Perceived Control in Prison: Its Relation to Reported Crowding,Stress, and Symptoms1

Two studies were conducted to investigate the effects of perceived control in two men's prisons, one housing 181 inmates and the other housing 623 inmates. In both prisons, inmates' perceived control over the environment was found to be significantly related to their ratings of their living accommodations, experienced stress, and physical symptoms, even when type of cell was held constant.     

TESTICULAR SELF-EXAMINATION: VALIDATION OF A TRAINING STRATEGY FOR EARLY CANCER DETECTION

Testicular self-examination (TSE) can lead to early diagnosis and treatment of testicular cancer, the third leading cause of death in young men. We evaluated the effectiveness of a brief and specific checklist for teaching TSE skills. Ten men were videotaped while performing testicular self-examinations before and after training. The TSE training resulted in large and significant increases in the number of TSE steps completed and duration of the TSE. Two urological validation measures supported the improvements observed in the mens' self-examinations. Subjects reported continued performance of TSE during a follow-up telephone interview. This pilot study indicates that a brief and specific checklist is an effective strategy for teaching early cancer detection skills.     

Observational learning of two visual discriminations by pigeons: a within-subjects design.

Pigeon's observational learning of successive visual discrimination was studied using within-subject comparisons of data from three experimental conditions. Two pairs of discriminative stimuli were used; each bird was exposed to two of the three experimental conditions, with different pairs of stimuli used in a given bird's two conditions. In one condition, observers were exposed to visual discriminative stimuli only. In a second condition, subjects were exposed to a randomly alternating sequence of two stimuli where the one that would subsequently be used as S+ was paired with the operation of the grain magazine. In a third experimental condition, subjects were exposed to the performance of a conspecific in the operant discrimination procedure. After exposures to conspecific performances, there was facilitation of discriminative learning, relative to that which followed exposures to stimulus and reinforcement sequences or exposures to stimulus sequences alone. Exposure to stimulus and food-delivery sequences enhanced performance relative to exposure to stimulus sequences alone. The differential effects of these three types of exposure were not attributable to order effects or to task difficulty; rather, they clearly were due to the type of exposure.     

Superimposition of response-independent reinforcement

Studies that have superimposed response-independent reinforcement (or reinforcers scheduled by contingencies placed on the absence of responding) upon conventional response-dependent schedules are reviewed. In general, providing alternative sources of reinforcement reduced response rates below the levels observed when alternative reinforcement was absent. However, response-rate elevation was sometimes found, particularly when rates of superimposed response-independent reinforcement were low. Superimposition of schedules providing reinforcers contingent on the absence of responding usually produced more severe response-rate decrements than superimposition of response-independent reinforcement. A variant of Herrnstein's equation, which assumes that some of the alternative reinforcers function as if they were delivered by baseline response-dependent source of reinforcement, is in qualitative agreement with the overall body of results obtained, and can predict both increases and decreases in response rate as resulting from superimposed reinforcers.     

Behavioral contrast in fixed-interval components: effects of extinction-component duration.

Seven albino rats were exposed to a multiple schedule of reinforcement in which the two components (fixed interval and extinction) alternated such that a presentation of the extinction component followed each fixed-interval reinforcement. In baseline sessions, the duration of the extinction component was constant and always one-third of the fixed-interval value. Probe sessions contained a probe segment in which the duration of the extinction component was increased; the response rate in fixed-interval components during the probe segment was compared with the response rate in the segments preceding and following the probe. The effect of increasing the duration of the extinction component was studied under three values of fixed interval: 30 s, 120 s, and 18 s, in three successive conditions. Response rate within fixed intervals was a direct function of duration of the extinction component. Pausing at the beginning of the fixed interval decreased as extinction duration increased. These effects were larger and more consistent for the shorter fixed-interval values (18 s and 30 s). These results indicate a functional relation between relative component duration and responding. For the component providing more frequent reinforcement, this could be stated as an inverse relationship between relative component duration and response rate. This relation is similar to findings regarding the ratio of trial and intertrial duration in Pavlovian conditioning procedures, and suggests that behavioral contrast may be related to Pavlovian contingencies underlying the multiple schedule.     

