Individual differences in sensitivity to health communications: consideration of future consequences.

There are reliable individual differences in the extent to which people consider the long- and short-term consequences of their behaviors. Such differences, assessed by the Consideration of Future Consequences (CFC) Scale (A. Strathman, F. Gleicher, D. S. Boninger, & C. S. Edwards, 1994), are hypothesized to influence the impact of a persuasive communication. In an experimental study, the time frame of occurrence of positive and negative consequences of engaging in a new colorectal cancer-screening program was manipulated in a sample of two hundred twenty 50-69-year-old men and women. CFC moderated (a) the processing of short- versus long-term consequences and (b) the persuasive impact of the different communications on behavioral intentions. Low CFC individuals produced more positive thoughts and were more persuaded when positive consequences were short term and negative consequences were long term. The opposite was true for high CFC individuals.     

Response additivity: effects of superimposed free reinforcement on a variable-interval baseline

Three experiments examined the effects of superimposing free reinforcement (Free VI 30-sec) on behavior maintained by a response dependent mult VI 2-min VI 2-min schedule of reinforcement. Experiment I used pigeons as subjects, key pecking as the response, and colors of response key as the stimuli associated with the multiple-schedule components. When free reinforcement was added during only one component (Differential condition) a large and highly significant increase in response rate developed in this component. Adding free reinforcement during both components (Nondifferential condition) produced smaller and far less-consistent effects. An entirely different pattern of results was obtained in two subsequent experiments, where similar procedures and reinforcement conditions were used with rats as subjects and bar pressing as the response. In both Experiments II and III, response rates decreased to the stimulus associated with added free reinforcement in the Differential condition. These findings are interpreted as the result of interactions between behavior maintained by response-reinforcer contingencies and behavior maintained by stimulus-reinforcer contingencies. As such, they support the main assumption of an autoshaping theory of behavioral contrast, that additivity of responding generated by the two kinds of contingency can occur only in situations favorable to autoshaping.     

The evolutionary basis of risky adolescent behavior: implications for science, policy, and practice

This article proposes an evolutionary model of risky behavior in adolescence and contrasts it with the prevailing developmental psychopathology model. The evolutionary model contends that understanding the evolutionary functions of adolescence is critical to explaining why adolescents engage in risky behavior and that successful intervention depends on working with, instead of against, adolescent goals and motivations. The current article articulates 5 key evolutionary insights into risky adolescent behavior: (a) The adolescent transition is an inflection point in development of social status and reproductive trajectories; (b) interventions need to address the adaptive functions of risky and aggressive behaviors like bullying; (c) risky adolescent behavior adaptively calibrates over development to match both harsh and unpredictable environmental conditions; (d) understanding evolved sex differences is critical for understanding the psychology of risky behavior; and (e) mismatches between current and past environments can dysregulate adolescent behavior, as demonstrated by age-segregated social groupings. The evolutionary model has broad implications for designing interventions for high-risk youth and suggests new directions for research that have not been forthcoming from other perspectives.