Neural events in the reinforcement contingency

When neural events are analyzed as stimuli and responses, functional relations among them and among overt stimuli and responses can be unveiled. The integration of neuroscience and the experimental analysis of behavior is beginning to provide empirical evidence of involvement of neural events in the three-term contingency relating discriminative stimuli, responses, and consequences. This paper is aimed at highlighting exemplar instances in the development of this issue. It has long been known that the electrical stimulation of certain cerebral areas can have a reinforcing function. Extraordinary technological advances in recent years show that neural activity can be selected by consequences. For example, the activity of in vitro isolated neurons that receive dopamine as a reinforcer functions as a cellular analogue of operant conditioning. The in vivo activity of populations of neurons of rats and monkeys can be recorded on an instant-to-instant basis and can then be used to move mechanical arms or track a target as a function of consequences. Neural stimulation acts as a discriminative stimulus for operant responses that are in turn maintained by neural consequences. Together with investigations on the molecular basis of classical conditioning, those studies are examples of possibilities that are being created for the study of behavior-environment interactions within the organism. More important, they show that, as an element in the three-term contingency, neural activity follows the same laws as other events.     

Children do show negative priming: further evidence for early development of an intact selective control mechanism

Reactions to stimuli that were shortly before presented as distractors are usually slowed down; this phenomenon is known as negative priming. Negative priming is an accepted index for tapping into selective control mechanisms. Although this effect is well established for adults, it has been claimed that children do not show negative priming. Recently, however, V. E. Pritchard and E. Neumann challenged this view and concluded that selective control mechanisms are already fully developed in young children. The authors of the present study analyzed differences between older studies, in which no negative priming had been observed, and the Pritchard and Neumann (2004) study. In sum, the present study yielded further evidence for an intact selective control mechanism in young children. The authors also linked this empirical finding to the broader literature on negative priming by a direct comparison with an adult sample.     

Improving self‐regulated learning of preschool children: Evaluation of training for kindergarten teachers

Background In the context of lifelong learning, self‐regulated learning is an important competence. Children between 4 and 6 years of age are at a crucial step in their life to develop self‐regulatory competence. That is why their kindergarten teachers play an important role as instructors as well as role models. Aim This study tested the effects of self‐regulation training for kindergarten teachers concerning their own self‐regulation and methods to foster self‐regulation in children at preschool age whom they were teaching. Sample In this study, 35 German kindergarten teachers and 97 children participated. All adult participants were graduated kindergarten teachers. Method The kindergarten teachers were tested with a questionnaire 2 weeks before and after the training. At the same time, the preschoolers were interviewed. A waiting control group design was applied. Results and conclusions The results obtained by means of analyses of variance show that the self‐regulation of the kindergarten teachers as well as the self‐regulated learning of preschoolers whose kindergarten teachers took part in the training improved significantly. The results indicate that it is possible to improve self‐regulated learning of preschool children by a training programme for kindergarten teachers.     

School‐based integrated and segregated interventions to reduce aggression

The goal of the study was to assess two types of school‐based interventions—a class intervention (integrated) and a small group counseling (segregated) intervention for highly aggressive children—and to determine which is more efficacious in reducing individual and classroom aggression, lessening internalizing and externalizing behavior, and increasing positive classroom relationships. The study, conducted in Israel, included 904 children from 13 schools. In each school, one age level was selected and divided randomly into three experimental conditions: psychoeducational class intervention, small group counseling, and control. In all classrooms, the highly aggressive children were identified a priori (n=166). Analyses were conducted separately for the aggressive children and their nonaggressive classmates, in a nested procedure (mixed models). Results showed similar positive outcomes on all variables in both treatment groups, and higher compared with the control group. The discussion focuses on the strengths of each type of intervention. Aggr. Behav. 35:342–356, 2009. © 2009 Wiley‐Liss, Inc.     

A Longitudinal Test of the Model of Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition

Using data from a longitudinal study of college students, this study assessed the relationships among the threat perceptions of realistic threat and intergroup anxiety, the ideological motives of system justification and social dominance orientation (SDO), and political conservatism. Those who had higher perceptions of realistic threat and intergroup anxiety at the end of their first year of college showed higher levels of system justification and SDO at the end of their second and third years of college, controlling for precollege expressions of each variable. Higher levels of these two ideological motives at the end of students' second and third years of college were associated with more politically conservative attitudes at the end of students' fourth year of college, again controlling for precollege expressions. These longitudinal results are discussed in terms of a model of political conservatism as motivated social cognition.     

