USING PARENTS AS THERAPISTS TO EVALUATE APPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR OF THEIR CHILDREN: APPLICATION TO A TERTIARY DIAGNOSTIC CLINIC

We conducted a preliminary analysis of maintaining variables for children with conduct disorders in an outpatient clinic. Eight children of normal intelligence between the ages of 4 and 9 years were evaluated during 90-min sessions. The children's parents conducted the assessments by varying task demands (easy and difficult) and parental attention (attention and no attention) within a multielement design. The assessment focused on appropriate child behavior and was conducted to formulate hypotheses regarding maintaining contingencies. Results demonstrated that the children's appropriate behavior varied across assessment conditions and, for 7 of the 8 children, occurred at a higher rate during one condition than during other conditions. In addition, treatment integrity data demonstrated that parents were able to implement the procedures as intended. The recommended treatments were rated as being both effective and acceptable to parents for up to 6 months following the evaluation. Our results extend previous studies of functional analytic procedures conducted by trained experimenters with severely handicapped children in more controlled settings.     

Clogs in the bogus pipeline: Demand characteristics and social desirability

Jones and Sigall (1971) have advocated the use of a pseudophysiological monitoring device (the bogus pipeline) as a procedure to measure the “true” feelings of experimental subjects. A comparison of the bogus pipeline and a paper-and-pencil scale as measures of attraction indicated that the monitoring device is affected by experimenter demands among high social desirability (SD) subjects (p < .03) while the simple rating scale is not. Attraction to a stranger was determined solely by attitude similarity for high SD subjects using the paper-and-pencil measure and for low SD subjects in both measurement conditions. Use of the bogus pipeline in the typical attraction experiment thus would seem to be contraindicated. These results were discussed with respect to Ostrom's (1973) criteria of relative sensitivity and functional comparability of measurement techniques.     

Effects of alternating set for speed or accuracy on response time,accuracy and confidence in a unidimensional discrimination task

Three approaches to a theoretical analysis of confidence judgments are considered: one linking confidence to the number of sensory observations, one based on a distinction between ‘state’ and ‘process’ factors, and a ‘balance of evidence’ hypothesis developed from an accumulator model of discrimination. An experiment is described in which observers were asked to decide which of two parallel lines was the longer, and to rate their confidence in each judgment. Each observer's set for speed or accuracy was manipulated over successive blocks of trials, and effects on response time, accuracy, and confidence were examined. Under an accuracy set, observers produced a higher percentage of correct responses, had longer response times, and made more confident judgments than under a set for speed. Within both speed and accuracy blocks, however, confidence ratings were inversely related to response time. The data on response accuracy, time, and confidence indicate certain deficiencies in either of the first two approaches, but were well accounted for by the third.     

Effects of dominance cues on attributions of sexual behavior

Many writers have suggested that dominance plays an important role in human sexuality. This proposition was examined by asking 51 females and 85 males to rate their impressions of a man and woman (photographed in the nude) who were described as having a male-dominant, female-dominant, or equalitarian relationship. Results indicated that although subjects' level of sexual arousal was unaffected by dominance, dominant individuals were perceived as more sexually active than the other stimulus persons. As expected, dominance appeared to enhance perceived masculinity, while submissiveness increased perceived femininity. Surprisingly, dominant male and female stimulus persons were not differentially evaluated. These findings were interpreted as being consistent with the assumption dominance is positively associated with sexuality.     

When “I like you” indicates disagreement an experimental differentiation of information and affect

It was hypothesized that the independent manipulation of the informational content and the affective meaning of personal evaluations would indicate that both informational judgments and attraction responses are a joint function of the two stimulus components. In a 2 × 2 factorial design, each of 80 subjects was exposed to a videotape message from a stranger which was either affectively positive or negative and informationally positive or negative. Analysis of variance indicated that perceived similarity was influenced only by the informational variable (p < .0001) while attraction was influenced by both information (p < .0001) and affect (p < .002). It was suggested that the most inclusive theories of person perception and attraction will necessarily encompass elements of both cognitive and reinforcement formulations.     

Mind over muscle: the role of gaze control,spatial cognition,and the quiet eye in motor expertise

In the course of all motor behavior, the brain is limited in how much information it can process and act upon at a time. Performers must constantly decide where to look, what to attend to, and how to time fixated information with precisely controlled actions. The gaze can be directed to only one location at a time and information central to success must be selected from spatially complex environments, most often under severe time constraints. The coordination of these processes is explored in this Special issue in a number of motor tasks, including golf, soccer, law enforcement, and ballet. The papers describe the visual information and quiet eye characteristics that underlie the ability to make decisions under complex task conditions and the relationship between control of the gaze and task outcomes. With the attainment of motor expertise, measureable changes occur within the gaze, cognitive, and neural systems that are useful in training, rehabilitation, and the treatment of motor deficits.     

A COMPONENT ANALYSIS OF FUNCTIONAL COMMUNICATION TRAINING ACROSS THREE TOPOGRAPHIES OF SEVERE BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS

We evaluated the separate treatment components of a functional communication training program for 3 severely handicapped persons who each displayed different topographies of aberrant behavior. Following a functional analysis of maintaining conditions for inappropriate behavior (self-injury, stereotypy, aggression), each participant was trained to emit a communicative response that functioned to solicit reinforcement. For 2 participants, consequences (time-out or graduated guidance) for inappropriate behavior were also included. Treatment continued until the participants emitted the communicative response independently and no occurrences of inappropriate behavior were observed for at least two sessions. Following treatment, the separate contributions of the treatment components for communicative responding and for inappropriate behavior were evaluated with a reversal design. The results indicated that both sets of treatment components were necessary for maximal control over aberrant behavior. These results are discussed in relation to the efficiency, history, and control over reinforcement of both appropriate and inappropriate responses.     

When a bystander becomes an accomplice: Situational determinants of reactions to dishonesty

In a series of experiments, undergraduates (N = 288) performed a task with a confederate who subsequently lied about his or her performance in order to obtain a cash bonus. The probability of bystanders' reporting the dishonesty and refusing to sign a document attesting to the confederate's score was differentially affected by situational factors and sex of the bystander, wrongdoer, and authority figure. Bystanders were most apt to report the misdeed when they were competing against rather than working either independently or cooperatively with the culprit, at least when the bonus was provided by a large corporation. In addition, females were more likely than males to report when the victim was another person rather than either a corporation or the bystander himself, and both sexes were more apt to report a female wrongdoer than a male one. Persons who initially reported the misdeed were less likely to become active accomplices than were those who failed to report it. Furthermore, less written verification of the falsehood occurred when (a) nonreporters were performing independently rather than either competing against or working cooperatively with the culprit for the bonus, and (b) a male was in an immediate position of authority.     

Comparison of three psychological defense mechanism questionnaires

The Defense Mechanisms Inventory (DMI), the Coping Operations Preference Enquiry (COPE), and the scales developed by Joffe and Naditch (J&N) were compared using multitrait-multimethod logic. Convergent validity was tow as measures of the same defense were not highly correlated across instruments. Similar patterns of correlations occurred within instruments but the J&N scales, and particularly the DMI scales, had high interscale correlations so overall discriminant validity was limited. These results suggest that either the defense constructs or at least some of the defense scales studied lack validity. Another possibility is that the scales are valid, but assess different parameters of defensiveness (e.g., intensity versus breadth of use of mechanisms). Comparisons of the scales' predictive validity should help resolve these points.