Shoplifting prevention: providing information through signs

Shoplifting is one of the most frequent crimes in the United States, yet there is no agreement about effective prevention procedures. Since most prevention strategies are aimed at either increasing public awareness of the severity of the consequences or increasing the threat of detection, procedures that contain these elements were evaluated. Posting signs around a department of a department store pointing out that shoplifting is a crime, etc., partially reduced shoplifting rates. When merchandise that was frequently taken was identified by signs and stars, shoplifting decreased to near zero. Publicity campaigns to inform the public of consequences for shoplifting may produce desirable results, but identifying likely shoplifting targets, which may increase the likelihood of detection, effectively reduces shoplifting rates.     

Skills training and self-administered desensitization in the reduction of public speaking anxiety.

The aim is to test the following hypotheses. Since desensitization targets only “feelings” of anxiety, and skills training targets only overt behaviors, the predictions based on the earlier findings (Marshall, Presse and Andrews, 1976; Paul, 1966) are as follows: (a) the combination of skills training and desensitization will be more effective than desensitization alone, but no more effective than skills training alone, in reducing behavioral manifestations of anxiety; (b) the combination will be more effective than skills training alone, but no more effective than desensitization alone, in reducing subjective distress; (c) skills training will be more effective than desensitization in reducing behavioral manifestations of anxiety; and (d) desensitization will be more effective than skills training in reducing subjective distress.     

Status and familial orientations of rural Mexican-American youth: Integration and conflict within aspirational frames of reference

Studies regarding status aspirations among Mexican-American youth have presumed that life goals are integrated and congruent. In the present paper, after reviewing cultural and structural explanations of low Mexican-American attainment, an alternative line of inquiry is suggested which questions these assumptions and specifies types of conflicts that may arise among occupational, educational, and familial orientations. Using data from a survey of South Texas high school students, the prevalence of such conflicts are observed by sex, and implications for future attainment patterns are discussed.     

Perceptual centres for Dutch digits

In two experiments, analogous to those reported by Marcus (1976) with English words and subjects, we determined the psychological moment of occurrence (p-centre) of Dutch digit names. In the first experiment we determined the p-centres for the digits 1 through 10 and compared the empirical results with values calculated from the formula that Marcus defines over the acoustic characteristics of stimulus words. We found good agreement between empirical and predicted values. In a second experiment we studied the effect of cycle time and repeated measurement on perceptual centres. The results confirm the independence of the p-centre phenomenon from practice and periodicity. A comparison of ‘identical’ and ‘non-identical’ stimulus pairs shows that larger variances are associated with the former condition.     

A self-administered program for public speaking anxiety.

Therapist-administered desensitization was compared with a take-home manual for self-administering desensitization, where the self-administering subjects had varying degrees of contact with therapists. These treatments were compared with an attention-placebo procedure and no-treatment controls. None of the treatment procedures had any effect on behavioural manifestations of anxiety in public-speaking phobics, but all treatment subjects showed greater reductions in subjective anxiety than either of the control groups. The drop-out rate was greatest for the no-contact manual group indicating the value of brief supervision in its use. The implications of the failure to change overt behaviour in view of Paul's (1966) earlier findings, are discussed.