Structure and content of affective associations with health behaviours: Is the behaviour ‘good OR bad’ or ‘good AND bad’

Objective: The feelings and emotions individuals associate with health-related behaviours influence engagement in those behaviours. However, the structure and the content of these affective associations have not been examined. The studies reported here examined competing hypotheses about the structure (unidimensional or bidimensional) and content (generalised affect or specific emotions) of affective associations with two health-related behaviours: physical activity and fruit/vegetable consumption.

Design: For each behaviour, participants (fruit and vegetable consumption n = 149; physical activity n = 199) completed an assessment of the association of 40 positive and 51 negative affect concepts with the behaviour.

Main outcome measures: Ratings of affective associations with each behaviour.

Results: Confirmatory factor analyses comparing unidimensional and bidimensional affect structure models showed that the structure of individuals’ affective associations was bidimensional for both behaviours – positive and negative affective associations were shown to be separate and distinct constructs. Exploratory factor analyses supported a model of affective associations as generalised affect for both behaviours.

Conclusion: Affective associations with both physical activity and with fruit/vegetable consumption consist of separate positive and negative dimensions of generalised affect. These findings lead to recommendations for research and intervention development based on the implications for how affective associations might operate to influence behavioural decision-making.     

Eye of the beholder: the individual and dyadic contributions of empathic accuracy and perceived empathic effort to relationship satisfaction

This study examined links between two distinct facets of empathy-empathic accuracy and perceived empathic effort-and one's own and one's partner's relationship satisfaction. Using a video recall procedure, participants (n = 156 couples in committed relationships) reported on their own emotions and their perceptions of partners' emotions and partners' empathic intentions during moments of high affect in laboratory-based discussions of upsetting events. Partners' data were correlated as a measure of how accurately they were able to read what the other was feeling and to what degree they felt the other was trying to be empathic at those moments. The perception of empathic effort by one's partner was more strongly linked with both men's and women's relationship satisfaction than empathic accuracy. Men's relationship satisfaction was related to the ability to read their partners' positive emotions accurately, whereas women's relationship satisfaction was related to their partners' ability to read women's negative emotions accurately. Women's ability to read their husbands' negative emotions was positively linked to both men's and women's relationship satisfaction. Findings suggest that the perception of a partner's empathic effort-as distinct from empathic accuracy-is uniquely informative in understanding how partners may derive relationship satisfaction from empathic processes. When working with couples in treatment, heightening partners' perceptions of each other's empathic effort, and helping partners learn to demonstrate effort, may represent particularly powerful opportunities for improving satisfaction in relationships.     

Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory-Short Version: A Further Test of the Internal Consistency and Criterion Validity

The Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory-Short Version (YPI-S; van Baardewijk et al., 2010) is a self-report measure to assess psychopathic-like traits in adolescents. The aim of the present study is to investigate the factor structure, the internal consistency, and the criterion validity of the YPI-S in 768 Belgian community adolescents (45.4?% males). In general, our study supported the YPI three factor structure while relevant indices showed that the instrument is internally consistent. In addition, relations between the YPI-S total score and dimension scores on the one hand and external criterion measures (e.g. conduct problems and self-reported offending) on the other hand were generally in line with predictions. The present study replicated and substantially extended previous findings of the YPI-S in a sample of community youth. Future studies are needed to test whether findings from community samples can be replicated in clinical-referred and justice-involved boys and adolescents.     

Predictors of physical activity among rural and small town breast cancer survivors: An application of the theory of planned behaviour

The primary objective of this study was to investigate the utility of the two-component theory of planned behaviour (TPB) in understanding physical activity intentions and behaviour in rural and small town breast cancer survivors. The secondary objective was to elicit the most common behavioural, normative and control beliefs of rural and small town survivors regarding physical activity. Using a cross-sectional survey design, 524 rural and small town breast cancer survivors completed a mailed survey that assessed physical activity and TPB variables. Physical activity intention explained 12% of the variance in physical activity behaviour (p?相似文献   

Worms under cover: relationships between performance in learning tasks and personality in great tits (Parus major)

In animals, individual differences in learning ability are common and are in part explained by genetic differences, developmental conditions and by general experience. Yet, not all variations in learning are well understood. Individual differences in learning may be associated with elementary individual characteristics that are consistent across situations and over time, commonly referred to as personality or temperament. Here, we tested whether or not male great tits (Parus major) from two selection lines for fast or slow exploratory behaviour, an operational measure for avian personality, vary in their learning performance in two related consecutive tasks. In the first task, birds had to associate a colour with a reward whereas in the second task, they had to associate a new colour with a reward ignoring the previously rewarded colour. Slow explorers had shorter latencies to approach the experimental device compared with fast explorers in both tasks, but birds from the two selection lines did not differ in accomplishing the first task, that is, to associate a colour with a reward. However, in the second task, fast explorers had longer latencies to solve the trials than slow explorers. Moreover, relative to the number of trials needed to reach the learning criteria in the first task, birds from the slow selection line took more trials to associate a new colour with a reward while ignoring the previously learned association compared with birds from the fast selection line. Overall, the experiments suggest that personality in great tits is not strongly related to learning per se in such an association task, but that birds from different selection lines might express different learning strategies as birds from the different selection lines were differently affected by their previous learning performance.     

