Reinforcement of visual attending in classrooms for deaf children

The efficacy of immediate tangible reinforcement in increasing appropriate visual attending for entire classes of deaf children was examined. The subjects were three classes (seven children each) in a residential school for the deaf. Boxes were installed on each child's desk, with lights that were flashed immediately contingent upon 10 sec of visual attending. Light flashes were backed up by M & M's, cereal bits, or tokens. In two of the classes, extinction sessions were also scheduled. For all classes, the reinforcement procedure increased visual attending by 50% or more, maintaining it at rates above 82%. Withdrawal of tangibles decreased attending back to baseline levels. The results support analysis of attending as operant behavior and demonstrate the applicability of reinforcement procedures in modifying these behaviors for young deaf children in a classroom setting.     

Triadic consistency and false heart-rate feedback

Subjects viewed slides of the Rorschach cards while listening to heart sounds that were supposedly but not actually their own. For some of the subjects the heart rate increased when they were exposed to the five achromatic cards and for some subjects the heart rate increased when they were exposed to the five chromatic cards. In addition, some subjects were told that increased heart rate was a sign of mental health (positive condition), and some that the increased heart rate was a sign of mental abnormality (negative condition) Since the heart-rate increase (behavior) and Rorschach cards associated with the increase (attitude object) are connected by a positive causal relation, triadic theory predicts that the sign of the heart-rate increase should generalize to the associated cards (i e, be positive in the positive condition and negative in the negative condition) An analysis of variance revealed such an overall significant effect Closer examination of the data, however, revealed that the triadic effects were not unambiguously occurring when the increased heart rate was associated with achromatic cards It was suggested that in this condition the unique characteristics of the cards facilitated the generation of complicating anxiety. Supportive data for this interpretation were offered     

Self-esteem, attitude similarity, and attraction

Subjects evaluated three stimulus persons on several rating scales who were either 10%, 50%, or 90% similar to themselves in attitudes Subjects were divided into low, moderate, and high self-esteem groups on the basis of an earlier Q sort The results showed a strong positive relation between perceived similarity and positive attribution for each of the dependent variables, including liking, sophisticated, intelligent, sincere, happy, and a social distance scale A negative relation was obtained for two undesirable traits, arrogant and cynical Self-esteem interacted with similarity on several of the measures The difference between self-esteem groups was largely restricted to highly dissimilar stimulus persons Moderate esteem subjects were more favorable toward dissimilar persons than either of the other two groups, and the high and low groups tended to resemble each other more than either group resembled the moderate esteem group These results were discussed in terms of the relation between self-esteem and adjustment, and in terms of McGuire's (1968) theory that predicts a nonmonotonic relation between self-esteem and attitudes.