Social Psychological Correlates of Teachers' Language Attitudes1

In this paper, we examine social psychological correlates of teachers' linguistic diversity attitudes. We surveyed 191 regular-classroom teachers in 3 states (Arizona, Utah, and Virginia) to determine the relative effects of psychological insecurity, political ideology, cognitive sophistication, and educational level on language attitudes. Region of the country was included as a contextual variable. We tested the effects of education and cognitive sophistication on tolerance of language minority groups. Psychological insecurity measures and political conservatism were associated with negative language attitudes. Cognitive sophistication but not education was related to positive language attitudes. Teachers from Arizona had more positive language attitudes than did their counterparts in Utah and Virginia. We discuss the implications of our research for inservice and teacher-education programs directed toward constructive attitude change around language diversity issues.     

Telephone Counseling for Smoking Cessation: What's in a Call?

Telephone counseling for smoking cessation has been gaining popularity as studies have demonstrated its efficacy. What comprises a successful program, however, has not yet been detailed in the literature. In this article, an innovative telephone counseling intervention for smoking cessation is described, with attention to the clinical issues of client assessment, motivation, self-efficacy, planning, coping, relapse-sensitive call scheduling, and self-image. Counselor training and supervision issues, ethical and legal considerations regarding this form of service delivery, and suggestions for future direction also are outlined.     

Why-questions, determinism and circular reasoning

In this article I shall aim at showing that there exists beneath the surface of many why-questions about human behaviour a nest of deterministic assumptions which can preclude their ever being truly answered. A symptom of the presence of these underlying assumptions can be observed in an explanation-seeking dialogue in which the questioner persistently tries to discover why a certain human behaviour occurred. He repeats his why-question until he gets the type of answer he wants, but in the process he effectively reasons in a circle. If the repeated questioning with its implied circular reasoning becomes chronic, then the questioner will beg the question with regards to the answer he desires and consequently run the risk of missing the truth.     

Recognition of familiar and unfamiliar melodies in normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease

We tested normal young and elderly adults and elderly Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients on recognition memory for tunes. In Experiment 1, AD patients and age-matched controls received a study list and an old/new recognition test of highly familiar, traditional tunes, followed by a study list and test of novel tunes. The controls performed better than did the AD patients. The controls showed the “mirror effect” of increased hits and reduced false alarms for traditional versus novel tunes, whereas the patients false-alarmed as often to traditional tunes as to novel tunes. Experiment 2 compared young adults and healthy elderly persons using a similar design. Performance was lower in the elderly group, but both younger and older subjects showed the mirror effect. Experiment 3 produced confusion between preexperimental familiarity and intraexperimental familiarity by mixing traditional and novel tunes in the study lists and tests. Here, the subjects in both age groups resembled the patients of Experiment 1 in failing to show the mirror effect. Older subjects again performed more poorly, and they differed qualitatively from younger subjects in setting stricter criteria for more nameable tunes. Distinguishing different sources of global familiarity is a factor in tune recognition, and the data suggest that this type of source monitoring is impaired in AD and involves different strategies in younger and older adults.     

Punished and unpunished responding in multiple variable-interval schedules

The performance of rats trained on multiple variable-interval schedules was examined before, during, and after punishment. The same linear function related relative response rates to relative density of reinforcement both in the presence and absence of punishment. Equal relative suppression was seen in both the high and low reinforcement density components. The intercept value of the function was zero. Each component of the schedule was programmed on a separate lever: thus during any component, there was an opportunity for responses on the nonoperative lever (errors). The proportions of these errors declined to a near-zero value during punishment and did not regain their prepunishment values after punishment was removed, suggesting that some discrimination learning occurred during punishment. Recovery of response rate during punishment was seen only where a greater-than-zero probability of reinforcement was associated with the response.     

A forty-three day avoidance session

A single Sprague-Dawley rat was subjected to an extended discriminated avoidance session in effect continuously for over 1000 hr (43 days). The longest possible shock-free interval that the subject could obtain without responding was 5 min. Since the subject did not sleep through shock, all resting or sleeping was interrupted at least once every 5 min by either a response or a shock. Neither the experimental (avoidance) animal nor a second animal which received all shocks not avoided by the first, gave any appearance of ill effects from the protracted session.     

Evaluation of fee collection policy changes in an alcohol halfway house

This study used an ABAB design and 1-year retrospective baseline to evaluate the impact of a contingency management and feedback policy on payment of fees by clients in a halfway house for substance abusers. The results indicated no consistent effect of the intervention on halfway house income, but some clients did appear to increase their saving and decrease their spending behavior while making sufficient fee payments to avoid the policy contingencies.