PSYCHOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN HONG KONG

With the rapid development of cross-cultural psychology, there is a need to provide international centres for research, which can become main focal points for cross-cultural research in specific geographic regions. The development of the Department of Psychology at the University of Hong Kong is being carried out with this broader context in view. In addition to offering excellent university facilities for psychological research, Hong Kong is also centrally located in relation to other Asian countries such as Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, Philippines Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Cambodia, none of which is more than 1500 miles from Hong Kong. The purpose of this paper is therefore to describe the departmental facilities for cross-cultural research in Hong Kong, departmental teaching, psychological research in Hong Kong, and finally the potential of Hong Kong as a natural laboratory for research in a multi-cultural, multilingual, traditional-modern context.     

A conditioning technique applicable to elementary school classrooms

A procedure was developed for use in a public school classroom where only one of the children needed treatment, sophisticated apparatus was not feasible, personnel were untrained in conditioning techniques, and where disruption had to be minimized. Candy reinforcers were contingent upon working behavior. The total candy earned in the session was divided equally among the class. Portable radio control apparatus was adopted to give feedback to the child when he was displaying the desired working behavior. An increase in working behavior and a decrease in talking aloud and out-of-seat behavior was observed for each of the four subjects. When the feedback apparatus was removed, the desired behavior was maintained through candy reinforcement alone in all four subjects.     

Development of social responses in two severely retarded children

The effect of reinforcement dependent on the social responses of two severely retarded withdrawn children was investigated. During 30 training sessions (30 min each) food and praise were administered dependent upon the children's mutual participation in a ball-rolling and block-passing task. Both children showed a progressive increase in social interaction in a non-training situation during this reinforcement period. After the reinforcement procedures were removed, social behavior decreased markedly. Response generalization to children not involved in training occurred.