Cue-task associations in task switching

Cognitive flexibility can be studied using the task-switching paradigm. This paradigm requires subjects to adapt behaviour to changing contexts as indicated by a cue. In our study, we addressed the question of how cue-based implementation of mental “task sets” occurs. We assumed that cues build up associations to the tasks that they indicate. These associations lead to retrieval of the associated task set once the cue shows up again. In three experiments, we tested this assumption using a negative transfer paradigm. First participants were exposed to one cue-task mapping. After a training phase, the cue-task mapping changed in either of two ways. Whereas one group of participants got new cues, the other experienced a reversal of the learnt cue-task mapping. Our results show that participants build up cue-task associations and that these formerly learnt associations can hamper the implementation of new cue-task mappings (particular with mapping reversal). Prolonged preparation time decreased the cost of changing the cue-task mapping but did not change the overall pattern of results.     

From gains to losses: Age-related differences in decisions under risk in a non-monetary gambling task

Lifespan theory suggests a shift from a primary orientation towards attaining gains in young adulthood to preventing losses in older adulthood. The current research tested if this motivational shift is reflected in behavioural and emotional responses to risks in non-monetary gains and losses. Study 1 established in a sample of N = 168 younger (18–30 years) and older adults (65–79 years) that a non-monetary gambling task was experienced similarly by the age groups with respect to arousal and valence of the task, and the willingness to continue playing. In Study 2 (N = 83), differences between young (18–30 years) and older (64–85 years) adults’ risk-taking in this non-monetary gambling task with mixed gambles were tested while assessing physiological responses (event-related heart rate change) to gain and loss feedback. Behavioural – but not physiological – results confirm hypotheses derived from a lifespan motivational framework regarding age-differential effects of gains and losses.     

The social origins of male dominance

Writings in psychoanalytic theory and social science that discuss the basis of men's motive to dominate women are reviewed. Both men's fear and envy of women and men's tenuous masculine identity arise from the exclusive early mother-child tie. It is suggested that an important step in altering the development of the motive underlying male dominance would be to have men, as well as women, care for infants. The possibility of greater equality in the family and in the economy is discussed.This article represents a considerable expansion of the first part of a paper entitled Sex Role Development and Sex Discrimination: A Theoretical Perspective by Jean Stockard, Miriam M. Johnson, Joan Acker, and Marion Goldman, presented at the annual meetings of the American Sociological Association in San Francisco in 1975. We wish to thank Joan Acker and Marion Goldman for the earlier discussions we had with them which led to this article.     

Exploring Processes in Day-to-Day Parent–Adolescent Conflict and Angry Mood: Evidence for Circular Causality

Parent–adolescent conflict has been studied both as a precursor of long-term macrolevel developmental risks and as an outcome of microlevel, moment-to-moment interaction patterns. However, the family-level processes underlying the maintenance or regulation of conflict in daily life are largely overlooked. A meso-level understanding of parent–adolescent conflict offers important practical insights that have direct implications for interventions. The present study explores day-to-day reciprocal processes and carryover in parents’ and adolescents’ experiences of anger and conflict. Daily diary data provided by parent–adolescent dyads (N = 151) from two-caregiver households (adolescents: 61.59% female, mean age = 14.60 years) over 21 days were examined using a multivariate Poisson multilevel model to evaluate the circular causality principle in parents’ and adolescents’ daily conflict and anger. Findings offer empirical support for the theory, suggesting that parents’ and adolescents’ anger and conflict exist together in a feedback loop wherein conflict is both a consequence of past anger and also an antecedent of future anger, both within and across persons. Increased understanding of the daily interaction patterns and maintenance of parent–adolescent conflict can guide more informed, targeted, and well-timed interventions intended to ameliorate the consequences of problematic parent–adolescent conflict sequences.     

Like a bee on a windowpane: Heyting's reflections on solipsism

This paper presents the content of the unpublished notes that the Dutch mathematician Arend Heyting wrote in different periods of his life on solipsism and that are preserved in Heyting's archive at the University of Amsterdam. Most of the notes are quoted here and translated into English. Their study shows the originality of Heyting's reflections on a subject that was typical of his master, L. E. J. Brouwer, the father of intuitionism.