Synthesizing Single-Case Research to Identify Evidence-Based Practices: Some Brief Reflections

The purposes of this paper are to (a) propose an operational standard for defining a ??practice,?? (b) encourage development of professional standards for visual and statistical analysis of single-case research, and (c) propose a standard for using single-case research results to identify practices that are ??evidence-based.?? These topics are not new for behavioral researchers, but they become critical for the larger conversations now occurring among researchers, policy makers, and educators working to implement effective practices in psychology and education.     

COMPONENT ANALYSIS OF BEHAVIOR SKILLS TRAINING IN FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS

Behavioral Skills Training (BST) is an effective training package that consists of instructions, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback. Although the efficacy of BST has been demonstrated, previous research has not clearly delineated its active components. This study used an alternating‐treatment design embedded within ABC and ABCD designs to evaluate the independent effects of all components of BST for training teachers to conduct functional analyses. Prior to baseline, teachers reviewed written instructions. Following baseline, modeling, rehearsal, and feedback training occurred independently during the first training phase and in combination during subsequent training phases. Rehearsal was ineffective, whereas feedback was effective at improving the performance of all teachers. Modeling was less effective than feedback, such that improvements only occurred for some teachers and some functional analysis responses. Thus, feedback, and to a lesser extent, modeling are the effective and perhaps necessary components of BST. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Subjective Well-Being and Retirement: Analysis and Policy Recommendations

This study examines the relationship between retirement and subjective well-being (SWB), utilizing international data from sixteen countries in Western Europe and the US. Differences in social security regimes are exploited to estimate the retirement decision such that it is exogenous to individual-level characteristics. Although results from traditional ordinary least squares suggest an ambiguous relationship between retirement and SWB, this is due to comparatively lower SWB among those who choose retirement. The removal of selection bias reveals a large, positive effect that fades over a few years, suggesting a multi-stage adjustment to retirement. Individuals facing formal retirement at age 65 or later experience an increase in SWB that is roughly equivalent in total value to that of individuals facing earlier retirement, and both groups return to trend by age 70. This suggests that raising the formal retirement age, which is widely discussed today by policymakers, is relatively neutral with regard to SWB in the long-term.     

Self-determined immortality: Testing the role of autonomy in promoting perceptions of symbolic immortality and well-being

Motivation and Emotion - This pre-registered work was designed to replicate and extend previous research finding that autonomy is associated with greater extent of belief in symbolic immortality...     

Personality and Reaction Time after Sleep Deprivation

The relationship between reaction time and both state and trait personality variables was investigated in 37 participants after 30 h of sleep deprivation. Regression analyses suggested that endorsement of greater Novelty Seeking, anger/hostility, and depression/dejection, and less confusion, was associated with greater reaction time declines on one Multi-Attribute Task Battery index after sleep deprivation. Further, greater Novelty Seeking and depression/dejection, and less vigor/activity, was associated with greater reaction time declines after sleep deprivation on another Multi-Attribute Task Battery index. Additional correlational analyses indicated that better reaction times were associated with greater Novelty Seeking and lower anger/hostility prior to sleep deprivation, and less confusion/bewilderment following sleep deprivation. Findings suggest that both state and trait personality variables are associated with reaction time performance following sleep deprivation.     

Causal knowledge and imitation/emulation switching in chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and children (Homo sapiens)

This study explored whether the tendency of chimpanzees and children to use emulation or imitation to solve a tool-using task was a response to the availability of causal information. Young wild-born chimpanzees from an African sanctuary and 3- to 4-year-old children observed a human demonstrator use a tool to retrieve a reward from a puzzle-box. The demonstration involved both causally relevant and irrelevant actions, and the box was presented in each of two conditions: opaque and clear. In the opaque condition, causal information about the effect of the tool inside the box was not available, and hence it was impossible to differentiate between the relevant and irrelevant parts of the demonstration. However, in the clear condition causal information was available, and subjects could potentially determine which actions were necessary. When chimpanzees were presented with the opaque box, they reproduced both the relevant and irrelevant actions, thus imitating the overall structure of the task. When the box was presented in the clear condition they instead ignored the irrelevant actions in favour of a more efficient, emulative technique. These results suggest that emulation is the favoured strategy of chimpanzees when sufficient causal information is available. However, if such information is not available, chimpanzees are prone to employ a more comprehensive copy of an observed action. In contrast to the chimpanzees, children employed imitation to solve the task in both conditions, at the expense of efficiency. We suggest that the difference in performance of chimpanzees and children may be due to a greater susceptibility of children to cultural conventions, perhaps combined with a differential focus on the results, actions and goals of the demonstrator.     

Self-control and the preference for delayed reinforcement an example in brain injury

We investigated the effects of a concurrent physical therapy activity (keeping the hand open) during delays to reinforcement in an adult man with acquired brain injuries. Once a relatively stable level of hand-open behavior was obtained, the participant was asked to choose between a small immediate reinforcer and a larger delayed reinforcer contingent on keeping the hand open at greater-than-baseline duration. Afterwards, the participant was asked to select between a larger delayed reinforcer with no hand-open requirement and the identical larger delayed reinforcer with a progressively increasing hand-open requirement. Results suggest a shift in preference to larger delayed reinforcers and an eventual preference for the hand-open requirement option.     

Relation between aging and rated teaching effectiveness of academic psychologists

Within a combined cross-sectional and longitudinal design, several analyses showed that student-rated teaching effectiveness in university professors declined with age. For 106 full-time psychology teachers, aged 26 to 55, who were studied for time periods ranging from 2 to 15 years, an overall negative correlation of r = -.33 (p less than .05) was found between age and general teaching effectiveness. A similar decrement with age occurred for items measuring specific teaching behaviors. Age accounted for 8% of the variance in general teaching effectiveness.