Varying response-reinforcer contiguity in a recycling conjunctive schedule

Three experiments describe the effects of manipulating the frequency of response-reinforcer contiguity in a recycling conjunctive schedule. The schedule arranged that a reinforcer was delivered after 30 s provided at least one response had occurred; otherwise the next cycle started immediately. In Experiment 1, this schedule produced the typical pause–respond–pause pattern, with most responses at mid-interval; and, when a limited number of contiguities between responses and food delivery were added, the pattern became more like the monotonic scallop seen on fixed-interval schedules. In Experiment 2, the schedule was initially presented with an additional contingency that allowed contiguity on every trial. Fixed-interval-like behavior occurred and tended to persist as contiguities were gradually eliminated. In Experiment 3, the recycling conjunctive schedule alternated with a condition in which a large number of contiguities occurred. The pause–respond–pause pattern and fixed-interval-like performance occurred with few or many contiguities, respectively. The results of all three experiments illustrate how contiguity interacts with a small number of other variables to determine performance on interval schedules and illuminate previous findings with fixed-interval and fixed-time schedules.     

Comparing the effects of two correction procedures on human acquisition of sequential behavior patterns

Thirty-one college undergraduates learned to touch abstract stimuli on a computer screen in arbitrarily designated “correct” sequential orders. Four sets of seven stimuli were used; the stimuli were arrayed horizontally on the screen in random sequences. A correct response (i.e., touching first the stimulus designated as first) resulted in that stimulus appearing near the top of the screen in its correct sequential position (left to right), and remaining there until the end of the trial. Incorrect responses (i.e., touching a stimulus out of sequence) terminated the trial. New trials displayed either the same sequence as the one on which an error had occurred (same-order correction procedure), or a new random sequence (new-order correction procedure). Whenever all responses occurred in the correct sequence, the next trial displayed a new random sequence. Each phase ended when five consecutive correct response sequences occurred. Initially, the same-order correction procedure increased control by the position as well as by the shape of the stimuli; also, it produced more errors, more total trials, more trials to mastery, and more individual patterns of reacquisition than were produced by the new-order procedure.     

Some reflections on the two psychologies of love

The mainstream view of love is that it is a state that arises from people mutually reinforcing each other or providing benefits to each other Yet careful quantitative analyses of imaginative thought patterns of people in love or in a state of affiliative arousal reveal themes of dialogue, commitment, and harmony rather than of mutual benefits It is suggested that asking people about love leads them to give causal explanations for the state which psychologists have elaborated into the theory that love is a response to having one's needs met Imaginative experiences characteristic of the state of being in love on the other hand may be different because they are primarily right brain mediated and do not share in the causal, instrumental type of reasoning characteristic of left brain conscious thinking Such conceivably right brain mediated experiences in TATs are more closely associated than presumably left brain mediated self-reports are with such physiological measures as evoked scalp potentials, neurohormone concentrations, and immune functions A vew of love that takes both self-report (left brain) and fantasy (right brain) measures into account does a better job of predicting affiliative behavior than does a view that relies solely on one or the other of the two types of measures     

Concordance between clinicians' and patients' ratings of anxiety and depression as mediated by private self-consciousness

This study assesses the relations between the ratings of clinicians and psychiatric inpatients on several anxiety and depression measures, as mediated by private self-consciousness. The overall concordance between clinicians' and patients' ratings is quite high, particularly on the depression measures. Levels of private self-consciousness do not appear to mediate concordance of structured behavior or symptom-based ratings of either anxiety or depression; however, there is limited support for levels of private self-consciousness mediating concordance between patients' global ratings of anxiety and clinicians' anxiety ratings.