Development of key-pecking, pause, and ambulation during extended exposure to a fixed-interval schedule of reinforcement

Six pigeons key-pecked under a fixed-interval (FI) 3-min schedule of food presentation. Each pigeon was studied for 200 daily sessions with 15 intervals per session (3,000 total food presentations). Analyses included the examination of latency to first peck (pause), mean rate of key pecking, and ambulation. Characterizations of stable performance were assessed across measures of behavior and evaluated using commonly employed stability criteria. Stability of response rate and pause was identified better by assessments that evaluated variability and trend, rather than just variability. Between-subject differences in rate of acquisition and terminal values of steady-state performance of pause were observed, and stable pause durations took longer to develop than did stable key-pecking rates. Relative variability in response rate and pause duration decreased as the means increased. A temporally organized pattern of key-pecking (the so-called FI scallop) developed within 50 sessions of exposure to the schedule. Overall ambulation decreased during the early sessions of exposure and further analyses showed greater rates of ambulation during the pause than after it for 4 of the 6 pigeons. Performance under the FI 3-min schedule developed relatively slowly, and key-pecking, pause, and ambulation developed at different rates.     

RELATIONS AMONG ACUTE AND CHRONIC NICOTINE ADMINISTRATION,SHORT-TERM MEMORY,AND TACTICS OF DATA ANALYSIS

Emerging evidence suggests that nicotine may enhance short‐term memory. Some of this evidence comes from nonhuman primate research using a procedure called delayed matching‐to‐sample, wherein the monkey is trained to select a comparison stimulus that matches some physical property of a previously presented sample stimulus. Delays between sample stimulus offset and comparison stimuli onset are manipulated and accuracy is measured. The present research attempted to systematically replicate these enhancement effects with pigeons. In addition, the effects of nicotine were assessed under another, more dynamic, memory task called titrating‐delay matching‐to‐sample. In this procedure, the delay between sample offset and comparison onset adjusts as a function of the subject's performance. Correct matches increase the delay, mismatches decrease the delay, and titrated delay values serve as the primary dependent measure. Both studies examined nicotine's effects under acute and chronic administration. Neither provided clear or compelling evidence of memory enhancement following nicotine administration despite reliable and systematic dose‐related changes in response latency measures. A modest dose‐related effect on accuracy was found, but the magnitude of the effect appears to be directly related to tactics of data analysis involving best‐dose analyses of a very circumscribed subset of trial types.     

The Unseen Cost: A Discussion of the Secondary Traumatization Experience of the Clergy

The vocation of clergy life can be a hazardous journey. Stress and burnout are issues, which are increasingly reported by clerics. Burnout is defined by a constellation of work related symptoms (Doolittle, Mental Health, Religion & Culture,10(1), 31–38, 2007), with emotional exhaustion recognised as a core component. Despite this recognition the research has not focused on factors which lead to this state of emotional exhaustion in particular secondary traumatization. The purpose of this article is threefold. Firstly, it presents the theoretical framework of secondary trauma. Secondly it reviews the literature aligning clergy and trauma work and thirdly it discuses the emotional and physical toll upon clergy from this aspect of their role.     

Evidence for the Effectiveness of an Alternative Multisource Performance Rating Methodology

Despite persistent concerns as to the quality of performance information obtained from multisource performance ratings (MSPRs), little research has sought ways to improve the psychometric properties of MSPRs. Borrowing from past methodologies designed to improve performance ratings, we present a new method of presenting items in MSPRs, frame‐of‐reference scales (FORS), and test the efficacy of this method in a field and lab study. The field study used confirmatory factor analysis to compare the FORS to traditional rating scales and revealed that FORS are associated with increased variance due to dimensions, decreased overlap among dimensions, and decreased error. The laboratory study compared rating accuracy associated with FORS relative to frame‐of‐reference training (FORT) and a control group and demonstrated that FORS are associated with higher levels of accuracy than the control group and similar levels of accuracy as FORT. Implications for the design and implementation of FORS are discussed.     

Trait empathy as a predictor of individual differences in perceived loneliness

Loneliness has been shown to be inversely correlated with empathy in younger adults. The present study extends previous research by investigating the association between empathy and loneliness across the adult lifespan and examining the role of relevant demographic and personality factors. 110 community-dwelling adults (18 to 81 years old) completed the UCLA Loneliness Scale and the Empathy Quotient. Empathy scores were inversely associated with rated loneliness and predicted 8.7% of variance in loneliness scores after accounting for sex, age, relationship status, education, and neuroticism. The Social Skills factor of the Empathy Quotient was the strongest predictor of the association between perceived empathy and loneliness. Previous research is extended by the finding that rated loneliness was inversely associated with empathy scores across the adult lifespan. Underlying this relationship may be negative perceptions of personal social proclivity as a function of difficulty in understanding the mental states of others and high trait neuroticism.     

