A transactional systems model of autism services

There has been an escalation in the number of children identified with autism spectrum disorders in recent years. To increase the likelihood that treatments for these children are effective, interventions should be derived from sound theory and research evidence. Absent this supportive foundation, intervention programs could be inconsequential if not harmful. Although atypical, the development of children with autism should be considered initially from the perspective of the same variables that affect the development of typical children. In addition, the developmental deviations that characterize autism must be considered when developing intervention programs. Behavioral systems models describe both typical and atypical development and emphasize dynamic multidirectional person-environment transactions. The environment is viewed as having multiple levels, from the individuals with autism themselves, to larger societal and cultural levels. Behavioral systems models of human development can be generalized to a transactional systems model of services for children with autism. This model is the foundational theoretical position of the Southern Illinois University Center for Autism Spectrum Disorders. The center's programs are described to illustrate the application of the model to multiple levels of the social ecology.     

A transactional model of bullying and victimization

The purpose of the current study was to develop and test a transactional model, based on longitudinal data, capable to describe the existing interrelation between maternal behavior and child bullying and victimization experiences over time. The results confirmed the existence of such a model for bullying, but not for victimization in terms of maternal involvement, although a transactional relationship was supported for both bullying and victimization when considering conflict between parents and children. More specifically, the study’s results show that maternal involvement, including monitoring, predicts negatively both the initial value of bullying and its degree of change over time. In other words, the more a parent is involved, and the closer her supervision is, the less possible it is for her child to participate in bullying others activity. Moreover, the findings show that increases in bullying behavior on the part of the child cause a reduction in maternal involvement and monitoring over time. Finally, initial conflict between parents and children influence both bullying and victimization, and in turn, the development of bullying and victimization affects parent-child conflict. Hence, the findings of this study offer support to the hypothesis that parental and child behavior reciprocally influence each other, rather than one shaping the other in a unidirectional fashion.     

Prejudice and self-esteem: A transactional model

This paper reviews three theoretical models of how prejudice affects the self-esteem of its targets. The stimulus-response model assumes that prejudice has a direct, negative effect on self-esteem. The stimulus-perception-response model recognises that perceptions of prejudice may not directly mirror experiences with prejudice, but predicts that the subjective perception of being a target of prejudice has a direct, negative effect on self-esteem. Both of these models are found to be inadequate. We propose a third, transactional model, which assumes that individuals do not respond in uniform way to being the target of prejudice. Rather, this model contends that self-esteem and emotional responses to prejudice are determined by cognitive appraisals of prejudicial events and coping strategies used in response to these events; these processes, in turn, are shaped by personal, situational, and structural factors. Experiments are presented showing that self-esteem in response to perceived prejudice is moderated by presence or absence of threats to personal identity, clarity of prejudices cues in the situation, ingroup identification, dispositional optimism, endorsement of legitimising ideologies, and group status. We argue that a transactional model of responses to prejudice emphasises sources of resistance as well as vulnerability among targets of prejudice.     

A longitudinal transactional risk model for early eating disorder onset

The presence of binge eating behavior in early middle school predicts future diagnoses and health difficulties. We showed that this early binge eating behavior can be predicted by risk factors assessed in elementary school. We tested the acquired preparedness model of risk, which involves transactions among personality, psychosocial learning, and binge eating. In a sample of 1,906 children assessed in the spring of fifth grade (the last year of elementary school), the fall of sixth grade, and the spring of sixth grade, we found that fifth grade negative urgency (the personality tendency to act rashly when distressed) predicted subsequent increases in the expectancy that eating helps alleviate negative affect, which in turn predicted subsequent increases in binge eating behavior. This transactional risk process appeared to continue to occur at later time points. Negative urgency in the fall of sixth grade was predicted by fifth grade pubertal onset, binge eating behavior, and expectancies. In turn, it predicted increases in high-risk eating expectancies by the spring of sixth grade, and thus heightened risk.     

A componential analysis of pacemaker-counter timing systems

Why does counting improve the accuracy of temporal judgments? Killeen and Weiss (1987) provided a formal answer to this question, and this article provides tests of their analysis. In Experiments 1 and 2, subjects responded on a telegraph key as they reproduced different intervals. Individual response rates remained constant for different target times, as predicted. The variance of reproductions was recovered from the weighted sum of the first and second moments of the component timing and counting processes. Variance in timing long intervals was mainly due to counting error, as predicted. In Experiments 3-5, unconstrained response rate was measured and subjects responded at (a) their unconstrained rate, (b) faster, or (c) slower. When subjects responded at the preferred rate, the accuracy of time judgment improved. Deviations in rates tended to increase the variability of temporal estimates. Implications for pacemaker-counter models of timing are discussed.     

A systems analysis of the behaviors of schooling

Summary and conclusions Thus, the existing nonsystematic system, and the various vested interests associated with it, targets groups of students rather than individuals. Prior to the advent of a science of schooling, the tutorial approach associated with the privileged or ruling classes did not seem feasible for educating the masses, simply because there was no adequate science of behavior for the individual. Even after that science showed promise for pedagogy, there was still no systems-wide science for applying what was known to groups and organizations in which the individual was pivotal. In order to determine whether behavioral conceptions of schooling work on a larger scale, we must experimentally test whether or not thoroughgoing applications are feasible to educate the masses individually. Findings from 8this research can be used to design and modify systems of schooling that are measurably effective, workable year in and year out, automatically self-correcting, and beneficial to all of the parties involved. CABAS has demonstrated how such a system can work on a small scale; other attempts may show us how to make a large scale system work. We have not yet seen what man can make of man (Skinner, 1971, p. 215).     

