Cultural phenomena and the research enterprise: Toward a culturally anchored methodology

Highlights the points at which culture intersects major phases of the research enterprise — problem formulation, population definition, concept and measurement development, research design, methodology, and data analysis — and influences and constrains what researchers deem worthy of investigation and how they interpret what they observe. These ethnocentric biases inhibit the development of a knowledge base for understanding diverse cultural communities. At each step of the research process, the need to carefully examine and expose the underlying cultural assumptions and to generate and develop alternative choices is emphasized. Guidelines are provided to encourage researchers to be aware of and deliberately make choices toward the development of a culturally anchored methodology that balances the demands for rigor and sensitivity.     

The NCATE Process and behaviorally-based special education

The National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) has long sought to identify effective programs for teacher preparation in this country. Recently, the Council has revised its standards to be more rigorous and demanding. This revision presents new and challenging standards for the accreditation of programs preparing educators. The most problematic but most important of these new standards is the requirement of a well-articulated knowledge base supporting a program's content and processes. Development of the knowledge base statement involves the articulation of the program's philosophy, theme, model, goals, objectives, primary research base, wisdom of practice, and evaluation procedures. A behavioral model serves well in meeting these requirements, particularly since behavioral applications in education are well researched and the approach is compatible with the emphasis on specific goals and objectives and evaluation of effectiveness. Effective educational methods are available and are mostly behavioral. The articulation of the NCATE knowledge base encourages education faculty, traditionally nonbehavioral, to examine the effectiveness of their programs and to demonstrate research and professional support for content and instructional methods. A behavioral knowledge base statement appropriate for NCATE is demonstrated through examples drawn from Gonzaga University's knowledge base for special education.     

Research on familial Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (FCJD) resulting in presymptomatic testing: Implications for the human genome project

A research study to identify the priori gene mutation in a family with familial Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (FCJD) evolved into presymptomatic diagnostic testing. Our experience with one case raises concerns regarding similar studies that will ensue as a result of the Human Genome Project. Technological advances in human molecular genetics make it difficult for Institutional Review Boards (IRB) to adequately evaluate proposed studies. Additionally, changes in the implications of the study may occur after initial IRB approval, due to technological progress. While FCJD, like Huntington's disease (HD), has adult onset and causes progressive dementia and ataxia, protocols established for presymptomatic testing of HD were not included in the FCJD study design. It is thus recommended that IRB committees include a genetics professional and that IRB-approved research studies be reevaluated on a regular basis to monitor the impact that technological advances may have on participating human subjects.     

A sustained analysis of the behaviors of schooling

Educationally significant behaviors of students, teachers, and supervisors were directly assessed daily for a fiscal year in a residential school in which the results of behavior analysis research are applied to all levels of schooling. The variables assessed included those found to be concomitantly related to effective schooling as determined by the educational research literature, and functionally related to effective teaching as determined by the literature of behavior analysis. Weekly summaries of the following variables were analyzed for each of two daily shifts of teachers and supervisors: (a) number of trials presented and correct number of trials, (b) number of instructional sessions conducted, (c) number of learning objectives achieved, (d) percentage correct in each of three curricular areas, (e) weekly teacher observation scores, and (f) the total and rate per hour of supervisors' task accomplishments. There were strong positive correlations between: (a) instructional sessions and learning objectives, (b) teachers use of behavioral techniques in weekly observations by supervisors and students' achievement, (c) number of supervisor tasks completed and number of instructional sessions conducted by teachers, (d) number of teacher observations by supervisors and teachers' performance during observations, and (e) number of student objectives attained and number of tasks completed by supervisors. The assessment is the most comprehensive and sustained analysis of the daily behaviors of schooling. The relationships found between students and teacher behaviors replicate the effects of numerous experiments but do so in a total school setting. The relationships found between supervisor and student behavior have not been demonstrated in prior research. There is a need for similar school wide assessments in other types of schools to determine the generality of the relationships obtained in the present article.     

