TEACHING CHILDREN WITH AUTISM SPECTRUM DISORDER TO MAND FOR INFORMATION USING “WHICH?”

We examined a procedure consisting of a preference assessment, prompting, contrived conditioned establishing operations, and consequences for correct and incorrect responses for teaching children with autism to mand “which?” We used a modified multiple baseline design across 3 participants. All the children learned to mand “which?” Generalization occurred to the natural environment, to a novel activity, and to a novel container; the results were maintained over time.Key words: mand for information, verbal behavior, verbal operant, whichContrived motivating operations have been used to teach mands for information to children with autism, including the mands “what?” (e.g., Williams, Donley, & Keller, 2000), “where?” (e.g., Betz, Higbee, & Pollard, 2010; Lechago, Carr, Grow, Love, & Almason, 2010), and “who?” (e.g., Endicott & Higbee, 2007; Sundberg, Loeb, Hale, & Eigenheer, 2002). More recently, researchers have examined the effects of contriving establishing operations (CEOs) in four different ways to teach children with autism to acquire the mands “what?” (Marion, Martin, Yu, & Buhler, 2011; Roy-Wsiaki, Marion, Martin, & Yu, 2010) and “where?” (Marion, Martin, Yu, Buhler, & Kerr, in press). Like the mands “what?” and “where?,” the mand “which?” is a mand for information that gives the speaker the ability to gather specific information regarding an item (e.g., “Which book is mine?”). Given the dearth of research that has examined interventions to teach mands for information using “which?,” the purpose of the present study was to extend the work of Marion et al. (2011, in press) by contriving one of four CEOs for teaching the mand “which?” to children with autism, and to assess for generalization to the other CEOs, the natural environment, and over time.     

Why Do People Like Natural? Instrumental and Ideational Bases for the Naturalness Preference

Naturalness preference refers to the tendency to prefer natural things to otherwise equivalent unnatural alternatives. Previous research suggests that the naturalness preference is largely due to ideational reasons (moral or aesthetic appeals), rather than instrumental reasons (inferred functional superiority), because the natural and unnatural alternatives were specified as identical. The current studies showed that people do not always believe that natural and unnatural alternatives can be identical. Responses that in previous studies would have been interpreted as ideational‐based naturalness preference were correlated with beliefs in instrumental advantages of natural products. We propose that instrumental and ideational reasons are closely connected, and instrumental beliefs may contribute to the “natural is better” heuristic. The financial consequence of naturalness preference was also demonstrated.     

The effects of accountability on bias in physician decision making: Going from bad to worse

Members of the Iowa Academy of Family Physicians participated in a survey study in which they were asked to make hypothetical decisions in either high- or low-conflict treatment conditions. In the low-conflict treatment condition the options were a common medication with a referral or a referral only. In the high-conflict treatment condition the same two options were given plus another attractive medication. In addition, we manipulated accountability by asking half of the participants to provide a written defense of their treatment options, which they would then agree to discuss at a later time. The results showed that physicians in the high-conflict condition chose the referral-only option significantly more than the physicians in the low-conflict condition, thus violating the normative rule of regularity. Moreover, that pattern was significantly amplified for physicians who were held accountable for their treatment decisions. These findings replicate and extend previous research and are discussed within the framework of reason-based choice.     

Satisficing in hypothesis generation

Research in hypothesis generation suggests that people might act as satisficers and be less likely to generate plausible alternative hypotheses when they already have a hypothesis that accounts for the data in hand. Three experiments simulated scientific hypothesis development. In all 3, participants who had been given a hypothesis consistent with available data generated proportionally fewer of the simplest alternative hypotheses than participants given no such satisficing hypothesis. Furthermore, participant satisficing occurred regardless of whether the provided hypothesis was generated a priori or post hoc and despite high incentives for completeness. Limitations and implications of these findings are discussed for hypothesis development and the practice of taking post hoc hypotheses suggested by one's results and presenting them as a priori hypotheses.     

Knowledge of partner's ability as a moderator of group motivation gains: an exploration of the Köhler discrepancy effect

O. K?hler (1926, 1927) found that less able performers tried harder as team members under conjunctive task demands (Kohler motivation gain effect) and that the greatest gain occurred with moderately discrepant coworker abilities (K?hler discrepancy effect). Recent investigations have reproduced K?hler's overall motivation gain but not the discrepancy effect. The present research examined whether workers' foreknowledge of task abilities--present in Kohler's research, absent in contemporary studies--moderates the discrepancy effect. Participants worked alone or in 2-person teams under conjunctive task demands. Experiment 1 manipulated foreknowledge of ability. Experiment 2 manipulated discrepancy: a (confederate) teammate performed slightly, moderately, or substantially better. Both experiments found (a) overall motivation gains and (b) discrepancy moderation under foreknowledge conditions. Implications for understanding group motivation gains are discussed.     

"Me versus just us versus us all" categorization and cooperation in nested social dilemmas

In its generic form, a social dilemma poses a conflict between private and collective interests. People are often faced, however, with a conflict between private, (sub)group, and collective interests. This study examines participants' simultaneous weighing of these 3 nested interests. The results show that increasing the salience of social categorization of any level of the hierarchy (i.e., 6 individuals, 2 subgroups. 1 collective) increases participants' concern for and contributions to the corresponding level of interest (Experiment 1). One can promote concern for and contributions to the collective interest, which are lowest under categorization as 2 subgroups, by individuating the members of the individuals' own subgroup and/or the opposing subgroup (Experiment 2) and by cross-categorization with the opposing subgroup (Experiment 3).