Effect of behavioral inhibition on interactions in mixed-sex dyads

The present studies assessed the effect of behavioral inhibition on interactions of college students in mixed-sex groups. In Study 1, 20 participants were arranged into two dyadic groups based on self-rated measures of approach/withdrawal behavior. These dyads (inhibited men/uninhibited women; inhibited women/uninhibited men) were videotaped during an unstructured 5-min. interaction in a laboratory. Time series analysis indicated greater behavioral covariation in the inhibited men/uninhibited women dyads and less behavioral covariation in the inhibited women/uninhibited men dyads. Additional analyses indicated a relationship between inhibition and comfort experienced during the interaction. Inhibited participants, particularly women, reported feeling uncomfortable while interacting with an uninhibited male partner. A second study corroborated the findings reported in Study 1 and also noted elevated heart rate in the inhibited women. This increased discomfort in women appeared to be related to heightened self-consciousness during the interaction.     

Neural and behavioral effects of interference resolution in depression and rumination

Individuals diagnosed with major depressive disorder (MDD) often ruminate about their depression and their life situations, impairing their concentration and performance on daily tasks. We examined whether rumination might be due to a deficit in the ability to expel negative information from short-term memory (STM), and fMRI was used to examine the neural structures involved in this ability. MDD and healthy control (HC) participants were tested using a directed-forgetting procedure in a short-term item recognition task. As predicted, MDD participants had more difficulty than did HCs in expelling negative, but not positive, words from STM. Overall, the neural networks involved in directed forgetting were similar for both groups, but the MDDs exhibited more spatial variability in activation in the left inferior frontal gyrus (a region critical for inhibiting irrelevant information), which may contribute to their relative inability to inhibit negative information.     

Acetaminophen effects on behavioral thermoregulation in albino rats

Acetaminophen (N-Acetyl-p-aminophenol) was administered intraperitoneally to 15 Sprague-Dawley rats partitioned into 3 studies (5 rats per study) using a within subjects, repeated-measures reversal design. Behavioral thermoregulation was assessed in a cold Skinner Box using 5-sec. exposures of microwave radiation [Specific Absorption Rate = 0.34 Watts/kg/(mW/cm2)] as reinforcing stimuli under a fixed-interval 2-min. schedule of positive reinforcement. Doses of 10, 20, 30, 40, and 50 mg/kg (in solutions of 1%, 2%, 3%, 4%, and 5%) acetaminophen showed stable rates of operant responding for heat compared with significant changes in rates for comparable doses of aspirin in a 1993 study by Vitulli, et al. Weight reductions and temperature increases varied significantly with before-session and after-session measures, respectively. 1994-95 biochemical data of Murphy, et al. from humans following aspirin or acetaminophen ingestion which affect thermoregulation and sleep patterns are discussed in conjunction with behavioral data from rats.     

Effect of depression on processing interactions in group psychotherapy

Two studies were conducted to investigate the possibility of individual differences in the ability of inpatients to process interactions in group psychotherapy. The first was a pilot study conducted on groups of major depressive patients and matched normal subjects. Subjects were asked to give process comments after viewing simulations of typical group therapy interactions. These comments were later rated on the extent to which they reflected process qualities and accuracy. These data led to a more rigorous and extensive study that included more appropriate control groups as well as measures of potential confounding factors, such as simulation realism, verbal ability, and interaction comprehension. Results indicated that major depressives suffer from deficits in the ability to process group interactions, relative to three types of control groups, including normals. These differences in processing were not significantly positively correlated with any of the potential confounding factors. The implications for understanding interactional processing and group psychotherapy are discussed.     

Conceptual and methodological issues in examining behavioral development through environment-organism interactions

The importance of understanding behavior in terms of interactions between organismic and environmental variables has become more salient and calls for research focused on such interactions have been made. However, several conceptual paths may encourage investigating and understanding behavior in terms of organism-environment interactions. One such path is the development and testing of constructs which cut across the traditional organism-environment dichotomy and conceptualize behavioral development as fundamentally an organism-environment interaction. In this paper, a metatheoretical framework for thinking about behavioral development as fundamentally an organism-environment interaction is presented. Issues involved in conceptualizing and examining behavior and behavioral development as fundamentally an organism-environment interaction are also examined by reviewing the concept of affordances and some of the illustrative research that has been conducted. From the review, it is suggested that research which attempts to understand behavior as inseparably a function of organism-environment interactions will benefit if additional methodological avenues are developed. Marken's (1997, Psychological Methods, 2, 436–446) test for controlled variables is presented as an example of one such method. Finally, suggestions for developing the ideas reviewed in this paper for other research domains (i.e., anxiety in children) are also presented.     

