Derived Relational Responding and Performance on Verbal Subtests of the WAIS-III

The Psychological Record - Twenty-six monolingual and 46 bilingual college students were assigned to 2 groups on the basis of their performance on a complex relational task, an empirical model of...     

The mental health consequences of dealing with self-inflicted death in custody

The impact of dealing with a death in custody was explored in 49 prison officers who had dealt with such an event in the period 3–7 months prior to the study. A 36.7% incidence rate of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was identified. Optimism, avoidance problem solving style, prior experience of suicide and level of involvement in the incident were direct mediators of the impact of the event for the total sample, while perceived control, emotional support and other aspect of problem-solving style had an indirect effect. Separate analysis of the PTSD and non-PTSD groups showed that the only mediator for the PTSD group was prior experience. For the non-PTSD group a range of variables mediated the impact. It is argued that this provides a case for preventive rather than treatment interventions.     

Off‐Task Social Breaks and Group Creativity

This study investigates the effect of off‐task breaks, where individuals engage in a collective off‐task activity, on group creativity. Using an experimental method comprising 36 groups of 5 individuals, the relationships between different types of off‐task group break and performance in creative tasks post‐break are explored. When compared to the no‐break case, it is seen that off‐task breaks, in which all individuals participate in the group activity, lead to more original ideas being generated post‐break. On the other hand, individual incubation breaks and self‐organizing group breaks, lead to lower levels of post‐break idea originality when compared with the no‐break case. This research thus highlights the positive benefits of off‐task breaks involving full member participation, on the creative process in groups.     

Establishing Transfer of Compound Control in Children: A Stimulus Control Analysis

The Psychological Record - Five-year-old children received training on four symbolic match-to-sample tasks with single-element stimuli (A1-B1, A2-B2; P1-Q1, P2-Q2). Then they received training on...     

Mapping Variables Related to Social Identity,Distress and Perceived Health in an Undergraduate Student Population

The relationship between students levels of self-categorisation or identification with their university, their problem-solving style, perceived social support, psychological distress and self-reported illness was investigated in a sample of 269 students (181 females and 88 males). Structural equation modelling shows that problem-solving style, perceived social support, and strength of identity, are the best predictors of both distress and illness, while sex, sex-type, age and year of study also account for small, but significant percentages of the variance.     

Behavior analysis and social constructionism: some points of contact and departure

Social constructionists occasionally single out behavior analysis as the field of psychology that most closely resembles the natural sciences in its commitment to empiricism, and accuses it of suffering from many of the limitations to science identified by the postmodernist movement (e.g., K. J. Gergen, 1985a; Soyland, 1994). Indeed, behavior analysis is a natural science in many respects. However, it also shares with social constructionism important epistemological features such as a rejection of mentalism, a functional-analytic approach to language, the use of interpretive methodologies, and a reflexive stance on analysis. The current paper outlines briefly the key tenets of the behavior-analytic and social constructionist perspectives before examining a number of commonalties between these approaches. The paper aims to show that far from being a nemesis to social constructionism, behavior analysis may in fact be its close ally.     

Continuity and change in the measurement of infant attachment: comment on Fraley and Spieker (2003)

R.C. Fraley and S.J. Spieker (2003) refocused attention on the important question of continuous versus categorical measurement of infant attachment. This commentary begins with a brief response to Fraley and Spieker's position. Next, it highlights the usefulness of the categorical approach by reviewing some of the major advances in the field that have been fostered by a categorical approach. These include the identification of the disorganized attachment group, the development of the concept of conditional behavioral strategies, the creation of systems for coding attachment beyond infancy, and a greater understanding of cross-generational associations. The author then makes several propositions for future research that are necessary for clarifying how best to measure infant attachment.     

Functions of parent-child reminiscing about emotionally negative events

Parent-child reminiscing about negative experiences influences children's developing "emotional self-concept", which comprises three interrelated functions: self-defining (this is the kind of emotional person I am), self-in-relation (this is how I express and share my emotions with others), and coping (this is how I cope with and resolve negative emotion). In this study, we examined how 70 mostly white, middle-class mothers discuss three negative experiences (fear, anger, and sadness) with their 4-year-old children. Conversations about fear elaborate on the facts of the event and emotional resolutions, thus focusing on coping. Conversations about sadness contain evaluative feedback and emotional resolutions, thus focusing on self-in-relation and coping. Finally, conversations about anger highlight the emotional state itself, thus focusing on self-definition. Mothers are also more elaborative and more evaluative with daughters than with sons, and place emotional events in a more interpersonal context with daughters than sons. Thus girls may be forming a more elaborated and more interpersonal emotional self-concept than boys.     

Communicative interactions, knowledge of a second language, and theory of mind in young children

In this study, the authors explored the effect that particular patterns of communicative interactions may have on young children's understanding of representations and the link between knowledge of a 2nd language and theory of mind. The authors tested 140 single language users and 57 dual language users (aged 3-4 years old) on a deceptive task with 3 experimental conditions. In the deceptive-context condition, an experimenter made a reference to the deceptive object. In the older peer condition, an experimenter made a reference to an older child who was actively participating in the experimental manipulations. In the deceptive-interaction condition, the experimenter made reference to his or her own deceptive interventions. The most significant finding was that knowledge of a 2nd language significantly improved young children's understanding of both mental and nonmental representations. Moreover, the results indicated that an experimenter's reference to a deceptive interaction greatly facilitated 3-year-old children's understanding of false belief.     

Relational operants: processes and implications: a response to Palmer's review of Relational Frame Theory

Palmer has recently criticized Relational Frame Theory (RFT) on the grounds that it has developed data in search of a principle. In this reply, we show that he has done so by attacking fundamental concepts within behavior analysis itself, including the functional nature of an operant and contingencies of reinforcement as a behavioral process. His claim that RFT appeals to new behavioral principles to explain the development of relational operants is shown to be incorrect: As with any operant, RFT appeals to a history of contacted consistencies in contingencies across multiple ex-emplars to explain them. New principles only emerge later as a logically necessary extension of such operants if they exist--a view that Palmer failed to address or appreciate. Palmer's desire to see the use of methods other than matching-to-sample is proper but already largely satisfied in the empirical literature on RFT. We show Palmer's defense of Skinner's definition of verbal behavior to be illogical and unresponsive to the empirical challenge behavior analysis faces. Palmer's alternative common sense mediational associationistic account is another in more than a century of such accounts, all of which have failed empirically. At its root, Palmer's criticism is based on a mechanistic philosophy that is hostile to a traditional functional behavior analytic approach.