ABOLISHING AND ESTABLISHING OPERATION ANALYSES OF SOCIAL ATTENTION AS POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT FOR PROBLEM BEHAVIOR

Three participants whose problem behavior was maintained by contingent attention were exposed to 45‐min presessions in which attention was withheld, provided on a fixed‐time (FT) 15‐s schedule, or provided on an FT 120‐s schedule. Following each presession, participants were then tested in a 15‐min session similar to the social attention condition of an analogue functional analysis. The results showed establishing operation conditions increased problem behavior during tests and that abolishing operation conditions decreased problem behavior during tests.     

Color,context, and compositionality

Color adjectives have played a central role in work on language typology and variation, but there has been relatively little investigation of their meanings by researchers in formal semantics. This is surprising given the fact that color terms have been at the center of debates in the philosophy of language over foundational questions, in particular whether the idea of a compositional, truth-conditional theory of natural language semantics is even coherent. The challenge presented by color terms is articulated in detail in the work of Charles Travis. Travis argues that structurally isomorphic sentences containing color adjectives can shift truth value from context to context depending on how they are used and in the absence of effects of vagueness or ambiguity/polysemy, and concludes that a deterministic mapping from structures to truth conditions is impossible. The goal of this paper is to provide a linguistic perspective on this issue, which we believe defuses Travis’ challenge. We provide empirical arguments that color adjectives are in fact ambiguous between gradable and nongradable interpretations, and that this simple ambiguity, together with independently motivated options concerning scalar dimension within the gradable reading accounts for the Travis facts in a simpler, more constrained, and thus ultimately more successful fashion than recent contextualist analyses such as those in Szabó (Perspectives on semantics, pragmatics and discourse: A festschrift for Ferenc Kiefer, 2001) or Rothschild and Segal (Mind Lang, 2009).     

CONTEXTUAL CONTROL OF PROBLEM BEHAVIOR IN STUDENTS WITH SEVERE DISABILITIES

We investigated the impact of contextual variation on the effectiveness of two interventions. The problem behavior of 2 students with severe disabilities was analyzed across two contexts (task and leisure). Effects of differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) and time-out procedures were examined in the two contexts. Results indicated that in the task context the DRO procedure effectively reduced the problem behavior and increased task performance, whereas the time-out procedure was ineffective. In addition, rate of correct task performance increased during DRO relative to baseline and time-out. In contrast, in the leisure context, the time-out procedure effectively reduced the same problem behavior and the DRO procedure was ineffective. The results are discussed in terms of contextual control of problem behavior and alternative strategies for the design of DRO procedures.     

Reading Proficiency and Comparability of Mathematics and Science Scores for Students From English and Non-English Backgrounds: An International Perspective

The purpose of this research is to examine the comparability of mathematics and science scores for students from English language backgrounds (ELB) and non-English language backgrounds (NELB). We examine the relationship between English reading proficiency and performance on mathematics and science assessments in Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The findings indicate a strong relationship with reading proficiency accounting for up to 43% of the variance in mathematics and up to 79% in science. In all comparisons, ELB students either outperformed NELB students or performed at the same level. However, when statistical adjustments were made for reading proficiency, in both mathematics and science, the score gap between the groups became statistically non-significant in three out of the four countries. These findings point to differences in score meaning in mathematics and science assessments and limitations in comparing performances of ELB and NELB.     

Is “What Has Been Cared For” Necessarily Good? Further Evidence for the Negative Impact of Cosmetics Use on Impression Formation1

The effects of cosmetics on impression formation were tested with students from either psychology or business and aesthetic schools. They were presented photographs of young and older female targets wearing or not wearing facial makeup and rated them for both physical attractiveness and a number of personality traits. In contrast with Graham and Jouhar's (1981) idea of a positive cosmetic stereotype, makeup had a negative impact on impression formation, especially for the young targets. More consistent with these authors' perspective, this impact was not mediated by attribution of physical attractiveness (PA), suggesting the existence of a separate cosmetic stereotype (relative to the PA stereotype). The influence of makeup was also stronger on the psychology undergraduates than on the other participants, suggesting that the way cosmetic users are perceived also depends on perceivers' group membership.     

Test-Retest Properties of the Least Preferred Co-worker (LPC) Score

The test-retest properties of the Least Preferred Co-Worker (LPC) scale and two subscales were examined under two conditions: (a) a naive condition, in which respondents were uninformed as to the meaning of the scale and (b) an informed condition, in which the scale was explained to respondents between administrations. The results support the hypothesis that the test-retest stability of the total LPC score would decrease significantly when respondents understood the scale. The stability of the interpersonal subscale exhibited a decrease similar to that of the total scale score, whereas the stability of the task subscale remained constant even when the scale was explained.     

THE MODERATING ROLES OF RACE AND GENDER-ROLE ATTITUDES IN THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SEXUAL HARASSMENT AND PSYCHOLOGICAL WELL-BEING

Although previous research has linked sexual harassment to negative psychological outcomes, few studies have focused on moderators of these relationships. The present study surveyed Black ( n = 88) and White ( n = 170) female undergraduates who endorsed experiences of sexual harassment to examine whether traditional gender attitudes differentially moderated the relationship between sexual harassment and three outcomes: posttraumatic stress symptoms, general clinical symptoms, and satisfaction with life. We replicated past findings that sexual harassment is related to negative outcomes. Further, the results supported our hypothesis that less traditional gender attitudes (i.e., more feminist attitudes) would buffer the negative effects of sexual harassment for White women, whereas the same attitudes would exacerbate its negative effects for Black women. We discuss reasons for these differences, including Black women's double consciousness and differences in the meaning of feminist and traditional gender attitudes for Black and White women.