Effects of public and private deviancy on compliance with a request

A confederate requester asked subjects to write letters for an educational campaign after they had completed a battery of tests and received either deviant or nondeviant feedback. Half of the subjects were led to believe that the requester had knowledge of their test performance; the remaining half believed that the confederate did not know their test scores. Within these conditions, some subjects believed that complying with the request would involve future meetings with the requester while others were not led to anticipate any future interaction. As expected, deviants complied more than nondeviants replicating Freedman and Doob's (1968) results; however, neither the secret/known nor the future interaction variations produced effects. Contrary to the prediction that deviants are compliant because they wish to avoid mistreatment, secret deviants complied slightly more than known deviants. Compliance was discussed as instrumental in improving self-image.     

TREATING OVERWEIGHT CHILDREN THROUGH PARENTAL TRAINING AND CONTINGENCY CONTRACTING1

Fifteen overweight girls aged 5 to 11 yr were randomly assigned to one of two weight-reduction treatments: response-cost plus reinforcement, response-cost only, or a no-treatment control group. In the response-cost plus reinforcement group, parents contracted to facilitate their child's weight loss by carrying out reinforcement and stimulus control techniques, completing weekly charts and graphs, and encouraging their child to exercise. The response-cost only group parents did not contract to reinforce their child's performance. The response-cost program applied to both experimental groups was conducted in weekly meetings in which parents lost previously deposited sums of money. Twenty-five per cent was deducted for missing the weekly meeting, 25% for failing to fill out charts and graphs, and 50% if their child failed to meet her specified weekly weight-loss goal. At the end of the 12-week treatment period, both experimental groups had lost significantly more weight than the control group. After an eight-week, no-contact follow-up, some of the lost weight was regained. The response-cost plus reinforcement group was still significantly below the controls. The response-cost group just missed significance. A 31-week, no-contact follow-up failed to show a treatment effect, but did show a trend towards slower weight gain by the response-cost plus reinforcement group.     

Immediate and delayed punishment of human behavior by loss of reinforcement

Young adult humans pressed a key to obtain money. When responding was punished by presentation of a stimulus signifying that money was lost, response frequencies decreased and response latencies increased. Since these changes did not increase relative earnings, the aversive properties of loss of reinforcement were manifested independently or reinforcement gain. When loss punishment was delayed for either 10, 20, or 40 sec the extent of suppression was found to vary inversely with the response-punishment interval. Subsequent manipulations indicated that the effectiveness of delayed punishment was increased when the response also produced immediate conditioned punishment, i.e., a stimulus paired with the delayed loss stimulus. Instructions about the response-punishment contingency had similar effects. The findings were consistent with animal studies of delayed shock punishment, insofar as a similar delay-of-punishment gradient was observed, and with studies of delayed positive reinforcement, insofar as mediation through conditioned punishment (or instructions) increased the effectiveness of delayed punishment.     

Studies on protein genetic factors in multiple sclerosis and psychoses]

In more than 200 cases of multiple sclerosis, psychosis and cyclothymia, the Hp types are studied with the help of polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis (Schreyer and Schaible, 1967) and the Gc types wtih agar gel electrophoresis (Schlesinger, Vogt and Prokop, 1963). All Hp and Gc types were found in these diseases, but there was no frequent occurence of any particular type in multiple acleroses of psychoses. According to our results, there is no interdependence between these diseases and the Hp and Gc types.     

REDUCING AGGRESSIVE AND SELF-INJURIOUS BEHAVIOR OF INSTITUTIONALIZED RETARDED CHILDREN THROUGH REINFORCEMENT OF OTHER BEHAVIORS1

Aggressive and self-injurious behaviors of four retarded children were reduced by combining various techniques with the differential reinforcement of other behaviors (DRO). In one study, aggressive responses of a severely retarded child were reduced when DRO was combined with a 30-sec timeout. In a second study, various aggressive classroom behaviors were reduced when the child was told “no” for an inappropriate response but earned puzzle pieces for periods of time when inappropriate responses did not occur. Exchangeable tokens were given to a third subject for every 15 min in which aggressive responding did not occur, while each inappropriate response resulted in the loss of all tokens accrued. Responding was decreased to a level far below baseline. For a fourth child, self-injurious responses were followed by “no”, and intervals of time in which no self-injurious responding occurred earned candy. The rate of this behavior reduced significantly. In each case, the DRO procedure combined with the other techniques proved to be manageable for the teacher and successful in reducing the inappropriate behavior.     

Receiving Help,Reciprocation, and Interpersonal Attraction1

In a 3 × 3 factorial experiment with 3 additional cells, 329 male or female subjects working with two same-sex confederates (A and B), received either voluntary, involuntary, or no help from A after which attraction to A and B were measured for one-fourth of the subjects. The remaining subjects were assigned to a second set of tasks and were induced to help A, help B, or were not given an opportunity to help, after which they completed attraction and mood measures. Subjects were more likely to volunteer help after the second task when they had received prior help. Receipt of help led to more liking for the helper and the helper was liked more when subjects were able to reciprocate. Attraction and mood results are discussed in relation to attractiveness mediation, modeling, and indebtedness explanations for reciprocity.     

Black-white differences at ages 212−812 on the McCarthy scales of children's abilities

Comparisons were made between matched groups of black and white children on the new McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities. Using the standardization sample as the data source, 148 matched pairs were obtained. These were grouped as follows: ages $\text{2}\text{1}\text{2}\text{?3}\text{1}\text{2}\text{(}\text{N}\text{= 60), 6}\text{1}\text{2}\text{8}\text{1}\text{2}\text{(}\text{N}\text{= 45)}$. The blacks and whites did not differ significantly on any of the cognitive scales at ages $\text{2}\text{1}\text{2}\text{?3}\text{1}\text{2}\text{and}\text{4?5}\text{1}\text{2}$, although at ages $\text{6}\text{1}\text{2}\text{-8}\text{1}\text{2}$ the whites scored about $\text{1}\text{2}\text{SD}$ higher. The blacks scored significantly higher on the Motor Scale at ages $\text{4?5}\text{1}\text{2}$ but there were no differences at other ages. The implications of these findings are discussed.     

Prediction in future samples studied in terms of the gain from selection

The gain from selection (GS) is defined as the standardized average performance of a group of subjects selected in a future sample using a regression equation derived on an earlier sample. Expressions for the expected value, density, and distribution function (DF) of GS are derived and studied in terms of sample size, number of predictors, and the prior distribution assigned to the population multiple correlation. The DF of GS is further used to determine how large sample sizes must be so that with probability .90 (.95), the expected GS will be within 90 percent of its maximum possible value. An approximately unbiased estimator of the expected GS is also derived.