The transactional model of early home intervention

This article describes a developmental model for early home intervention and treatment of environmentally and biologically at-risk infants and their parents: The Transactional Model of Home Intervention. The model identifies the development of both infants and parents as targets of intervention and considers their ongoing interactions or transactions within the family context as the vehicle of intervention. The child and his physical/social environment are conceptualized as actively influencing one another in their reciprocal transactions. An early intervention program based on this transactional model is described. The intervention is tailored to suit the needs of both child and parents and, more generally, the needs of the family. The intervention process involves a problem-solving model of education by which parents acquire cognitive strategies that will enable them to assess the needs of their child and to design a program to fulfill these needs.     

Reward sensitivity in depression: a biobehavioral study

The approach-withdrawal model posits 2 neural systems of motivation and emotion and hypothesizes that these systems are responsible for individual differences in emotional reactivity, or affective styles. The model also proposes that depression is characterized by a deficit in reward-seeking behavior (i.e., approach motivation) and is associated with a relative decrease in left frontal brain activity. The authors tested aspects of this model by comparing the electroencephalogram alpha power of depressed and nondepressed individuals during a task that manipulated approach motivation. The study found that control participants and individuals with late-onset depression exhibited the hypothesized increase in left frontal activity during the approach task but individuals with early-onset depression did not. This suggests that early-onset depression may be associated with a deficit in the hypothesized approach motivation system.     

A longitudinal study on transactional relations between parental marital distress and adolescent emotional adjustment

Using a cross-lagged effect model with 3 waves of data from a 6-year longitudinal study with 3-year intervals, transactional relations between parental marital distress and adolescent emotional adjustment were examined. The sample consisted of 531 parent-adolescent dyads. Results showed that marital distress as reported by parents and emotional adjustment as reported by adolescents were reciprocally related in a transactional model over time. This was principally true for girls and for late adolescents and young adults. For older adolescent girls, an almost full transactional model was found, whereas associations between marital distress and emotional adjustment were less strong for younger girls and were absent for boys.     

An investigative biobehavioral approach to sex differences in cognitive functioning

Advances in our biological understanding and control of cognitive functioning have not been matched in the behavioral realm. The bio-behavioral approach outlined in this paper helps to close this bio-behavioral gap by aiming for a taxonomic precision in psychology that is comparable to that in physiology. The approach is applied to the phenomenon of group sex differences, and is illustrated by referring to three sets of recently reported findings: (a) interactive effects of nicotine and sex on the trait of cognitive style; (b) sexually dimorphic cognitive style in rats and the involvement of nitric oxide as a potential physiological mechanism and (c) sexually dimorphic phasic arousal change induced by smoking a cigarette following deprivation.     

Sexual segregation in squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus): a transactional analysis of adult social dynamics.

Female agonism against males and male interventions in social transactions between the sexes are 2 explanations for the low rates of social engagement observed between male and female squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus). These possibilities were evaluated by comparing the frequency, structure, and content of transactions between the sexes in 3 experimental social units: male-female pairs, single-male-multifemale groups, and multimale-multifemale groups. Affiliative transactions between the sexes occurred 3-5 times less often in multimale-multifemale groups than in male-female pairs and in single-male-multifemale groups. Intermale agonism in the multimale-multifemale groups often coincided with ongoing transactions between the sexes, whereas female agonism against males was rather uncommon in all social units. The results failed to support the female agonism hypothesis and indicate a need for more detailed studies of intermale social dynamics.     

A dynamical systems analysis of spontaneous movements in newborn infants

The authors evaluated the characteristics of infants' spontaneous movements by using dynamical systems analysis. Participants were 6 healthy 1-month-old full-term newborn infants (3 males, 3 females). They used a triaxial accelerometer to measure limb acceleration in 3-dimensional space. Acceleration signals were recorded during 200 s from the right wrist when the infant was in an active alert state and lying supine (sampling rate 200 Hz). and was stored in the system's memory. Digitized data were transferred to a PC for subsequent processing with analysis software. The acceleration time series data were analyzed linearly and nonlinearly. Nonlinear time series analysis suggested that the infants' spontaneous movements are characterized by a nonlinear chaotic dynamics with 5 or 6 embedding dimensions. The production of infants'spontaneous movements involves chaotic dynamic systems that are capable of generating voluntary skill movements.     

Predicting unit performance by assessing transformational and transactional leadership

How do leadership ratings collected from units operating under stable conditions predict subsequent performance of those units operating under high stress and uncertainty? To examine this question, the authors calculated the predictive relationships for the transformational and transactional leadership of 72 light infantry rifle platoon leaders for ratings of unit potency, cohesion, and performance for U.S. Army platoons participating in combat simulation exercises. Both transformational and transactional contingent reward leadership ratings of platoon leaders and sergeants positively predicted unit performance. The relationship of platoon leadership to performance was partially mediated through the unit's level of potency and cohesion. Implications, limitations, and future directions for leadership research are discussed.     

Personality and transformational and transactional leadership: a meta-analysis

This study was a meta-analysis of the relationship between personality and ratings of transformational and transactional leadership behaviors. Using the 5-factor model of personality as an organizing framework, the authors accumulated 384 correlations from 26 independent studies. Personality traits were related to 3 dimensions of transformational leadership--idealized influence-inspirational motivation (charisma), intellectual stimulation, and individualized consideration--and 3 dimensions of transactional leadership--contingent reward, management by exception-active, and passive leadership. Extraversion was the strongest and most consistent correlate of transformational leadership. Although results provided some support for the dispositional basis of transformational leadership--especially with respect to the charisma dimension--generally, weak associations suggested the importance of future research to focus on both narrower personality traits and nondispositional determinants of transformational and transactional leadership.