Decreased aggressive and locomotor behaviors in Betta splendens after exposure to fluoxetine

The failure of sewage treatment plants to remove pharmaceuticals such as fluoxetine from waste water has become a concern given that these products are being detected in the surface waters of many countries of the world. The effects of fluoxetine in sub-lethal doses on the neural systems and behaviors of aquatic life are worthy of investigation. This study investigated the effects of sub-lethal amounts fluoxetine dissolved in water on the aggressive and locomotor behaviors of 44 male Betta splendens. Fish treated with 705 microg/l of fluoxetine and 350 microg/l of fluoxetine generally demonstrated significant decreases in locomotion and number of aggressive attacks compared to 0 microg/l of fluoxetine (controls) on Days 11 and 19 of drug exposure and persisted for at least 13 days after removal of fluoxetine. Consistent with decreases in the number of aggressive attacks, there was a significant increase in aggression-response time to a perceived intruder for treated males on Days 11 and 19 and persisted for 6 days following removal of fluoxetine. However, the differences in aggressive and locomotor behaviors seen in the fluoxetine-treated groups were indistinguishable from controls three weeks following drug removal.     

Development of a work addiction scale

Andreassen, C. S., Griffiths, M. D., Hetland, J. & Pallesen, S. (2012). Development of a work addiction scale. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology 53, 265–272. Research into excessive work has gained increasing attention over the last 20 years. Terms such as “workaholism,”“work addiction” and “excessive work” have been used interchangeably. Given the increase in empirical research, this study presents the development of the Bergen Work Addiction Scale (BWAS), a new psychometrically validated scale for the assessment of work addiction. A pool of 14 items, with two reflecting each of seven core elements of addiction (i.e., salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, relapse, and problems) was initially constructed. The items were then administered to two samples, one recruited by a web survey following a television broadcast about workaholism (n = 11,769) and one comprising participants in the second wave of a longitudinal internet‐based survey about working life (n = 368). The items with the highest corrected item‐total correlation from within each of the seven addiction elements were retained in the final scale. The assumed one‐factor solution of the refined seven‐item scale was acceptable (root mean square error of approximation = 0.077, Comparative Fit Index = 0.96, Tucker‐Lewis Index = 0.95) and the internal reliability of the two samples were 0.84 and 0.80, respectively. The scores of the BWAS converged with scores on other workaholism scales, except for a Work Enjoyment subscale. A suggested cut‐off for categorization of workaholics showed good discriminative ability in terms of working hours, leadership position, and subjective health complaints. It is concluded that the BWAS has good psychometric properties.     

Development and Psychometric Evaluation of the Social Justice Scale (SJS)

The study describes the development of the Social Justice Scale (SJS). Practitioners, educators, students, and other members of the community differ on their attitudes and values regarding social justice. It is important to assess, not only individuals' attitudes and values around social values, but also other constructs that might be related to social justice behaviors. The implication of Ajzen in Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 50:179-211, (1991) theory of planned behavior suggests that attitudes, perceived behavioral control, and social norms predict intentions, which then lead to behaviors. A scale was designed to measure social justice-related values, attitudes, perceived behavioral control, subjective norms, and intentions based on a four-factor conception of Ajzen's theory. Confirmatory factor analysis and analyses for reliability and validity were used to test the properties of the scale.     

The role of cue-response mapping in motorvisual impairment and facilitation: evidence for different roles of action planning and action control in motorvisual dual-task priming

Previous research has shown that actions impair the visual perception of categorically action-consistent stimuli. On the other hand, actions can also facilitate the perception of spatially action-consistent stimuli. We suggest that motorvisual impairment is due to action planning processes, while motorvisual facilitation is due to action control mechanisms. This implies that because action planning is sensitive to modulations by cue-response mapping so should motorvisual impairment, while motorvisual facilitation should be insensitive to manipulations of cue-response mapping as is action control. We tested this prediction in three dual-task experiments. The impact of performing left and right key presses on the perception of unrelated, categorically or spatially consistent, stimuli was studied. As expected, we found motorvisual impairment for categorically consistent stimuli and motorvisual facilitation for spatially consistent stimuli. In all experiments, we compared congruent with incongruent cue-key mappings. Mapping manipulations affected motorvisual impairment, but not motorvisual facilitation. The results support our suggestion that motorvisual impairment is due to action planning, and motorvisual facilitation to action control.