Signal duration and suppression of operant responding by free reinforcement

Pigeons were trained on a VI (variable interval) schedule of food presentation with a superimposed schedule of response-independent food. Substantial suppression of the operant response rate occurred when the free food was presented without a signal. When the free food was preceded by a short (4 sec) signal, the degree of suppression was similar to that with unsignaled free food. But when the signal was lengthened to 12 sec, the degree of suppression was substantially reduced. Experiment 3 assessed the effect of signal duration using a baseline schedule of delayed reinforcement, in which contingent reinforcers were themselves preceded by a signal. The signal preceding the free reinforcers was then either the same as or different from this contingent signal. Signal duration effects occurred only when the two types of signals were different. These differences as a function of signal duration have implications for both “context-blocking” and “comparator” interpretations of the effects of noncontingent reinforcement in both Pavlovian and operant procedures.     

Variability of responses within the aggression categories on the Rosenzweig Picture-Frustration Study, Children's Form

This study examined whether the procedure for combining scores to make aggression categories on the Children's Form of the Picture-Frustration Study is psychometrically sound. Subjects were 245 children from Grades 1 through 6. Their responses were rated according to the 11 kinds of responses defined in the manual (Rosenzweig, 1978c). Results indicated that most of the scores did not correlate with their corresponding categories. Thus, the way scores are combined into aggression categories may be invalid, because they seem to be combinations of very dissimilar kinds of responses to frustration. Until psychometrically sound and empirically validated ways of combining the 11 scores are determined, it is recommended that the 11 scores themselves be used for clinical and research purposes.     

Superstitious Conditioning: A Replication and Extension of Neuringer (1970)

The Psychological Record - After immediate, response-dependent reinforcers were delivered for the first three key pecks made by experimentally naive pigeons, a variable-time schedule of...     

The recognition and cognitive utilization of oppositionality

This research series begins in the theoretical view that human cognition rests in part upon implicit oppositionality. Four experiments are presented, each of which builds on some aspect of the recognition and utilization of oppositionality. Experiment I (34 females, 46 males, in cross-validation) finds that subjects recognize antonymy as readily as synonymy in comparison with a control condition (p<.001). Experiment II demonstrates that subjects rely upon oppositionality to solve a problem as readily as on primacy/recency considerations (p<.001). Experiment III (27 males, 27 females) finds that a subject's ability to recognize the opposite meaning of sentences that have been exposed earlier increases with practice (p<.05). Experiment IV (10 females, 11 males) demonstrates that subjects who are given the set to look for either opposite or nonopposite sentence meanings can make oppositional decisions with equal or greater speed than nonoppositional decisions (p<.001). Implications for psycholinguistic theories are discussed.     

Men's and women's emotional disclosures: The impact of disclosure recipient,culture, and the masculine role

People vary in how willingly and how often they discuss their emotional experiences with others. A new Emotional Self-Disclosure Scale was used in three separate investigations to examine (Study I) men's and women's willingness to discuss their emotions with parents and therapists, (Study II) the impact of gender and culture on emotional disclosures to male and female friends and therapists, and (Study III) the impact of gender and the masculine role on willingness to emotionally disclose to parents and therapists. The results indicated that (a) female disclosers and female disclosure recipients, particularly mothers, were associated with greater willingness to emotionally disclose; (b) females from Mexico reported the most extensive disclosure of their emotions; and (c) the restrictive emotionality and inhibited affection aspects of the masculine role were negatively related to men's and women's willingness to be open and revealing about their emotional experiences, whereas the success dedication aspect of the masculine role was positively related to women's willingness to be emotionally open. The discussion focuses on the implications of the current findings and the relationship context of people's emotional disclosures.Portions of these data were presented at the 32nd (Austin, Texas), 33rd (New Orleans, Louisiana), and 34th (Tulsa, Oklahoma) annual meeting of the Southwestern Psychological Association. Gratitutde is extended to two anonymous reviewers and Richard Archer for their helpful comments on earlier versions of this article.     

A test of the melioration theory of matching

Melioration theory entails that matching in concurrent schedules occurs because the subjects equalize the local reinforcement rates (reinforcers received for each alternative divided by the time allocated to each alternative). The role of local reinforcement rates was tested by using multiple schedules in which one component involved an alternative with a high absolute rate of reinforcement and a low local reinforcement rate while the second component involved an alternative with a low absolute rate and a high local rate. These alternatives were then presented simultaneously in probe trials to determine preference between them. Contrary to melioration, the absolute rate of reinforcement, not the local rate, was the controlling variable.