Modifications to basic functional analysis procedures in school settings: a selective review

This review describes applied behavioral research involving functional analyses conducted in public school settings. Functional analyses in public school settings often require added conditions. The modified conditions described herein include changes to experimental designs, antecedent changes that include task variation, tasks included, idiosyncratic variables, physiological conditions, and modified escape conditions. Finally, consequent modifications cover peer attention, tangibles, varied attention, and altered escape. Copyright © 2004 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Factors Influencing Levels of Credit‐Card Debt in College Students1

The current study examined the relationship between money attitudes, impulsivity, locus of control, life satisfaction, and stress and credit‐card debt in 227 college students. Students reported an average credit‐card debt of $ 1,518, with over 75% of students holding at least one credit card. Students with credit cards from on‐campus solicitation had higher debt‐to‐income ratios than did those with credit cards from other sources. Personality variables were generally unrelated to level of debt, although they were related to attitudes toward money. Many students requested information about credit and debt, suggesting that knowledge of financial issues may be an important variable for future consideration.     

“Watch out!”: Effects of instructed threat and avoidance on human free‐operant approach–avoidance behavior

Approach–avoidance paradigms create a competition between appetitive and aversive contingencies and are widely used in nonhuman research on anxiety. Here, we examined how instructions about threat and avoidance impact control by competing contingencies over human approach–avoidance behavior. Additionally, Experiment 1 examined the effects of threat magnitude (money loss amount) and avoidance cost (fixed ratio requirements), whereas Experiment 2 examined the effects of threat information (available, unavailable and inaccurate) on approach–avoidance. During the task, approach responding was modeled by reinforcing responding with money on a FR schedule. By performing an observing response, participants produced an escalating “threat meter”. Instructions stated that the threat meter levels displayed the current probability of losing money, when in fact loss only occurred when the level reached the maximum. Instructions also stated pressing an avoidance button lowered the threat level. Overall, instructions produced cycles of approach and avoidance responding with transitions from approach to avoidance when threat was high and transitions back to approach after avoidance reduced threat. Experiment 1 revealed increasing avoidance cost, but not threat magnitude, shifted approach–avoidance transitions to higher threat levels and increased anxiety ratings, but did not influence the frequency of approach–avoidance cycles. Experiment 2 revealed when threat level information was available or absent earnings were high, but earnings decreased when inaccurate threat information was incompatible with contingencies. Our findings build on prior nonhuman and human approach–avoidance research by highlighting how instructed threat and avoidance can impact human AA behavior and self‐reported anxiety.     

Sex-Dimorphic Color Preference in Children with Gender Identity Disorder: A Comparison to Clinical and Community Controls

The present study was designed to assess sex-dimorphic color preferences in children with gender identity disorder (47 boys, 18 girls), clinical controls (65 boys, 35 girls), and community controls (65 boys, 35 girls). The mean age of the children was 7.63 years (range?=?3–12 years). Children were shown a hexagon-shaped display of 144 colors extracted from PowerPoint?. Each child was asked to choose his or her three favorite colors (Trials 1–3) by pointing to them, naming them, and then to provide a justification for each choice. From the entire array, children labeled a total of 11 different colors: black, blue, brown, gray, green, orange, pink, purple, red, white, and yellow. For three of the colors (blue, pink/purple, and red), there was evidence for normative sex differences in color preference, and, for the colors blue and pink/purple, the gender-referred children showed inverted patterns of color preference. For the color blue, luminance values showed that the gender-referred boys and control girls preferred lighter shades, whereas the gender-referred girls and control boys preferred darker shades. Qualitative analysis indicated that gender-specific justifications were uncommon, even for the sex-dimorphic colors. Gender-referred children showed inverted gender-stereotyped color preferences, which are likely related to their more general pattern of cross-gender identification. Principles of gender-differentiated development derived from gender-schema theory are used to explain the group differences in color preferences.     

Stances and Epistemology: Values,Pragmatics, and Rationality

Bas van Fraassen has argued that many philosophical positions should be understood as stances rather than factual beliefs. This paper discusses the vexed question of whether and how such stances can be rationally justified. It argues that stances may be justified pragmatically, in terms of both their epistemic fruits and their coherence with our values, both epistemic and non‐epistemic. It also examines van Fraassen's version of epistemological voluntarism, which has received considerable attention of late, and shows that it provides a theoretical framework, and approach to epistemology, within which the pragmatic and value‐based forms of justification appropriate to stance choice find a natural home.     

The role of religious leaders in anti-Apartheid mobilisation: implications for violence prevention in contemporary South Africa

This study examines how South African religious leaders mobilised spiritual capacity and religious assets to resist and fight against state and structural violence during the 1970s and 1980s. Document analysis and qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with six key informants who were directly or indirectly involved in an interfaith Peace March in 1989 in Cape Town. Our analysis was aimed at identifying and understanding the factors, which enabled individuals from diverse religious backgrounds to work together to combat the Apartheid state and structural violence, drawing out possible roles for interfaith leadership within the prevention of direct violence in South Africa. The analysis shows that interfaith leadership was enacted as five kinds of performances: of safety in sacred spaces, solidarity and community, non-violence, voice and representation, and humanitarian relief and healing. These performances relied on specific religious assets, spiritual capacity and psychological and interpersonal qualities characteristic of transformative leaders. In conclusion, we offer some suggestions for how interfaith leadership alongside other social actors may contribute to the prevention of interpersonal violence.     

Affirming Control by Multiple Reinforcers via Progressive Treatment Analysis

It is common to isolate reinforcement contingencies across several test conditions in functional analyses of problem behavior; however, synthesizing all reinforcement contingencies in a single test condition may also have merit and even be necessary in some cases. Following a differentiated functional analysis, which relied on an interview‐informed synthesized test condition, functional communication training (FCT) was applied across the three suspected contingencies of reinforcement, partly in an attempt to understand the relevance of each. Communication responses were acquired for all three reinforcers, and problem behavior ceased only when all contingencies were addressed via FCT, suggesting that problem behavior was controlled by multiple contingencies of reinforcement. These analyses suggest that control by multiple contingencies of reinforcement can be understood during the treatment development process following a highly efficient functional analysis. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.