitly applying the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to behaviour change interventions. A systematic and multiple search strategy identified 30 papers, describing 24 distinct interventions. Studies were rarely explicit about use of the TPB. The TPB was mainly used to measure process and outcome variables and to predict intention and behaviour, and less commonly to develop the intervention. Behaviour change methods were mostly persuasion and information, with increasing skills, goal setting, and rehearsal of skills used less often. When reported, half of the interventions were effective in changing intention, and two-thirds in changing behaviour, with generally small effect sizes, where calculable. Effectiveness was unrelated to use of the theory to develop interventions. Evidence about mediation of effects by TPB components was sparse. The TPB may have potential for developing behaviour change interventions, but more comprehensive studies are needed that compare the utility of the TPB with other social cognition models and behavioural techniques.     

Prediction of Behaviour vs. Prediction of Behaviour Change: The Role of Motivational Moderators in the Theory of Planned Behaviour

Research has identified moderating variables of the cognition–behaviour relationship in the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB). These include intention certainty, affective–cognitive congruence of attitudes, attitudinal ambivalence, and past behaviour. It has not yet been systematically tested if these moderators apply in similar ways to the prediction of behaviour and behaviour change (when past behaviour is controlled). A sample of 1,418 university students completed measures of the direct predictors of the TPB (perceived behavioural control; PBC and intention), intention certainty, affective–cognitive congruence of attitudes, attitudinal ambivalence, and the Godin Leisure Time Physical Exercise Questionnaire at the beginning of the academic year and two months later. Data were analysed using moderated hierarchical linear regressions. Without controlling for baseline behaviour, intention certainty and affective–cognitive congruence moderated both the intention–behaviour and PBC–behaviour relationships and showed additional main effects. Attitudinal ambivalence did not contribute to the prediction. When past behaviour was controlled, the main effects were attenuated and only the intention certainty* PBC interaction remained significant. Predictors of behaviour do not necessarily predict behaviour change. The TPB-related moderators studied here weakly contributed to the prediction of behaviour change. Proposals for increasing the predictive power of TPB for behaviour change are discussed.     

CCTV Observation: The Effects of Event Type and Instructions on Fixation Behaviour in an Applied Change Blindness Task

Little is known about how observers' scanning strategies affect performance when monitoring events in closed‐circuit television (CCTV) footage. We examined the fixation behaviour of change detectors and non‐detectors monitoring dynamic scenes. One hundred forty‐seven participants observed mock CCTV videos featuring either a mock crime or no crime. Participants were instructed to look for a crime, to look for something unusual or simply to watch the video. In both videos, two of the people depicted switched locations. Eye movements (the number of fixations on the targets and the average length of each fixation on targets) were recorded prior to and during the critical change period. Change detection (24% overall) was unaffected by event type or task instruction. Fixation behaviour differed significantly between the criminal and non‐criminal event conditions. There was no effect of instructions on fixation behaviour. Change detectors fixated for longer on the target directly before the change than did non‐detectors. Although fixation behaviour before change predicted change detection, fixation count and durations during the critical change period did not. These results highlight the potential value of studying fixation behaviour for understanding change blindness during complex, cognitively demanding tasks (e.g. CCTV surveillance). Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Evaluating Environmental Change Strategies: Challenges and Solutions

In this introductory article we define environmental change strategies (ECS), summarize the primary challenges associated with evaluating ECS, and provide an overview of the methods researchers have employed to begin to address these challenges. This special issue provides a range of examples, from researchers and practitioners in the field, of different approaches for addressing these challenges. These articles present new methods to understand and test how ECS are implemented and propose methods to evaluate their implementation. The content of the articles covers multiple public health issues, including substance abuse prevention, tobacco control, HIV prevention, and obesity prevention. This special issue is intended to build the evidence base for effective ECS, generate compelling discussion, critical analyses, and spur future research that will help improve the implementation and evaluation of ECS.     

Water Mist Punishment for Two Classes of Problem Behaviour

A study with multiple baseline design across situations and response-classes was used to evaluate the effects of a water mist procedure used for punishment of two classes of problem behaviour in a 50-year-old woman with severe mental retardation. Problem behaviour was reduced to less than 5% of baseline. After 19 months the problem behaviour was still reduced, and had stabilized at a level below 10% of baseline. Due to financial economies the local community authorities terminated the treatment, which resulted in a marked increase in the rate of problem behaviour.     

