Functions of the environment in behavioral evolution

This paper explores some of the ways in which the environment functions with respect to behavior within an explanatory framework analogous to that of evolutionary biology. In both the behavioral and organic domains, the environment functions differently with respect to individual occurrences and evolutionary units. Within the behavioral domain, the problem of accounting for an occurrence of an operant instance differs from that of accounting for the existence of the operant unit of which the instance is a part. Maintaining these distinctions in levels of analysis within the behavioral domain, we focus first on operant units and operant instances as products of evolutionary processes occurring in the behavioral domain and second upon the causal role of the environment with respect to the existence of operant units and the occurrence of operant instances. The environment's function is selective with respect to origin, maintenance, suppression, and extinction of behavioral populations. At the level of operant instances, the environment has instantiating functions-evocative or alterative. Evocative functions are exemplified by discriminative relations, and alterative functions include both conditional and motivative relations. Implications are considered regarding extension of the analogy to more complex behavior-environment relations.     

U.S.- and Mexico-born Hispanic teen mothers: a descriptive study of factors that relate to postpartum compliance

Compliance with postpartum visits after teenage births in the US was examined among 289 Hispanic teenagers, of whom 127 were born in Mexico or border towns, who delivered at Harris County Hospital District and scheduled postpartum appointments at the Teen Health Clinic. The mean age was 17.31 years for mothers and 21.95 years for fathers. 56.7% (164) were married. 49.8% lived with husbands, 25.8% with parents, 22.3% with friends/relatives, and 2.1% alone. 74.7% stated that they had no social supports. 88.9% had a term delivery, 8.3% a preterm delivery, and 2.8% a fetal loss. 67.5% were first births, 5.5% had a previous abortion, and 3.1% had a previous miscarriage. 23.2% had a previous child, and 0.7% had a previous preterm delivery. Some form of prenatal care was received by 85.1%. 34.3% reported no further educational plans. 17.3% (50) returned for a scheduled postpartum visit. Mothers with a prior history of a premature birth or miscarriage were more likely to return postpartum compared to mothers with a first or prior birth. The differences are marginally significant. None of the mothers with a prior abortion returned. 34.9% of the returning teen mothers were more likely to have had prenatal care. Returning mothers also were a larger percentage of those with no future educational plans. 13.4% of returning mothers had an available social support system. Country of origin was not associated with support systems, prenatal care, return status, educational plans, pregnancy history, or current birth outcome. Out of the 50 returning, 20 were Mexican-born and married. Only Mexican marital status was found to be a significant variable explaining differences. Marital status had no effect on the 26 US native-born returnees. 92% of the Mexican-born teens were married and had a support system. The most dramatic feature of this study is the high level of noncompliance among both US-born and Mexican-born adolescents. There were few distinguishing features between these two groups. Return status was affected by very few features and was achieved by a very small percentage of the study population. The suggestion is made that poverty, a lack of health insurance, and poor knowledge of English, as representative of cultural dissimilarity, may be responsible for poor use of preventive care.     

Assessing Multicultural Counseling Competence: A Review of Instrumentation

The authors review four new instruments designed to assess multicultural counseling competence in trainees and practicing professionals. The Cross-Cultural Counseling Inventory—Revised (CCCI-R), the Multicultural Counseling Awareness Scale—Form B (MCAS:B), the Multicultural Counseling Inventory (MCI), and the Multicultural Awareness-Knowledge-and Skills Survey (MAKSS) were each critically reviewed in terms of item development, psychometric properties, and pragmatic utility. Specific research suggestions for continued empirical validation on the instruments are posited, and strong cautions regarding their current use in training are leveled.     

The Role of an Academic Department in Promoting Faculty Development: Recognizing Diversity and Leading to Excellence

The authors discuss the role of an academic department in promoting faculty development. Specifically, the authors (a) define faculty development from a departmental perspective, (b) discuss stages and seasons in academic careers, and (c) delineate specific faculty development goals and programs within the department.     

