Functional analysis and treatment of aggression maintained by preferred conversational topics

After an initial functional analysis of a participant's aggression showed unclear outcomes, we conducted preference and reinforcer assessments to identify preferred forms of attention that may maintain problem behavior. Next, we conducted an extended functional analysis that included a modified attention condition. Results showed that the participant's aggression was maintained by access to preferred conversational topics. A function-based intervention decreased aggression and increased an appropriate communicative response.     

Distinctiveness in flashbulb memory: Comparative analysis of five terrorist attacks

The purpose of the present study was to find out whether a series of terrorist attacks, which share some common features, elicit flashbulb memories (of the personal circumstances in which the person first learned about these events) that are usually elicited by a single, unexpected, surprising, and personally important event. A total of 131 participants answered questions regarding details of five terrorist attacks that had taken place in Israel during the years 1995–1997. In addition, they assessed, for each of the five events, the number of overt rehearsals, and the degrees of emotional intensity, surprise, novelty, personal importance, and distinctiveness. Data analyses showed that most variables that are usually associated with the formation of flashbulb memories were also found in memories of the terrorist attacks that were judged by the participants as being distinctive. Distinctiveness may therefore be considered an important factor in the formation of flashbulb memories.     

Behavioral Skills Training With Teachers: Booster Training for Improved Maintenance

Behavioral skills training (BST) has been employed within many different populations for the reduction of problem behaviors and acquisition of new skills; however, these changes have not always maintained over time. This study evaluated the effects of a booster training for re-establishing the classroom management proficiencies that teachers had acquired previously, but had declined over a 12-month period. The single-subject experimental results showed the booster training to be effective in re-establishing teacher performance of skills as measured by both analogue role-play and in situ postassessments within the classroom. These findings suggest that a booster training utilizing BST may be an important strategy for maintaining skill performance over time.     

Some reflections on the links between psychoanalysis and literature

Abstract

I taught literature to students from overseas for a number of years before entering the world of student counselling. Both experiences helped to develop and clarify thoughts that I had long held, albeit in a rather vague fashion, about the ways that literature and psychoanalytic thought can reflect our inner worlds. In the first part of this article I look at certain ideas that I think they have in common, what they both can illuminate and how they can contribute to opening up a therapeutic relationship. Then I give an example, from my work experience, of how I was able to draw on some of these ideas in such a relationship with a student. The psychoanalytic process and the reading of a literary text touch at frequent points: both are ways of finding out about oneself, about one's inner and outer worlds, and how they interact. They enable us to ‘read’ our experiences. They have, therefore, a certain congruence of direction towards self-knowledge. They search for a particular kind of understanding. In exploring the literary text one is discovering oneself, gaining insight into the complexities of the multifarious self. Katherine Mansfield, commenting on the creative act of writing, said that a writer tries to go deep, to speak to the secret self we all have (Lee 1985: xv). Symington (1986: 15) speaks in terms of psychoanalysis occurring ‘at the centre of the individual’, but occurring only ‘through a personal act of understanding’.     

The Relationships Among Differing Loss Experiences,Adjustment, Beliefs,and Coping

Abstract

Losses are often equated for conceptual purposes, and it is often assumed that different types of losses result in similar grief reactions and exert similar effects on cognitive structures and coping patterns. This article examines the expectancies, beliefs, coping patterns, and psychological adjustment associated with loss due to death, parental. divorce, or illness and disability in a college student population. Loss groups did not differ from each other or from a no-loss group on cognitive variables, coping, or psychological adjustment. In instances in which associations between the cognitive measures and either coping or adjustment were indicated, the typical pattern was for loss groups to differ from the no-loss condition but not from each other.     

White Racism and Suboptimal Psychological Functioning Among White Americans: Implications for Counseling and Prejudice Prevention

This study examined the causal relationships between anxiety, racism, and self‐esteem in a sample of White graduate and undergraduate students (N = 169). The results indicated that level of anxiety had a direct effect on anti‐Black attitudes, which, in turn, had a direct effect on self‐esteem. Implications for counseling interventions aimed at preventing prejudice among Whites are discussed. Este estudio examinó las relaciones causales entre la ansiedad, el racismo, y el auto‐estima en un grupo de estudiantes graduados y estudiantes de bachillerato Blancos (N = 169). Los resultados indicaron que el nivel de ansiedad tuvo un efecto directo en las actitudes anti‐Negras, que en torno tuvo un efecto directo en el auto‐estima. Las implicaciones para las intervenciones de consejería dirigidas a prevenir el prejuicio entre los Blancos son discutidas.     

MODIFICATION OF HUMAN GASTRIC ACID SECRETION WITH OPERANT-CONDITIONING PROCEDURES1

In an attempt to control gastric acid secretion with operant-conditioning techniques, four normal women were given visual feedback on gastric pH plus money reinforcers. When money was made dependent on increased secretion in a differential-reinforcement-of-high-rates schedule, the rate of secretion of three of the four subjects increased to three times baseline. When money was then made dependent on decreased secretion in a differential-reinforcement-of-other-behaviors schedule, the rate of secretion of these three subjects returned to baseline levels. Heart rate, respiratory frequency, abdominal electromyographic activity, and stomach motility (measured by the electrogastrogram method) were not consistently correlated with acid secretion across subjects, although individual subjects showed substantial correlations between acid secretion and one or more other physiological response.     

Elaborative interrogation applied to small and large group contexts

The present study examined the application of elaborative interrogation (EI), a questioning strategy, to ecologically valid classroom contexts. Instruction was provided to individuals, small groups of five, and large groups of 20. Recall performance did not differ as a function of group size. For individuals, small and large groups, EI subjects outperformed repetition control subjects.