The effect of affirmative action on attributions about minority group members

In the first study subjects were given information about an applicant to graduate school and asked to rate his qualifications. The information experimentally varied (a) whether the school had an affirmative action policy, (b) the ethnicity of the applicant, and (c) whether the applicant was accepted or rejected. Based on Kelley's discussion of the discounting and augmentation principles, it was predicted that the minority applicant would be rated as less qualified when the university was committed to an affirmative action program. The reverse pattern was predicted for the non-minority applicant. The results supported the first prediction but not the second. Experiment 2 was designed to eliminate alternative interpretations of the data and the same results were found. Possible interpretations for the failure of affirmative action in affecting the ratings of nonminority applicants are discussed.     

GENERALIZING ARTICULATION TRAINING WITH TRAINABLE MENTALLY RETARDED SUBJECTS1

A multiple-baseline technique was used to evaluate generalization effects during articulation training with trainable mentally retarded subjects. Four target words were selected for each subject on the basis of whether the subject could articulate the word correctly when it was modelled but could not articulate the word correctly in response to a picture of it. Five different settings were selected for generalization probing and training for each subject. In Setting 1, Experimenter 1 initiated training sequentially on all four target words for each subject. Other experimenters probed for correct articulation generalization in four other settings. Training was initiated in these four other settings sequentially only if correct responding failed to generalize to a setting. Results indicated that it was necessary to initiate training on at least three of the four selected target words in at least one additional setting with an additional trainer before correct responding generalized to untrained settings.     

Foreign Investments in Southern Africa

“If one believes in the Prince of Peace one must stop committing crimes in the name of the Prince of Peace. The Christian Church still rules this world, it still has the power to change the structure of South Africa.” James Baldwin in his address to the Fourth Assembly of the World Council of Churches, Uppsala, 1968.     

THE EFFECT OF EXPERIMENTER FACIAL ORIENTATION DURING IMITATION MAINTENANCE1

The training and maintenance of imitative responding has become an important therapeutic process with language-handicapped children, as indicated by Garcia and DeHaven (American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 1974, 79 , 169–178). Typically a training “package” is used, that might entail the use of operant shaping, fading, reinforcement, and punishment techniques designed to increase correct imitation and decrease incorrect responding. Only recently have studies begun to concentrate on the components of these training “packages”. Steinman (Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1970, 3 , 159–167) highlighted the roles played by less conspicuous but functionally important components of these packages. The present study attempted to provide a systematic extension of this work within an applied context. Using subjects who were responding at high levels during an imitation-maintenance procedure, experimenter facial orientation (experimenter's eyes and head oriented towards the subject's face and head), was systematically manipulated for experimentally determined “types” of imitative behavior. Differential responding within these parameters provided an evaluation of facial orientation as a functional component within this training package. Three retarded children participated in the study. Two types of topographically different imitative responses were defined for experimental purposes (“standing” and “sitting”). Each subject progressed through four conditions of the study, which called for the reinforcement of all imitative responses. But during preselected conditions, experimenter facial orientation was removed from the therapeutic package for one of the two topographical types of imitation. Results indicated that imitation of the two topographical types of models was dependent on the presence of experimenter facial orientation within the experimental procedure.     

A speech-rate intelligibility threshold for speeded and time-compressed connected speech

An automated threshold method has been developed for determining the maximum rate of speech understood by individual listeners. Two experiments were undertaken to determine whether the threshold was related to the comprehension of speech or to speech intelligibility. The first experiment compared thresholds of two types of rapid speech reportedly different in intelligibility: simple speeded speech and speech compressed by the sampling method. The second experiment sought to determine the relationship of the threshold to traditional comprehension measures. The results are discussed in terms of the intelligibility and comprehensibility of speech.     

Goal attainment scaling: An idiosyncratic method to assess treatment effectiveness in agoraphobia

Goal attainment scaling (GAS) is an individually tailored way to measure treatment gains, using a highly standardized procedure. An advantage of the method is that it takes into account individual characteristics of the patients, and at the same time the data are suitable for quantitative analysis and comparable across patients. Despite the wide acceptance and use of the method in the evaluation of psychotherapy, data on its psychometric properties are rather scarce. In the current study, GAS was used as one of several outcome measures in a research project on the effectiveness of various treatments for panic disorder with agoraphobia. Guidelines for GAS are presented as well as data on the reliability and validity of the procedure. Results indicate that the procedure is reliable, valid, and sensitive to the improvement of patients during treatment. Comparison of GAS with standardized measures revealed considerable concordance, although the clinical end status of patients diverged somewhat dependent on the measure considered.     

Avoidance of pain of unpredictable intensity

Unpredictability of the intensity of an aversive event might be an important factor in producing negative effects of the event, especially if the UCS becomes stronger than could have been expected. The present experiment tested the hypothesis that unpredictability of intensity of a painful stimulus contributes to avoidance behaviour. The experiment was concealed in a shock working-up procedure, which was done to assess the pain level subjects were willing to tolerate in a subsequent experiment. The experimental subjects, who received an unannounced sudden increase of the pain stimulus during the working-up procedure, tolerated less pain on a subjective as well as on an objective level (avoidance of high levels of pain) than the control subjects, who received the stimuli in a predictable pattern. The results support the hypothesis that unpredictability of intensity of an aversive event contributes to avoidance behaviour.     

Neurotic nucleus and test anxiety.

Undergraduate university students (N = 103) participated in a study of the relationship between test anxiety and the variables of trait anxiety, self-esteem, locus of control, mental ability, and gender. Results indicated bivariate associations between total test anxiety and the other measures except for mental ability. Further analyses revealed independent relationships between the "worry" component of test anxiety and the variables of trait anxiety, internality, chance, and mental ability. We also found independent associations between the "emotionality" aspect of test anxiety and the measures of trait anxiety and chance.