Artificial natural selection: Can supplemental feeding domesticate mosquitoes and control mosquito-borne diseases?

A new method is proposed for controlling mosquito-borne diseases. In particular, instead of trying to kill mosquitoes, we suggest provisioning them with food from artificial feeders. Because mosquito populations are frequently limited by ecological factors other than blood meals, such as the availability of egg-laying sites, feeding mosquitoes would not necessarily increase the total number of mosquitoes, but could reduce the number of human-drawn mosquito meals. Like mosquito traps, feeders could divert biting mosquitoes away from people by means of lures, but, after diversion, prevent subsequent human bites by satiating the mosquitoes instead of killing them. Mosquito feeders might reduce the problem of the evolution of resistance to control: in an ecology with mosquito feeders, which provide safe and abundant calories for adult female mosquitoes, there could be selection for preferring (rather than avoiding) feeders, which could eventually lead to a population of feeder-preferring mosquitoes. Artificial feeders also offer the chance to introduce novel elements into the mosquito diet, such as anti- malarial or other anti-parasitic agents. Feeders might directly reduce human bites and harnesses the power of natural selection by selectively favoring feeder-preferring (rather than trap-resistant) mosquitoes.     

A multisensory interaction effect in the conceptual realm of time

Recent studies on the conceptualization of abstract concepts suggest that the concept of time is represented along a left-right horizontal axis, such that left-to-right readers represent past on the left and future on the right. Although it has been demonstrated with strong consistency that the localization (left or right) of visual stimuli could modulate temporal judgments, results obtained with auditory stimuli are more puzzling, with both failures and successes at finding the effect in the literature. The present study supports an account based on the relative relevance of visual versus auditory-spatial information in the creation of a frame of reference to map time: The auditory location of words interacted with their temporal meaning only when auditory information was made more relevant than visual spatial information by blindfolding participants.     

