Behavior modification with culturally deprived school children: two case studies

Techniques of behavior modification were employed with two second-grade Negro girls in a demonstration school for culturally deprived children to increase the girls' appropriate classroom behaviors. A classification system that provided for continuous categorization of behavior was used to code the children's behavior in two classroom situations. Data were also taken on the type, duration, and frequency of the teachers' verbal interactions. The study included four conditions: Baseline, Modification I, Postmodification, and Modification II. The treatment variable was positive social reinforcement-attention and approval contingent upon desirable classroom behaviors-which was presented, withheld, or withdrawn (timeout from social reinforcement). Withholding of social reinforcement was contingent upon inappropriate attention-getting behaviors. Timeout from social reinforcement was contingent upon behaviors classified as aggressive and resistive. After 25 days of Modification I, desirable behavior increased markedly for each girl. The teachers were then asked to return to their Baseline level of performance. The resultant behaviors demonstrated that for one girl, behavior was still primarily under the control of the treatment contingencies. For the second child, many desirable behaviors that had increased in frequency during Modification I remained high, but inappropriate behaviors increased. When treatment was reinstated, the amount of time spent in desirable behaviors increased and remained high for both girls. Three checks during the three months following data collection showed that these behaviors continued to remain high.     

The influence of task requirements on priming in object decision and matching

We argue that task requirements can be the determinant in generating different results in studies on visual object recognition. We investigated priming for novel visual objects in three implicit memory tasks. A study-test design was employed in which participants first viewed line drawings of unfamiliar objects and later made different decisions about structural aspects of the objects. Priming for both symmetric and asymmetric possible objects was observed in a task requiring a judgment of structural possibility. However, when the task was changed to one requiring a judgment of structural symmetry, only symmetric possible objects showed priming. Finally, in a matching task in which participants made a same-different judgment, only symmetric possible objects exhibited priming. These results suggest that an understanding of object representation will be most fruitful if it is based on careful analyses of both the task demands and their interaction(s) with encoding and retrieval processes.     

Persistent symptoms among survivors of Hodgkin's disease: an explanatory model based on classical conditioning.

Persistent symptoms of nausea, distress, and vomiting triggered by reminders of cancer treatment were examined among 273 Hodgkin's disease survivors, 1 to 20 years posttreatment. Prevalence rates were high for distress and nausea but low for vomiting. Retrospective report of anticipatory symptoms during treatment was the strongest predictor of persistent symptoms, suggesting that treatment-induced symptoms are less likely to persist if conditioning does not occur initially. Time since treatment was also a significant predictor, with patients more recently treated more likely to experience persistent symptoms. Thus, an explanatory model based on classical conditioning theory successfully predicted presence of persistent symptoms. Symptoms also were associated with ongoing psychological distress, suggesting that quality of life is diminished among survivors with persistent symptoms. Recommendations for prevention and treatment of symptoms are discussed.     

Working systemically with family violence: risk, responsibility and collaboration

In this article we describe a project which aims to ensure prevention and continued protection from violence for family members. We outline our theoretical approach to assessment and working with violence in family relationships and the associated ethical problems. We identify three recurrent themes: risk, collaboration, and responsibility. We focus on our work with couples, where the man is violent towards the woman. Within this discussion we identify other important clinical issues.     

Investigating the link between validation seeking and lay dispositionism

In this study, the authors investigated the relationship between validation seeking (VS; Dykman, 1998) and lay dispositionism, the use of personality traits as the basis for social inference (Chiu, Hong, & Dweck, 1997). Specifically, the authors sought to empirically address three questions: (a) Does VS predict the tendency to make dispositional inferences and, if so, do social comparison tendencies mediate this relationship? (b) Does VS mediate the association between implicit person theories and lay dispositionism? and (c) Does contingent parental regard indirectly predict lay dispositionism via its effects on VS and/or implicit person theories? Results suggest that both VS and entity person theories facilitate lay dispositionism, yet do so via distinct processes. Both processes are driven at least partly by contingent parental regard; however, their effects on lay dispositionism differ in scope and in the extent to which they entail social comparison.