EFFECTS OF CHOICE MAKING ON THE SERIOUS PROBLEM BEHAVIORS OF STUDENTS WITH SEVERE HANDICAPS

This study assessed the impact of choice making on the serious problem behaviors of 3 students with severe autism and/or mental retardation. In the context of within-subject reversal designs, the results showed consistently reduced levels of problem behaviors (e.g., aggression) when the students were given opportunities to make choices among instructional tasks and reinforcers. Additional data showed no systematic differences in the rate of correct responding between the two conditions. The results are discussed in relation to the continuing search for effective, nonintrusive solutions to the occurrence of serious problem behavior.     

Processing speed and mental retardation: Deadline procedures indicate fixed and adjustable limitations

Brewer and Smith (1984) showed that control mechanisms mediating speed-accuracy regulation contribute to retarded-nonretarded differences in processing speed, with poorly controlled trial-to-trial RT adjustments underlying the greater RT variability of retarded individuals. In Experiment 1, response deadlines controlled processing time, thus minimizing the influence of such control mechanisms. The obtained speed-accuracy relations showed that retarded subjects were unable to match nonretarded subjects' accuracy when responding as rapidly, thus indicating structural limitations on processing speed. The results of Experiment 2 showed, however, that significant adjustments to retarded subjects' processing speed--exceeding those produced by practice--are achievable. Extended training at a short deadline led to tighter control of RT adjustments, with substantial improvements in mean RT when subjects transferred to a self-paced RT task.     

Combat Experience and Emotional Health: Impairment and Resilience in Later Life

War's influence on emotional health includes potential psychological gains as well as losses. In a sample of 149 veterans from longitudinal samples at the Institute of Human Development, University of California, Berkeley, this study explores two questions on the legacy of combat in World War II and the Korean conflict. The first concerns the subjective experience or meanings of combat that veterans hold in later life, with particular attention to how such accounts are linked to the severity of combat and postwar adaptations. The second question links these accounts to the psychosocial functioning of veterans before the war and in later life using reports from veterans and their spouses and Q-sort ratings in adolescence and at age 40. Findings center on veterans of heavy combat. Compared to the noncombatants and light combat veterans, these men were at greater risk of emotional and behavioral problems in the postwar years. In mid-life, they hold mixed memories of painful losses and life benefits associated with military experience. Clinical ratings show that heavy combat veterans became more resilient and less helpless over time when compared to other men. As in the case of life events generally, short- and long-term effects may impair and enhance personal growth.     

A SELF-MONITORING PACKAGE FOR TEACHING SUBTRACTION WITH REGROUPING TO STUDENTS WITH LEARNING DISABILITIES

In this investigation, we evaluated the effectiveness of a self-monitoring package with 3 learning disabled students whose responding to subtraction problems had been highly inconsistent and unsuccessful. Following a two-phase baseline of didactic instruction and special incentives, an error analysis was used to develop individualized self-monitoring checklists that the students then responded to as they completed their subtraction assignments. In the context of a multiple baseline design, the self-monitoring procedures produced immediate gains in correct responding, with more stable levels of successful performance occurring across sessions. In a subsequent maintenance phase, the checklists were removed and the previous incentives condition was reinstated, resulting in continued levels of successful responding. The results are compared to the literature on self-monitoring and learning disabilities and discussed in terms of the continuing need for effective and efficient instructional strategies.     

Participant differentiation of nonclinical fear and anxiety

Participants in four studies rated remembered experiences of fear and anxiety on scales reflecting characteristics postulated to distinguish anxiety from fear. Similarities and differences were found in ratings of the two emotion situations. Some obtained rating contrasts might indicate only quantitative differences, but many were consistent with qualitative distinctions in clinical and theoretical literatures and were interpreted as providing consensual validation for them. While both emotions involved pain, threat, uncertainty, and arousal, anxiety entailed greater future orientation, duration, frequency of occurrence, temporal uncertainty, inhibition, and sensitivity of self-concept to evaluation by self and others. A few rating contrasts appeared to contradict theoretical claims: e.g., noxiousness, helplessness, and response unavailability were greater with fear. It was suggested that some qualitative criteria for differentiating the two emotions are context-sensitive and may interact with a quantitative criterion.     

Effects of an Online Stimulus Equivalence Teaching Procedure on Research Design Open-Ended Questions Performance of International Undergraduate Students

The Psychological Record - The purpose of the present study was to assess if training in matching-to-sample (MTS) tasks would yield not only new MTS performance but also written topography-based...     

Legitimating the legitimate: A grounded theory study of legitimacy work among Ethics and Compliance Officers

Organizations have responded to ethical scandals in part by creating the Ethics and Compliance Officer (ECO) role to help insure employee ethical and legal behavior. Because ECO work is so fundamental to behavioral ethics in organizations and we know very little about it, we conducted a grounded theory study to learn more. We learned that, although most ECOs were hired to help their organizations respond to external legitimacy challenges, ECOs face major legitimacy challenges inside their organizations. Facilitating conditions may reduce these challenges and help ECOs reach internal legitimacy. But, we also found that ECOs engage in what we term legitimacy work that relies on a number of tactics to help them gain legitimacy in the eyes of their constituents. We tie our findings to the broader legitimacy literature and draw implications for the behavioral ethics literature.     

Can test list context manipulations improve recognition accuracy in the DRM paradigm?

Only test-based manipulations can be used to help people distinguish accurate from false memories once events have been encoded. In two experiments we examined how the type of studied words (weak vs strong associates, or less vs more memorable associates) and nonstudied lure words (related vs unrelated lures) on the test list affect recognition accuracy in the Deese-Roediger-McDermott paradigm. False recognition of critical lures decreased substantially in the related-lure context, but so did correct recognition of studied words. False recognition was little affected by the studied-word manipulations. In general, participants claimed to recognise critical lures as often as weak associates or less memorable studied words but less often than either strong associates or more memorable studied words. The test-list context affected how participants classified their recognition experiences but it did not systematically change their overall memory accuracy.     

The Relation of Reciprocated and Nonreciprocated Friendship Nominations to Peer Social Competence for Chinese Elementary School Children

The authors examined associations between different forms of children’s friendship nomination reciprocity (mutual, unilateral given, unilateral received) and other measures of children’s peer social competence (liking, loneliness, overt aggression, perceived popularity) for 501 Chinese third- to sixth-grade students. Using a multigroup path analysis (with gender as group), for both boys and girls, all three forms of friendship nominations were negatively related to self-reported loneliness. Mutual friendship nominations and unilateral received friendship nominations were positively related to peer nominations for liking and to peer nominations of perceived popularity. The path between unilateral received friendship nominations and perceived popularity was higher for boys than for girls. Also, for boys only, mutual friendship nominations and unilateral received friendship nominations were each negatively related to peer nominations of overt aggression. These patterns are somewhat different from research examining the association of forms of friendships to peer social competence for children in Western cultures. Findings are discussed in terms of the importance of the relation of different forms of friendship nominations to children’s peer social competence as well as the broad association of culture for these relations.