Assessment of students' behavioral interactions during on-task classroom activities

This study was designed to characterize the quality and quantity of interactions between students and significant others in the processing of new information during classroom activities. I wanted to test the hypothesis that black children, from moderate to low income urban environments, tend to have a more socially active cognitive style than their white peers in the performance of classroom tasks. Five different English classes, all 8th graders in a single junior high school (total of 114 black and white boys and girls), were observed in the same environment at different intervals to identify differences in the number of interactions between boys and girls, by racial groups. Classroom lessons and related activities were videotaped. The recorded activity was tabulated and rated by 3 trained observers. Black children more than white, and boys more than girls, initiated interactions with peers in the classroom in performing assigned tasks. This social interaction also showed that (1) 76% of the observed classroom time, subjects as a group were observed on-task and (2) pupils' interactions with their selected targets (classmates and their teacher) were 87% positive, and (3) relatively few interactions could be classified as disruptive.     

Characterological versus behavioral self-blame: inquiries into depression and rape

Two types of self-blame--behavioral and characterological--are distinguished. Behavioral self-blame is control related, involves attributions to a modifiable source (one's behavior), and is associated with a belief in the future avoidability of a negative outcome. Characterological self-blame is esteem related, involves attributions to a relatively nonmodifiable source (one's character), and is associated with a belief in personal deservingness for past negative outcomes. Two studies are reported that bear on this self-blame distinction. In the first study, it was found that depressed female college students engaged in more characterologial self-blame than nondepressed female college students, whereas behavioral self-blame did not differ between the two groups; the depressed population was also characterized by greater attributions to chance and decreased beliefs in personal control. Characterological self-blame is proposed as a possible solution to the "paradox in depression." In a second study, rape crisis centers were surveyed. Behavioral self-blame, and not characterological self-blame, emerged as the most common response of rape victims to their victimization, suggesting the victim's desire to maintain a belief in control, particularly the belief in the future avoidability of rape. Implications of this self-blame distinction and potential directions for future research are discussed.     

Some determinants of behavioral contrast in pigeons and rats

In Expt. 1, pigeons trained on a multiple variable interval, extinction schedule, showed a positive contrast effect by comparison with control groups trained with S+ only, provided that the interval between stimulus presentations was short (10 sec), but not when it was long (60 sec). Positive contrast also occurred more readily with an easier discrimination, and its appearance was highly correlated with the temporary appearance of transient contrast effects. Although a longer interval between trials produced an overall increase in rate of responding in subjects trained only with S+, it was suggested that this at best represented a different type of contrast effect. In Expt. 2, rats showed positive contrast to S+ when S− was correlated with a lower frequency of reinforcement, but not when it was correlated with a reduced magnitude of reinforcement. The results were discussed in terms of frustration theory.     

Response latencies of rats during behavioral thermoregulation

The cutaneous thermal stimulation that elicits behavioral thermoregulatory behavior was investigated in these experiments. In Experiment I, rats were placed in a cool environment and allowed to barpress for 3-sec bursts of radiant heat reinforcement. In various phases of the study, rats could earn different intensities of anterior, posterior, or whole-body radiation. Identical response rates were exhibited at each intensity for all exposure conditions; this information, when considered with existing literature on behavioral and neurophysiological studies, suggests that the rat’s thermoregulatory behavior depends on information carried by nonmyelinated fibers that supply thermoreceptors in the skin. Experiment II investigated the hypothesis that cooling of the skin is the stimulus that elicits each thermoregulatory response. Time series measures of skin temperature fluctuations and reaction times (RTs) were obtained. Tails of the RT distributions were shown to conform to exponential probability density functions, and mean RT varied linearly over the domain of reinforcement intensities used. A computer simulation model that describes temperature gradients across layers of skin was employed to estimate temperature fluctuations at the level of the cool receptors. Comparison of simulated skin temperatures with obtained RTs suggests that momentary thermoregulatory behavior is controlled mainly by cooling skin temperature.     

Mediation analyses of Internet-facilitated cognitive behavioral intervention for maternal depression

This study evaluated the putative mediating mechanisms of an Internet-facilitated cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) intervention for depression tailored to economically disadvantaged mothers of preschool-age children. The CBT mediators were tested across two previously published randomized controlled trials which included the same measures of behavioral activation, negative thinking, and savoring of positive events. Trial 1 included 70 mothers with elevated depressive symptoms who were randomized to either the eight-session, Internet-facilitated intervention (Mom-Net) or to treatment as usual. Trial 2 included 266 mothers with elevated depressive symptoms who were randomized to either Mom-Net or to a motivational interviewing and referral to services condition. Simple mediation models tested each putative mediator independently followed by tests of multiple mediation that simultaneously included all three mediators in the model to assess the salient contributions of each mediator. The pattern of results for the mediating effects were systematically replicated across the two trials and suggest that behavioral activation and negative thinking are salient mediators of the Mom-Net intervention; significant mediating effects for savoring were obtained only in the simple mediation models and were not obtained in the multiple mediation models.