Change in Change Agents: Effects of an Employability Institute

A revised version of the Porter Scale of Counselor Attitudes was used to assess the interpersonal response patterns of 16 Nebraska Department of Labor employees who had completed the Nebraska Employability Development Institute. A significantly greater percentage of understanding responses (compared to national norms for a similar group) was interpreted as meeting intermediate criteria of training program success. Comments are made regarding the further necessity for final program assessment using enrollee outcomes as successful criteria.     

Cost Effectiveness of Strategies for Recruiting Low-Income Families for Behavioral Parent Training

The goal of this study was to assess cost, effectiveness, and cost-effectiveness of recruitment strategies used to engage low-income families of young children with disruptive behavior disorder to participate in a Behavioral Parent Training (BPT) program. For this analysis, we used data on labor and non-labor resources associated with 13 recruitment strategies implemented in February 2014 through February 2016. We assessed the effectiveness of each strategy as the number of families that enrolled into the study. Cost-effectiveness of each recruitment strategy was expressed as cost per family enrolled; analysis was conducted in 2016. We calculated the cost of total recruitment effort for 13 strategies during the 2-year period to be $11,496 with an average cost of $885 per recruitment strategy or $255 per enrolled family. Across strategies, total costs ranged from $25 to $2540. “University mass e-mail” and “school flyers” resulted in the most phone screens (34 each); however, only 10% of these families enrolled in the study (three and four families, respectively). “Craigslist” was the most effective strategy with 30 families screened and 11 of them enrolling. Three strategies did not yield any participants. The four strategies with the lowest cost per family enrolled were “Facebook page,” “Craigslist,” “university mass e-mail,” and “organization/agency” (<$90). In conclusion, we found that some recruitment strategies were more successful at engaging low-income families to participate in a BPT program than others. Our results indicate that using a combination of recruitment strategies may be the optimal approach for recruiting low-income families.     

When Change Causes Stress: Effects of Self-construal and Change Consequences

Purpose

Organizational change can be a major stress factor for employees. We investigate if stress responses can be explained by the extent to which there is a match between employee self-construal (in personal or collective terms) and change consequences (i.e., does the change particularly have consequences for the individual or for the group). We further investigate if the interactive effect of self-construal and change consequences on stress will be mediated by feelings of uncertainty.

Design/Methodology/Approach

Data were obtained in three studies. Study 1, a laboratory study, focused on physiological stress. Study 2, a business scenario, focused on anticipated stress. Study 3, a cross-sectional survey, focused on perceived stress. Studies 2 and 3 also included measures of uncertainty in order to test its mediating qualities.

Findings

Change is more likely to lead to stress when the change has consequences for matters that are central to employees’ sense of self, and particularly so when the personal self is salient. This effect is mediated by feelings of uncertainty.

Implications

Understanding why some people experience stress during change, while others do so to a lesser extent, may be essential for improving change management practices. It may help to prevent change processes being unnecessarily stressful for employees.

Originality/Value

This is one of the first studies to show that different kinds of change may be leading to uncertainty or stress, depending on employees’ level of self-construal. The multi-method approach boosts the confidence in our findings.

     

企业组织变革特征、人力资源策略与变革应对行为的实验研究：组织学习的视角

在快速发展的全球化和知识经济背景下,各类组织急需通过变革创新来适应动态环境和开拓发展。本研究使用基于多案例的实验学习技术,研究与检验了公司组织变革的关键特征和人力资源策略与变革策略,特别关注了组织学习的关键作用。基于110项组织变革案例情节的内容分析,本研究验证了变革的四项主要特征：风险创新性、动态整合性、网络互动性和文化多样性。组织变革过程的有效人力资源策略包括培训发展、招聘配置和绩效薪酬。统计分析结果表明,组织绩效受到多重因素影响和组织学习的中介效应,而组织学习各个维度中,实验尝试学习的效应最显著。组织学习促进了两种变革策略的效能期望,即文化学习策略和团队协同策略。     

