The effects of a response cost treatment tactic on hyperactive children

In a pilot study, a multielement design was used to assess the effectiveness of a response cost procedure on a 7-year-old child's hyperactive behavior and academic performance across days. The procedure was effective in reducing off-task behavior and in increasing academic assignment completion. In Experiment 2, three strategies were compared to a no-treatment baseline in treating an 8-year-old hyperactive child: drug (Ritalin) alone, response cost alone, and drug plus response cost. The cost program alone and the cost program combined with medication were effective in reducing off-task behavior and in increasing academic performance. In both studies, the procedure was viewed by the teachers as practical and effective for use in a classroom setting. The subjects liked the cost system and believed that they completed more academic work when it was operative.     

Instructed versus pharmacological effects of alcohol in alcoholics and social drinkers

Twelve alcoholics and 12 social drinkers were studied in an experiment where instructions about alcohol or placebo were orthogonally crossed with administration of alcohol or placebo in a Balanced Placebo Design. Three subjects were simultaneously observed while watching soccer games on the TV together and having free access to a mixed drink, which in the alcohol conditions contained 150ml of 80% proof vodka. The assessment procedure included several aspects of drinking behavior, behavioral observations during the session, psychiatric ratings and nurse observations before and after each session, ratings for craving, self-reported state anxiety and physiological changes (heart rate and blood pressure). In general, the results showed the alcoholic's behavior to be controlled by instruction-induced expectancies rather than by the actual beverage given, whereas the social drinkers showed tendencies in the opposite direction. The implications of these results for the traditional disease conception of alcoholism and for learning theory approaches are discussed.     

DINING OUT WITH CHILDREN: EFFECTIVENESS OF A PARENT ADVICE PACKAGE ON PRE-MEAL INAPPROPRIATE BEHAVIOR

The effectiveness of an advice package designed to restructure the restaurant environment and encourage parent praise was examined. Experiment 1 assessed the usefulness of the package when used with experimenter assistance. Videotapes were used to record the target child's behavior. Pre-meal inappropriate behavior decreased an average of 51% across target children. Mealtime inappropriate behavior and parent praise and disapproval were also measured. Experiment 2 was designed to determine whether families could implement the package without experimenter assistance and whether effects obtained would generalize to a different restaurant. Data were taken in vivo. Nine families were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Group assignment determined the order in which families went to two restaurants, the number of dinners each family participated in, and the point at which parents received the advice package. The order in which the families went to the two restaurants as well as the number of baseline meals was counterbalanced. Results of Experiment 2 showed that, when using the advice package, parents in all sequences were able to decrease pre-meal inappropriate behavior of their children, and that these effects generalized to a second restaurant.     

The problem of business ethics: Oxymoron or inadequate vocabulary?

Recently critics have faulted American business schools for failing to impart to their students an understanding of ethics and its role in business. In this paper, we agree and attribute this situation, at least in part, to the need for a vocabulary of ethics and a failure to communicate Adam Smith's moral orientation to capitalism. So long as business schools fail to recognize explicitly that Smith, whoseThe Wealth of Nations serves as an intellectual backdrop for business school curricula, did in fact provide a place for ethics in capitalist economic relations (indeed, some would argue a dominant place), they will continue to advocate implicitly the theory of amorality in business—the idea that ethics has no place in business. By examining Smith's ethical arguments we can explicate the moral underpinnings of stakeholder analysis, a currently popular approach to management decision-making.Although we will use ethics and morality interchangeably in this paper, there is a distinction to be made. Ethics is the branch of philosophy concentrating on morality. Morality pertains to what is right and wrong.     

Poisson signal-detection theory: Link between threshold models and the Gaussian assumption

The Gaussian model of signal detection cannot fit asymmetric data as long as the variances of the distributions are kept equal. It is therefore common practice to assume unequal variances in order to fit these data. But this assumption leads to the well-known crossover problem. The present paper provides new arguments for the abandonment of the Gaussian model with unequal variances. In its stead, this paper reevaluates multiple-parallel-threshold models. In particular, the Poisson model turns out to be very useful: it can handle data with any degree of asymmetry, giving a reasonable interpretation of the two parameters of the receiver-operating characteristic. The three-state-threshold model (Krantz, 1969) is given a new interpretation in light of the Poisson model. The slope of Poisson double-probability plots turns out to be much closer to unity than is predicted by the Gaussian approximation.     

RITALIN VS. RESPONSE COST IN THE CONTROL OF HYPERACTIVE CHILDREN: A WITHIN-SUBJECT COMPARISON

A within-subject comparison was made of the effects of methylphenidate (Ritalin) and response cost in reducing the off-task behavior of two boys, 7 and 8 years of age, who had been diagnosed as having an attentional deficit disorder with hyperactivity. Several dosages of Ritalin (5 to 20 mg/day) were evaluated with the results indicating varying effects of the drug for both children. Response cost (with free-time as the reinforcer) was superior to Ritalin in raising levels of on-task behavior and in improving academic performance.     

VISITING THE DENTIST: A BEHAVIORAL COMMUNITY ANALYSIS OF PARTICIPATION IN A DENTAL HEALTH SCREENING AND REFERRAL PROGRAM

One-hundred and twenty-five families in the Medicaid Early Periodic Screening, Diagnosis and Treatment Program were assigned to one of five treatments to encourage parents to obtain health care service following the dental screening of their children: (a) a control procedure, in which parents were given a dentist's name; (b) a multiple contact procedure, in which parents received a postcard and two telephone call reminders; (c) a problem-solve procedure, in which a social worker aide conducted a brief session with the parent; (d) an incentive procedure, in which parents selected among four gifts that were contingent on seeking care; (e) an incentive + problem-solve procedure, in which the latter two treatments were combined. The multiple contact, incentive, and incentive + problem-solve techniques were significantly more effective in initiating dental visits than the control procedures. Families assigned to the intensive strategies were most likely to complete treatment. A cost-efficiency analysis showed the multiple contact technique to be a low-cost and highly effective procedure.