A comparative effectiveness trial of functional behavioral assessment methods

Clinicians report primarily using functional behavioral assessment (FBA) methods that do not include functional analyses. However, studies examining the correspondence between functional analyses and other types of FBAs have produced inconsistent results. In addition, although functional analyses are considered the gold standard, their contribution toward successful treatment compared with other FBA methods remains unclear. This comparative effectiveness study, conducted with 57 young children with autism spectrum disorder, evaluated the results of FBAs that did (n = 26) and did not (n = 31) include a functional analysis. Results of FBAs with and without functional analyses showed modest correspondence. All participants who completed functional communication training achieved successful outcomes regardless of the type of FBA conducted.     

Comparing functional analysis and paired-choice assessment results in classroom settings

The results of a functional analysis of problem behavior and a paired-choice assessment were compared to determine whether the same social reinforcers were identified for problem behavior and an appropriate response (time allocation). The two assessments were conducted in classroom settings with 4 adolescents with mental retardation who engaged in severe problem behavior. Each student's classroom teacher served as the therapist for all phases of assessment. The two assessment procedures identified the same social reinforcers for problem and appropriate behavior for 3 of 4 participants.     

Perspective-dependence and Critical Thinking

Recent theories of critical thinking have stressed the importance of taking into consideration in critical enquiry the perspectives, or presuppositions, of both the speaker whose statements are under scrutiny and the critic himself. The purpose of the paper is to explore this idea from an epistemological (rather than a pedagogical or psychological) point of view. The problem is first placed within the general context of critical thinking theory. Three types of perspective-dependence are then described, and the consequences of each for the possibility of critical discussion discussed. It is concluded that although it is essential in critical discussion to take the other’s perspective into consideration, perspective-dependence does not exclude the possibility of criticism.     

Openness to experience, plasticity, and creativity: Exploring lower-order, high-order, and interactive effects

What are creative people like? Openness to experience is important to creativity, but little is known about plasticity, the higher-order factor that subsumes openness. College students (n = 189) completed measures of the Big Five and measures of creative cognition (fluency and quality of divergent thinking), everyday creative behaviors, creative achievement, and self-rated creativity. Latent variable models found broad effects of openness to experience and few effects of the other four domains. At the higher-order level, plasticity predicted higher scores on nearly all of the facets of creativity, and stability had several significant effects. For some creativity measures, plasticity and stability had opposing effects. Tests of latent interactions found no significant effects: plasticity and stability predict creatively independently, not jointly.     

Gender Differences in the Relationship Between Academic Self-Concept and Self-Reported Depressed Mood in School Children

In light of literature highlighting gender differences related to academic self-concept and depressed mood, this study explored the contributions of academic self-concept in individual subject areas to self-reported depressed mood in 86 elementary-age boys and girls from a province in central Canada. Results indicated that academic self-concept explained 68% and 62% of the variance in self-reported depressed mood for boys and girls, respectively. Separate analyses conducted for boys and girls indicated disparate predictive models that cohered with gender stereotypic self-perceptions: math for boys and reading for girls. Interestingly, physical education emerged as a significant contributor for boys and girls. Results are discussed in terms of the importance of addressing the relationship between children’s social-emotional self-perceptions and academic self-concept within domain-specific lenses.     

Signaling in large-scale neural networks

We examine the recent finding that neurons in spinal motor circuits enter a high conductance state during functional network activity. The underlying concomitant increase in random inhibitory and excitatory synaptic activity leads to stochastic signal processing. The possible advantages of this metabolically costly organization are analyzed by comparing with synaptically less intense networks driven by the intrinsic response properties of the network neurons.     

Body dissatisfaction and body comparison with media images in males and females

This study examined the role of media body comparison as a mediator of the relationships between psychological factors and sociocultural pressures to be thin and body dissatisfaction in both females and males. Participants were 1,386 females (mean age = 19.37 years) and 1,130 males (mean age = 19.46) from diverse backgrounds who completed a self-report questionnaire. Path analysis was used to test a cross-sectional model in which media body comparison mediated the impact of self-esteem, depressive mood, parent dieting environment, friend dieting, TV exposure, magazine message exposure, weight teasing and body mass index (BMI) on body dissatisfaction. In females, media body comparison partially or fully mediated relationships between self-esteem, depressive mood, friend dieting, magazine message exposure and BMI, and body dissatisfaction. In males, media body comparison was not a significant predictor of body dissatisfaction. This research particularly highlights the need to further examine processes that are involved in the development of body dissatisfaction in males.     

Attraction and exchange in continuing and noncontinuing dating relationships

Measures enabling one to assess general feelings about a relationship, social exchange behaviors, and the particularism and symbolism of resources given to and received from another were examined longitudinally in 38 dating couples. These variables were first measured shortly after a couple began to date and again approximately 4 months later. We found that in contrast to what might be expected from prevailing theories of relationship development, the later status of couples (still dating or broken up) could be predicted with a high degree of accuracy from the initial measures. This finding corroborates and extends previous work dealing with same-sex friendships. Couples who were still dating 4 months later demonstrated greater love, more relationship-maintaining behaviors, more favorable evaluations of the dating relationship, and greater amounts of self-disclosure at the time of initial contact than did couples who broke up. Over time, these differences (as well as others) between couples who did and who did not continue dating intensified. In terms of the types of resources subjects gave and received from their dating partner, more particularistic and more symbolic resources were exchanged in continuing couples only later. Although both continuing and noncontinuing couples showed a decrease in the correlation between the love that members reported, this was offset in continuing daters by increasingly similar reports of reward, equity, and liking. Results are discussed in terms of initial versus gradually evolving differences between continuing and noncontinuing relationships.     

Inmates' perceptions of determinate and indeterminate sentences

The movement to replace indeterminate with determinate sentencing is among the most important recent developments in the criminal justice field. While the views of citizens and scholars on the subject have been widely promulgated, little is known about those of the ultimate “consumers” of sentencing reform, namely, inmates. This article examines the views of a systematic sample of inmates in a maximum security institution in Massachusetts. Subjects' opinions were sought on the relative merits of the two typs of sentencing, and possible behavioral and deterrent effects of a proposed switch to determinate sentencing. More inmates were found to be either opposed to or undecided about than in favor of determinate sentencing.