THE EFFECTS OF THE QUESTION “WHAT IS THIS?” ON TACT-TRAINING OUTCOMES OF CHILDREN WITH AUTISM

Tact training is a common element of many habilitative programs for individuals with developmental disabilities. A commonly recommended practice is to include a supplemental question (e.g., “What is this?”) during training trials for tacts of objects. However, the supplemental question is not a defining feature of the tact relation, and prior research suggests that its inclusion might sometimes impede tact acquisition. The present study compared tact training with and without the supplemental question in terms of acquisition and maintenance. Two of 4 children with autism acquired tacts more efficiently in the object-only condition; the remaining 2 children acquired tacts more efficiently in the object + question condition. During maintenance tests in the absence of the supplemental question, all participants emitted tacts at end-of-training levels across conditions with no differential effect observed between training conditions.Key words: autism, language training, stimulus control, tacts, verbal behaviorSkinner (1957) defined the tact as a response “evoked by a particular object or event or property of an object or event” (p. 82) and considered it to be one of the most important verbal operants. Tacts are maintained by generalized social reinforcement and, thus, they are central to many social interactions. For example, the tact “That cloud looks like a horse” (under the control of a visual stimulus) could evoke a short verbal interaction about the sky or horses. The tact “My tummy hurts” (under the control of an interoceptive stimulus) could evoke soothing statements from a parent. A child who tacts “doggie” in the presence of a cat likely would evoke a correction statement from an adult, further refining two stimulus classes (i.e., dog and cat). These examples illustrate that, despite their topographical differences, the tact relations share antecedent control by a nonverbal discriminative stimulus (S^D) and are maintained by generalized social reinforcement.In habilitative programs for individuals with language impairments, autism, and intellectual disabilities, tacts often are taught for objects (e.g., ball), object features (e.g., color, size, shape), activities (e.g., jumping), prepositions (e.g., between), and emotions (e.g., sad) among others. Although conceptualized differently among therapeutic approaches, the tact relation occupies a central position in many early-intervention curricula. For example, Lovaas (2003) and Leaf and McEachin (1999) describe these relations as expressive labels and recommend that they be taught early in language training using three-dimensional objects accompanied by the supplemental questions “What is it?” or “What''s this?” Alternatively, Sundberg and Partington (1998) explicitly refer to the relation as a tact and recommend beginning instruction by including the question “What is it?” before eventually fading the question. In addition to these clinical manuals, the use of supplemental questions during tact training has appeared in some empirical studies on tact or expressive-label training (e.g., Braam & Sundberg, 1991; Coleman & Stedman, 1974), but not others (e.g., Williams & Greer, 1993). Regardless of whether tact training initially includes supplemental questions prior to response opportunities, tacts ultimately should be emitted readily under the sole control of the nonverbal S^D as well as when it happens to be accompanied by a question.Conceptually, at least four potential problems could arise from introducing supplemental questions early and consistently in tact training. First, the acquired responses might not be emitted unless the question is posed (i.e., prompt dependence). This problem would lead to few spontaneous tacts occurring outside the explicit stimulus control of the training environment. Williams and Greer (1993) compared comprehensive language training conducted under the stimulus control specified in Skinner''s (1957) taxonomy of verbal behavior to a more traditional psycholinguistic perspective with supplemental questions and instructions embedded within trials. For all three adolescents with developmental disabilities, the targets taught from the verbal behavior perspective were maintained better in natural contexts than those taught from the psycholinguistic perspective. However, because data were not reported for each individual verbal operant, it is unclear what specific impact their tact-training procedures had on the outcomes.The second potential problem is that the supplemental question might acquire intraverbal control over early responses and interfere with the acquisition of subsequent tact targets. For example, Partington, Sundberg, Newhouse, and Spengler (1994) showed that the tact repertoire of a child with autism had been hindered by prior instruction during which she was asked “What is this?” while being shown an object. The supplemental question subsequently evoked previously acquired responses and blocked the ability of new nonverbal S^Ds (i.e., objects) to evoke new responses. Partington et al. then showed that new tacts were acquired by eliminating the supplemental question from instructional trials.The third potential problem is that learners might imitate part of or the entire supplemental question prior to emitting the target response (e.g., “What is it” → “What is it … ball.”). For example, Coleman and Stedman (1974) demonstrated that a 10-year-old girl with autism imitated the question “What is this?” while being taught to label stimuli depicted in color photographs. Such an outcome results in a socially awkward tact repertoire and requires additional intervention to remedy the problem.Finally, including supplemental questions during tact training might impede skill acquisition, perhaps via a combination of the problems described earlier. Sundberg, Endicott, and Eigenheer (2000) taught sign tacts to two young children with autism who had prior difficulty acquiring tacts. In one condition, the experimenter held up an object and asked, “What is that?” In the comparison condition, the experimenter intraverbally prompted the participant to “sign [object name]” in the presence of the object. Sundberg et al. demonstrated substantially more efficient tact acquisition under the sign-prompt condition than when the question “What is that?” was included in trials; the latter condition sometimes failed to produce mastery-level responding.Teaching an entire tact repertoire while including supplemental questions (e.g., “What is it?”) during training trials could produce a learner who is able to talk about his or her environment only when asked to do so with similar questions. To the extent that this is not a therapist''s clinical goal, teaching the tact under its proper controlling variables may eliminate such problems. Of course, inclusion of supplemental questions during the early phases of language training could be faded over time such that the target tact relation is left intact prior to the end of training (Sundberg & Partington, 1998). However, the aforementioned studies have documented problems with using supplemental questions during tact training. Given the ubiquity of tact training in habilitation programs, the numerous problems that may arise when supplemental questions are included in training trials, and the limited research on the topic, further investigation is warranted. Thus, the purpose of the present study was to compare directly the rate of acquisition and subsequent maintenance of tacts taught using only a nonverbal S^D (i.e., object only) with tacts taught using a question (“What is this?”) in conjunction with the nonverbal S^D (i.e., object + question). The present study extends earlier research by examining both acquisition and maintenance and by including individuals with no prior history of formal tact training.     

THE EFFECTS OF FIXED-TIME REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES ON FUNCTIONAL RESPONSE CLASSES: A TRANSLATIONAL STUDY

Research on functional response classes has applied significance because less severe forms of problem behavior have been found to co‐occur with more severe forms. In addition, the most severe forms of problem behavior are sometimes targeted for intervention without monitoring other less severe forms. In such cases, it is unknown whether and how untreated forms of problem behavior covary with the targeted behaviors. The present study employed a translational procedure (with button presses as the target behavior) to investigate response covariation under noncontingent reinforcement with typically developing preschoolers. The results indicated that noncontingent reinforcement was generally effective in decreasing all response class members when only one member was targeted.     

Development of key-pecking, pause, and ambulation during extended exposure to a fixed-interval schedule of reinforcement

Six pigeons key-pecked under a fixed-interval (FI) 3-min schedule of food presentation. Each pigeon was studied for 200 daily sessions with 15 intervals per session (3,000 total food presentations). Analyses included the examination of latency to first peck (pause), mean rate of key pecking, and ambulation. Characterizations of stable performance were assessed across measures of behavior and evaluated using commonly employed stability criteria. Stability of response rate and pause was identified better by assessments that evaluated variability and trend, rather than just variability. Between-subject differences in rate of acquisition and terminal values of steady-state performance of pause were observed, and stable pause durations took longer to develop than did stable key-pecking rates. Relative variability in response rate and pause duration decreased as the means increased. A temporally organized pattern of key-pecking (the so-called FI scallop) developed within 50 sessions of exposure to the schedule. Overall ambulation decreased during the early sessions of exposure and further analyses showed greater rates of ambulation during the pause than after it for 4 of the 6 pigeons. Performance under the FI 3-min schedule developed relatively slowly, and key-pecking, pause, and ambulation developed at different rates.