Social problem solving and mother-child interactions of educable mentally retarded children

Mothers of retarded children and nonretarded children were observed and videotaped as they interacted with their own child in a seminaturalistic situation, requiring teaching, cooperation, and free play. The child's social problem-solving abilities were assessed independently. The Vineland scale was employed to provide some convergent evidence of social problem-solving as a component of social competence. Twelve educable mentally retarded and 19 nonretarded 10-year-old children and their mothers comprised the sample. For the mentally retarded group, it was found that the higher maternal directiveness, the lower the child's social problem-solving skills. Mothers who often gave the child opportunity for decision-making and social influence had children with higher problem-solving skills. The retarded children produced significantly fewer different strategies for solving social problems, but gave a wider range of strategies than has been found in previous research. There was some support that social problem-solving skills are related to social maturity.     

The effect of earlier experience and reward contingencies on intrinsic motivation

The effects of task-contingent and performance-contingent extrinsic rewards upon subsequent intrinsic motivation are compared. Intrinsic motivation is measured by behavioral observation in a free time period and by rating scales. The results show, as expected, a higher rating of intrinsic motivation in the performance-contingent reward condition. The study further compares strength of intrinsic motivation in one- and two-session conditions. As hypothesized, a two-session condition, in which the subjects have a preexperience with the task without reward administration, leads to a higher rating of intrinsic motivation than a one-session condition without such a preexperience. The behavioral measure of intrinsic motivation is not significantly affected by the conditions. A post hoc analysis of the data indicates that there may be a different effect of extrinsic rewards on behavioral measures and on rating scale measures of intrinsic motivation.     

Dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) comprehend the referential character of the human pointing gesture

The authors tested a dolphin's (Tursiops truncatus) understanding of human manual pointing gestures to 3 distal objects located to the left of, to the right of, or behind the dolphin. The human referred to an object through a direct point (Pd), a cross-body point (Px), or a familiar symbolic gesture (S). In Experiment 1, the dolphin responded correctly to 80% of Pds toward laterally placed objects but to only 40% of Pds to the object behind. Responding to objects behind improved to 88% in Experiment 2 after exaggerated pointing was briefly instituted. Spontaneous comprehension of Pxs also was demonstrated. In Experiment 3, the human produced a sequence of 2 Pds, 2 Pxs, 2 Ss, or all 2-way combinations of these 3 to direct the dolphin to take the object referenced second to the object referenced first. Accuracy ranged from 68% to 77% correct (chance = 17%). These results established that the dolphin understood the referential character of the human manual pointing gesture.     

Memory for action events in the bottlenosed dolphin

We investigated whether a bottlenosed dolphin’s ability to recall and repeat actions on command would immediately generalize to actions performed with specified objects. The dolphin was tested on her ability to repeat 18 novel behaviors performed with potentially interchangeable objects specified using an artificial gestural language. Such “action events” were correctly repeated at above chance levels, indicating that the dolphin had access to memories of those events. Performance levels were, however, lower than in previous tests. The dolphin appeared to have difficulty recalling which object an action was performed with. Previous research has demonstrated that animals can recall features of their environment and features of their actions independently of one another. The results of this study demonstrate (1) that the dolphin’s concept of repeating extends beyond simply accessing memories of movement patterns, and (2) that dolphins’ memories of past events incorporate representations of both self-performed acts and objects, locations, or gestural instructions. Received:10 October 1998 / Accepted after revision: 22 December 1998     

The Development and Validation of a Scale Measuring Global Social Power Based on French and Raven's Power Taxonomy1

A measure of global power was developed based on French and Raven's (1959) definition of social power as the potential of an agent to influence a target. A sample of 346 graduate students responded to a questionnaire assessing their perceptions of the power of their supervising professors in paid assistantship duties. Power was measured using established scales of the French and Raven 5 power bases in addition to the newly developed global power measure. Results indicate that the global power scale (a) has strong internal consistency, (b) is significantly related to each of the 5 individual power bases, and (c) significantly accounts for additional variance in compliance beyond the measures of the 5 power bases, beyond the sum of the bases, and beyond a measure of resistance and control.     

Restrained and unrestrained eating.

Nisbett's (1972) model of obesity implies that individual differences in relative deprivation (relative to set-point weight) within obese and normal weight groups should produce corresponding within-group differences in eating behavior. Normal weight subjects were separated into hypothetically deprived (high restraint) and non-deprived (low restraint) groups. The expectation that high restraint subjects' intake would vary directly with preload size while low restraint subjects would eat in inverse proportion to preload size, was confirmed. It was concluded that relative deprivation rather than obesity per se may be the cirtical determinant of individual differences in eating behavior. Consideration was given to the concept of "restraint" as an important behavioral mechanism affecting the expression of physiologically-based hungar.     

An experimental analysis of exposure to “explicit” heterosexual stimuli as an effective variable in changing arousal patterns of homosexuals

The effect of exposure to explicit heterosexual stimuli on heterosexual arousal was experimentally analyzed in four homosexuals in a series of single case experimental designs. Each subject was sequentially exposed to films of female or male sexual content under positive therapeutic instructions. Penile response to female slides in separate measurement sessions increased during exposure to the female film, decreased during exposure to the male film, and increased once again when the female film was reinstated. The increase in penile response to female stimuli was paralleled in many instances by changes in masturbatory fantasy, reports of arousal and heterosexual behavior outside the laboratory. Increasing heterosexual arousal had little effect on homosexual responsivity. Results are discussed in terms of exposure facilitating extinction of avoidance responses toward females and providing new sexual fantasy content.