Psychological Control Associated with Youth Adjustment and Risky Behavior in African American Single Mother Families

A distinction between parental behavioral control and psychological control has been elucidated in the literature, yet far less is known about the role of psychological control in youth adjustment broadly or risky behavior in particular. We examined the interrelationship of maternal psychological control, youth psychosocial adjustment, and youth risk behaviors among African American single mother-youth (11–16-year old) dyads (n = 194), families in which youth are more vulnerable to adjustment problems and risky behavior than Caucasian youth or youth from intact homes. Higher levels of maternal psychological control were associated with increased youth psychosocial adjustment problems as well as increased youth risk behavior, after statistically controlling for one domain of behavioral control, parental knowledge about a child’s whereabouts and activities. Furthermore, youth externalizing problems mediated the relation between psychological control and risk behavior. The findings suggest that parenting programs targeting risk behavior among African American youth may benefit from including psychological control among the parenting dimensions that are targeted.     

Supportive Non-Parental Adults and Adolescent Psychosocial Functioning: Using Social Support as a Theoretical Framework

Supportive Non-Parental Adults (SNPAs), or non-parental adults who provide social support to youth, are present in the lives of many adolescents; yet to date, a guiding framework for organizing the existing literature on the provision of support provided by multiple types of SNPAS, such as teachers, natural mentors, and extended family members, as well as to inform future research efforts, is lacking. The aim of the current paper is to utilize the well-established lens of social support to integrate, across this broad range of literatures, recent findings regarding associations between SNPAs and four indices of adolescent psychosocial adjustment: academic functioning, self-esteem, and behavioral and emotional problems. Beyond offering an integrative framework for understanding the link between SNPAs and adolescent functioning, the issues reviewed here have potentially far-reaching consequences for adolescents and their families, as well as the professionals working with adolescents and their families in the health care, school, and community settings.     

THE WIDENING WORLD OF FUNCTIONAL ASSESSMENT: COMMENTS ON FOUR MANUALS AND BEYOND

An escalating number of materials have been published recently on the topic of functional assessment and assessment‐based behavioral interventions. We review four manuals that purport to provide practical guidance for conducting functional assessment. An examination of these manuals yields encouraging evidence that the field of behavioral support has made notable progress in adopting a functional (behavior‐analytic) approach to unwanted behaviors. The content of the manuals, considered in the context of emerging perspectives in behavioral support, suggests a number of important issues and directions that should be addressed by future functional assessment research and practice.     

An item response theory analysis of the Problem Gambling Severity Index

Increases in the availability of gambling heighten the need for a short screening measure of problem gambling. The Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) is a brief measure that allows for the assessment of characteristics of gambling behavior and severity and its consequences. The authors evaluate the psychometric properties of the PGSI using item response theory methods in a representative sample of the urban adult population in South Africa (N = 3,000). The PGSI items were evaluated for differential item functioning (DIF) due to language translation. DIF was not detected. The PGSI was found to be unidimensional, and use of the nominal categories model provided additional information at higher values of the underlying construct relative to a simpler binary model. This study contributes to the growing literature supporting the PGSI as the screen of choice for assessing gambling problems in the general population.     

Doing and Redoing Emphasized Femininity: How Women Use Emotion Work to Manage Competing Expectations in College Hookup Culture

Sex Roles - Emphasized femininity plays a key role in maintaining gender inequality. Yet, classic conceptualizations of emphasized femininity render it static and inflexible, and obscure...     

Three-dimensional spatiotemporal imaging of movement patterns: Another step toward analyzing the continuity of behavior

Computer-aided spatiotemporal imaging techniques, like those that are proving to be important in many other scientific fields, are being used to represent and study movement patterns of animals exposed to basic reinforcement contingencies. Data from a video-tracking system that provides real-time tracking of the position of an experimental animal as it moves about in a three-dimensional space can be plotted in up to three dimensions. When the data are plotted in two spatial dimensions and the time dimension, behavior is captured as continuous patterns or structures in space-time. Spatiotemporal imaging of movement patterns permits regularities to be observed that are not seen as readily in other ways such as watching videotapes of the experimental sessions or simply examining rate of responding. By providing a concise spatiotemporal representation of the movement patterns that occurred in a given experimental preparation, the imaging techniques described here represent an advancement in the scientific study of continuously flowing behavior. Although we concentrate here on movement patterns produced by basic reinforcement contingencies, the spatiotemporal imaging technology is applicable to any research topic in which movement patterns are of interest, such as foraging, place learning, sign language, and limb movement.     

