Parent and child causal attributions during clinical interviews

Attributions made by children and their parents for the cause of the child's clinical problem were monitored during assessment interviews. Results support previously observed differences obtained through questionnaires, with parents making more attributions than their children to characteristics of the child. This pattern was affected by variations in interview format. Parents and children differed in the locus of their attributions when interviewed individually, but these differences were not present when families were interviewed with both parents and children present. Implications for the methodology of attribution research with child-clinical populations are highlighted.     

The Assertive Interaction Coding System

Conceptual and theoretical issues concerning the assessment of assertive behavior are discussed. A summary of a variety of instruments utilized in experimental and clinical settings is offered that reflects these issues. This review is followed by the presentation of a new assessment device developed by the authors—the Assertive Interaction Coding System. Research evidence as to its reliability and validity in experimental and clinical settings is presented. Implications for its use in clinical and research protocols are addressed.     

The adequacy of a role play of a previous event as affected by high and low social anxiety and rehearsal

This study was designed as a preliminary step in evaluating the adequacy of a role play of a previous event. Sixty undergraduate males, high or low in social anxiety, interacted with a female assistant. Two groups of subjects then rehearsed this conversation overtly or covertly, while a third group became involved in a distraction task. Finally, all subjects role played the initial interaction with a second female assistant. Individual Pearson product-moment correlations between the initial and the role-play sessions yielded moderate, but significant correlations for most of the rated behaviors. Canonical correlations for the verbal and for the nonverbal ratings showed the two sessions, as a whole, highly related. Two (high-versus low-social anxiety group) × three (overt, covert, or no rehearsal) analyses of variance were performed on four measures. Significant results were found only for the anxiety group effect and rehearsal group effect on one rating, anxiety behaviors. The implications of the modest individual correlations suggest that estimation of specific levels of behavior is not appropriate from a role play of a previous event. However, the use of such a role play to make global distinctions of relative competence may be appropriate. The results of this study are consonant with earlier studies on role-play assessment.This article is based on a master's thesis completed by the first author in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Master of Science degree at Ohio University.     

The executive control of mnemonic activity

The present study focused on the executive monitoring of a rehearsal strategy by sixth (11 years 5 months), tenth (15 years 8 months), and twelfth (17 years 9 months) graders and adults (27 years 4 months). The results showed that all of the adults spontaneously adopted an “optimal” strategy and generalized it to a second task. However, none of the sixth graders and only two tenth and three twelfth graders did so. All of the school subjects subsequently trained to rehearse, maintained the strategy without prompting, and showed evidence of transfer. In comparison to adults, the trained subjects' generalized routines became more similar to the adults' as grade increased. This study supports the notion that efficient executive functioning includes the case where continued use of a mnemonic routine is a reasonable response to an objective change in an information-processing task.     

Effects of retention interval and modality on sensory and semantic trace information

Subjects studied a long list of individual words that were presented either visually or auditorily. Recall was tested immediately or after a filled delay by using either word endings or taxonomic categories as extralist retrieval cues. Two interactions were of particular interest. First, word ending cues were just as effective as taxonomic cues on the immediate test. On the delayed test, however, ending cues were less effective. This result suggests that sensory information encoded about a word decays at a faster rate than semantic information. Second, although modality had no observable influence on the taxonomic cues, word ending cues were more effective when all items were shown visually than when they were presented auditorily. Taken together, these findings indicate that the visual features of words are encoded at study and that this information can be accessed during test if it is recapitulated by the retrieval cue shortly after acquisition.     

The use of teachers as behavioral observers

The effect of using teachers as behavioral observers on both student and teacher behavior was examined with eight teachers and 32 elementary school children. The frequency of prompts (but not praise or criticism) to those students observed by the teacher increased significantly from nonobserver to teacher observed experimental phases. In addition, students observed by the teacher showed more change in appropriate behavior than students who were not observed. The significance of these findings for research and therapy is discussed.     

Manipulation of response-contingent unconditioned-stimulus intensity in human eyelid conditioning: A two-phase model analysis

Four groups of human subjects were given 360 classical eyeblink conditioning trials. All groups received the same UCS (unconditioned stimulus) intensity on[Formula: see text] (nonconditioned response) trials but differed in the intensity presented on CR trials. Response probability increased as a positive function of UCS intensity on CR trials. Phase 1 of the two-phase model was longer when no UCS was presented on CR trials, but did not differ in duration among the remaining three groups. Most subjects could be described with a single operator in Phase 2, the operator limit increasing as a positive function of CR-contingent UCS intensity. For subjects requiring different operator limits on CR and[Formula: see text] trials, the latter was lower with high CR-trial intensities but higher with low CR-trialintensities. The results were interpreted to be more consistent with drive theory than with "law-of-effect" or two-factor theories.     

Training teachers as mediators: Efficacy of a workshop versus the bug-in-the-ear technique

The implementation of behavior modification techniques in school settings often relies on effective training of teachers as mediators. At the conclusion of Phase I, the performance of an experimental group of 13 teachers who were taught behavior modification by means of an inservice workshop was compared with a no-treatment control group. Although the experimental group scored higher on a paper-and-pencil test of behavior modification, there were no differences between the two groups on selected observed in-class behaviors. During Phase II, half of the experimental group of teachers received two hours of bug-in-the-ear (BIE) training in their own classrooms. BIE resulted in changes in the classroom behaviors of praise and contingency statements. These results are discussed in terms of the situation and response mode specificity of behavior and in terms of the implications for future workshops and research.     

Between- versus within-family factor analyses of cognitive abilities

Confirmatory factor analyses of the 15 cognitive abilities tests from the Hawaii Family Study of Cognition were conducted on between-family (BF) means and within-family (WF) differences for 370 AEA (Americans of European ancestry) and 116 AJA (Americans of Japanese ancestry) sibling pairs. Difference chi-square significance tests, goodness-of-fit indices, and congruence coefficients for the estimated loadings on four specific cognitive abilities factors and on the second-order general intelligence factor nearly all indicated that the between-family factor structures were not significantly different from the within-family structures for both AEA and AJA siblings (the AEA and AJA structures were also not significantly different). The similarity of the BF and WF structures suggests that the genetic and environmental influences underlying cognitive abilities are “intrinsic” in nature, that is, not just due to between-family differences in culture, status, values, and fortuitous cross-assortative mating.     

Meaning and learning: Response to Moerk

In response to Moerk (1986, Developmental Review, 6, 365–385) the following points are discussed: (a) Semantic and conceptual development must be conceived in terms of systems that undergo developmental change, (b) Objects are viewed as embedded in events and as being conceptualized first within a syntagmatic and later a paradigmatic system, (c) While the nature of the input to the child is important, its effects cannot be considered independently of the state of the child's conceptual and linguistic system. (d) The neurological considerations discussed by Moerk are not relevant to the particular developmental issues discussed in my book.