“Level of Aspiration”: Preference for Time Versus Response Feedback and History Effects on the Setting of Personal Performance Standards

Human subjects responded on a computer keyboard and accumulated points according to fixed-ratio (FR) reinforcement schedules. In Experiment 1, subjects responded under a FR 500 schedule. Under baseline conditions satisfying the schedule requirement resulted in counter points and session termination. Subsequently, subjects could (a) choose to have a clock appear on the screen during the interreinforcement interval (IRI) as well as to enter a target time which they would attempt to better during that session, (b) choose to enter a target time or respond under baseline conditions, and (c) enter a target time and choose between having a clock appear throughout or at the end of experimental sessions. In Experiment 2, subjects responded under a FR 500 schedule, entered a target time each session, and could respond during the session to briefly produce either (a) clock feedback, or (b) the number of responses emitted by the subject. In Experiment 3, subjects responded under FR 250, 500, 1000, and 2000 schedule parameters, entered target times and responded for either clock or response feedback. Subjects (a) preferred responding under conditions in which target times were entered to responding under baseline conditions, (b) preferred to have the clock illuminated throughout rather than at the end of experimental sessions, (c) preferred response to clock feedback under all schedule parameters, (d) responded to having equaled or bettered a target time by lowering target time for the subsequent session, and (e) responded to having missed a target time by maintaining the same time during the subsequent session. The results were interpreted within the context of behavior analytic as opposed to more traditional personality theory.

     

Discrimination between reinforced action patterns in the rat

Laboratory rats were rewarded for face-washing, rearing, or scratching by being given the opportunity to press retractable levers for food reward. Yoked control animals received the same number of lever presentations and food rewards, but did not have to face-wash, rear, or scratch to obtain the levers. The experimental animals showed increases in number of bouts of reinforced target behavior above control levels, and the total amount of time spent face-washing increased when a 1.5-sec criterion for reinforced bout length was introduced. The activities in this experiment were made to serve a discriminative as well as an instrumental function, since the cue to tell the rat which lever to press for reward when the levers were presented was the activity that the rat had engaged in to obtain lever presentation. In two separate experiments high levels of discrimination between behaviors were obtained. Discrimination was worse following scratching than after other actions, and scratching also showed relatively poor instrumental conditioning. The relationship between Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning processes in this situation is discussed.     

Female and male attitudes toward life: Implications for theories of mental health

In an attempt to better understand the ways in which females and males perceive their sociopsychological condition, the relationship of 12 independent variables to satisfaction with life is investigated using multivariate analysis. The analysis is premised on the assumption that a relationship may exist between differential feelings of life satisfaction of females and males and the known variations in mental health rates between the sexes. Data come from a national survey of 2,164 adults. The dependent variable is derived by factor analyzing semantic differential scales in which respondents select adjectives best describing their lives. Although a sharp difference by sex exists regarding satisfaction with life (36.1% of the males compared to only 13.5% females report high satisfaction), a high degree of congruence is found between the sexes in the variables contributing to life satisfaction: work satisfaction, personal competence, age, and marital adjustment index.     

Visual Search for a Tilted Target: Tests of Spatial Uncertainty Models

We report that spatial cueing of a parafoveal target in the presence of distractors enhances orientational acuity for that target. When no distractors were present, orientation thresholds were in the range 1-4 . For long exposure times, distractors increased threshold by the amount predicted from a winner-takes-all spatial uncertainty model. For short (100-msec) exposures followed by a random dot mask, the rise in threshold with distractors was considerably greater than that predicted from spatial uncertainty. For brief exposures the effect of distractors was greater when the target and distractors were spatially crowded rather than widely spaced. Adding a tilt to the distractors in the opposite direction to the target increased thresholds still further. Cueing the target with a spatial pointer decreased the effect of distractors, even when they were crowded. We suggest that when attention cannot be appropriately focused, discrimination is carried out by a relatively coarse texture analyser, which averages over several elements, and that focused attention permits the analysis of the target over a smaller area of space.     

Bound-Risk: The Mujeres de Yucatan por la Democracia

The Mujeres de Yucatan por la Democracia(Yucatecan Women for Democracy; MYD) is a reformistcivic association focusing on the politicaltransformation of democracy, organized to confront theMexican state. The MYD, struggling against the status quo andactive in the fight for democratic transformation, hasbecome a means for self-empowering its members. Althoughthe MYD's activism does not, on the surface, appear to threaten gender hierarchy, thedivision of labor, or the politics of women's dailylives, it does affect gender relations. Attitudes ofwomen towards themselves are changing, their home-lives are being transformed, and their work-lives arealso changing. As to the possible long-term effects ofthese changes, we can only conjecture that they have thepotential for introducing new values into daily life in a culture that traditionally hassilenced women's voices. These are transitional times inMexico where the women activists of MYD will not retreatto their way of life before the MYD was founded. The MYD has transformed women's self-definitionand fundamentally affected their view ofsociety.