Promotion and employee turnover: Critique,meta-analysis,and implications

Qualitative reviews of the withdrawal literature have reached inconsistent conclusions regarding the strength of the relationship between promotion and turnover. Several issues were addressed in this study which may account for these inconsistencies. First, we differentiate among three distinct operationalizations of promotion: (1) promotion satisfaction; (2) perceptions of promotional opportunity; and (3) actual promotion. We then conduct quantitative reviews using meta-analytic procedures on turnover and the three operationalizations of promotion. We found no significant relationships between promotion satisfaction and turnoveror between perceived promotional opportunities and turnover. However, a significant negative relationship was found between actual promotion and turnover. Theoretical implication of these findings are presented.     

Counselling foreign students: A review of strategies

This article focuses on the unique counselling needs of foreign students as reflected from a review of the literature. As more and more students from developing countries opt to further their education in the West, knowledge about counselling foreign students is of increasing interest. Distinctive aspects of foreign student clients and the typical problems faced by them are described. The issues which need to be addressed and the competencies which need to be developed in order to effectively counsel foreign students are discussed. Finally, specific strategies for counselling foreign students are suggested in the context of general guidelines for cross-cultural counselling.     

Accreditation Standards for University and College Counseling Centers

The accreditation standards outlined in the article are used by the International Association of Counseling Services, Inc., as the basis for the formal accreditation of college and university counseling programs throughout the United States and Canada. They reflect the program elements and practice standards that are deemed essential in a counseling center that provides high-quality services to students.     

Facilitator influence in facilitated communication

The use of facilitated communication with individuals with autism has generated considerable controversy over the past several years. Only recently has research begun appearing which examines the procedure using reasonable scientific controls to establish the validity of this form of communication. The present study assessed the validity of facilitated communication and evaluated the effects of facilitator influence with seven individuals with autism and mental retardation. Three individuals showed clear evidence of facilitator influence, another three showed no such influence, and one subject performed at chance levels. A follow-up session with the three subjects who showed no facilitator influence demonstrated that they also showed no unexpected language competence compared to their measured IQ and to assessment under standard conditions. Results are discussed in terms of significance for facilitated communication in general and in terms of the utility of the methodology as a means of demonstrating language competence or facilitator influence.     

Feeling good and feeling close: Affective influences on the perception of intimate relationships

Two experiments investigated the role of short-term affective states on the way people perceive various aspects of their personal relationships. Using an unobtrusive mood induction in a field setting, Experiment 1 found significant mood congruency in evaluative judgments about well-established intimate relationships. Experiment 2 used a controlled laboratory procedure and found that evaluations of the relationship and the partner, as well as preferred styles of conflict resolution were all significantly affected by the respondents' transient mood state. Increasing relationship longevity did not reduce affective influences on judgments in either study. The results arc discussed in terms of the role of affective states in cognition and judgments, and the influence of affect on everyday judgments about personal relationships is considered.     

Sensorimotor synchronization: Motor responses to pseudoregular auditory patterns

Musically trained and untrained subjects (N=30) were asked to synchronize their finger tapping with stimuli in auditory patterns. Each pattern comprised six successive tonal stimuli of the same duration, the first of which was accented by a different frequency. The duration of interstimulus onset intervals (ISIs) gradually increased or decreased in constant steps toward the end of the patterns. Four values of such steps were used in different trials: 20, 30, 45, and 60 msec. Various time-control mechanisms are hypothesized as being simultaneously responsible for subjects’ incorrect reproduction of the internal temporal ratios of the stimulus patterns. The mechanism of assimilation (of a central tendency) led subjects to enforce a regular (isochronous) structure on the patterns. The influence of other time-control mechanisms (distinction, subjective expression of an accent, sequential transfer) was expressed mainly in differences between intertap onset intervals (ITIs) and the corresponding ISIs at the beginning of the patterns. The duration of the first two ITIs was in the majority of the trials in an inverse ratio to the ratio of the respective ISIs. The distortions resulting from the timing mechanisms concerned were more pronounced in the performance of nonmusicians than in that of musicians.