Methodological Strategies in Child Clinical Trials: Advancing the Efficacy and Effectiveness of Psychosocial Treatments

The present paper reviews issues of treatment efficacy (i.e., potency) and effectiveness (i.e., clinical utility) in applied clinical child research. Threats to treatment evaluation are reviewed in the context of these two dimensions. It is proposed that treatment outcome research faces new challenges stemming from the ever increasing emphasis on generalization of gains and dissemination of interventions outside of clinical research settings. Issues and approaches proposed as warranting further development and attention include development, flexibility, acceptability, and disseminability of psychosocial assessment and treatment methods. A research emphasis is promoted that balances experimental control with the need for treatment generalization and delivery outside of the research setting, in order to maximize the utility of clinical research.     

The Problem of Behaviour Change: From Social Norms to an Ingroup Focus

Social norms are of increasing interest to public policy experts and those conducting behaviour change interventions (e.g. safe driving, recycling). While there is agreement that social norms play a central role in explaining behaviour, such consensus is lacking when it comes to explaining the process through which this occurs. Economics, social marketing and political science focus on individual self‐interest and goal satisfaction and social (dis)approval. In contrast social psychology also incorporates collective interests through its analysis of social identity and ingroup processes. To fully understand behaviour change, it is argued that greater engagement is needed with the links between shifts in social identity, and ingroup norms. As definitions of who “we” are shift, so too does what “we” do. Implications for behaviour change interventions are discussed.     

How to Study Choice-Induced Attitude Change: Strategies for Fixing the Free-Choice Paradigm

The theory of cognitive dissonance has been among the most influential theories in social psychology for the last 50 years. Support for the theory has come primarily from three experimental paradigms: free-choice, induced compliance, and effort justification. Recently, Chen and Risen (2010, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99 , 573–594) have argued that although the free-choice paradigm reliably finds a ‘spreading of alternatives’ (i.e., after making a choice, participants’ evaluations of the chosen item improve and evaluations of the rejected item decline), these results cannot be interpreted as evidence for dissonance reduction or attitude change. Unlike the other dissonance paradigms, participants ‘self-select’ how they are treated in the free-choice paradigm, making it impossible to know whether spreading is because of the choice process or the information that is revealed about participants’ existing preferences. The current paper has two goals. First, we will describe the criticism developed by Chen and Risen (2010) and situate the criticism within the broader study of dissonance. Second, we will offer four suggestions for how researchers can isolate the effect of the choice process and properly test for choice-induced attitude change in the free-choice paradigm.     

Solution Strategies and Achievement in Dutch Complex Arithmetic: Latent Variable Modeling of Change

In the Netherlands, national assessments at the end of primary school (Grade 6) show a decline of achievement on problems of complex or written arithmetic over the last two decades. The present study aims at contributing to an explanation of the large achievement decrease on complex division, by investigating the strategies students used in solving the division problems in the two most recent assessments carried out in 1997 and in 2004. The students’ strategies were classified into four categories. A data set resulted with two types of repeated observations within students: the nominal strategies and the dichotomous achievement scores (correct/incorrect) on the items administered.It is argued that latent variable modeling methodology is appropriate to analyze these data. First, latent class analyses with year of assessment as a covariate were carried out on the multivariate nominal strategy variables. Results showed a shift from application of the traditional long division algorithm in 1997, to the less accurate strategy of stating an answer without writing down any notes or calculations in 2004, especially for boys. Second, explanatory IRT analyses showed that the three main strategies were significantly less accurate in 2004 than they were in 1997.     

Perceived and Actual Effectiveness of Coping Strategies Used When Forgiving

This study examined coping strategies that young adults use when forgiving and the perceived and actual effectiveness of these strategies in predicting forgiveness behaviors. Results showed that participants used positive reinterpretation/growth and active coping most and perceived these 2 strategies as being effective when forgiving. Although positive reinterpretation/growth did predict forgiveness behaviors, active coping did not, which suggests that young adults may not be aware of the most effective coping strategies for forgiving others. Contributions of the study, including results on the coping strategies that predict forgiveness behaviors, are discussed.