ALPHABET LETTERS AS TOKENS: TRAINING PRESCHOOL CHILDREN IN LETTER RECOGNITION AND LABELLING DURING A TOKEN EXCHANGE PERIOD1

In token economies, we typically consider the instructional opportunities available during the periods of token delivery, but may overlook educational opportunities available at the time of token exchange. The present studies examined the use of labelled tokens and routines in the token exchange period to teach alphabet letter recognition to economically disadvantaged preschool children. The children earned points for a variety of academic behaviors in an early morning classroom setting. At no time were alphabet letters introduced or taught during class. Later, during a midmorning token exchange period, operated according to a department store model, the children were given their points in the form of poker chips inscribed with upper-case alphabet letters. They were required to discriminate among these lettered chips before exchanging them for backup reinforcers sold in four or five stores. To assess alphabet letter knowledge, probe evaluations were periodically conducted in which questions requiring alphabet letter recognition and labelling were asked. The answers to these questions were not reinforced. Alphabet letter training during token exchange periods consisted of having a child display the lettered chips, whereupon a teacher asked a number of recognition-type questions. Wrong answers were corrected, and correct answers praised. The child was allowed to exchange the tokens when the number required for a purchase had been recognized correctly. The periodic probe evaluations revealed consistent increases in correct alphabet letter recognition and, as a byproduct, alphabet labelling was facilitated, even though not explicitly trained. Thus, once the letters were recognized, correct labelling shortly followed. The sequential training of new sets of letters was used to demonstrate experimental control within subjects for two children. A control for exposure to the letters was provided by using the labelled tokens, but requiring the counting of chips rather than letter discrimination in the exchange period for two other children. This procedure produced chance levels of letter recognition, which were subsequently improved when the discrimination procedure was added. Posttraining probes, conducted at one and three weeks after training when the labelled tokens and discrimination routines were no longer in use, revealed the same high levels of recognition and labelling performance found during training. Thus, it appears that labelled tokens may be used to teach discriminations during token exchange periods so long as responses are differentiated on the basis of relevant dimensions of the stimuli.     

Stimulus contributions to operant resurgence

In two experiments, pigeons were exposed to a three‐phase resurgence procedure (train Response A; extinguish Response A and train Response B; extinguish Response B). In the first experiment, the stimuli associated with phases were different, resulting in a resurgence procedure combined with an ABC renewal procedure. Presenting the novel stimulus, C, during extinction of both responses in the third phase resulted in minimal resurgence. Subsequently, substituting the original training Stimulus A for Stimulus C resulted in resurgence with all pigeons. In the second experiment, resurgence with the same stimuli present in all three phases of the resurgence procedure (AAA) was compared concurrently with a resurgence procedure in which the ABC renewal procedure used in Experiment 1 was superimposed. Substantially more resurgence occurred with the AAA procedure compared to the ABC procedure. Although ABC renewal in combination with the resurgence procedure generated some resurgence, such recurrent responding was attenuated relative to that observed when the stimulus conditions were constant across phases. Combined with earlier research showing the enhancing effects of combining resurgence and ABA renewal procedures, the present results elaborate on how stimuli correlated with certain behavioral histories affect the course of operant resurgence.     

Hyperactivity,Impulsivity, Inattention (HIA) and Conduct Problems among African American Youth: The Roles of Neighborhood and Gender

This study replicated and extended prior research by examining neighborhood context as a moderator of the relation between the constellation of hyperactivity, impulsivity, and attention (HIA) difficulties and conduct problems among African American youth (11–16 years old; 55% girls) from single mother homes (N = 193). Using audio computer-assisted interview (ACASI) software, mother-child dyads provided ratings of HIA difficulties and two domains of conduct problems: aggression and rule-breaking. In addition, both subjective (mother-report) and objective (census data) indices of neighborhood context were assessed. Findings revealed that both subjective and objective indices of neighborhood context moderated the relation between HIA and conduct problems, but the pattern of moderation differed depending on the index and combination of reporters. Future research directions and implications of the findings are discussed.

Medication adherence behaviors in older adults: effects of external cognitive supports.

Medication adherence behaviors of 61 elderly adults were examined using a sensitive microelectronic monitoring device. To assess the effects of external cognitive supports on adherence, different subjects received (a) no intervention, (b) an organizational chart, (c) an over-the-counter medication organizer, or (d) both the chart and organizer. The young-old subjects showed a high rate of adherence (94%) and were not improved by the addition of the interventions. Old-old subjects had a lower rate of adherence (85%) than young-olds. Omission errors were the most frequent mistakes and were lower in the condition in which subjects received both chart and organizer.