A functional analysis of social reinforcement in vicarious verbal conditioning

This article reports the results of 629 subjects in three experiments designed to replicate and extend the phenomenon of vicarious verbal conditioning. Experiment I replicated the finding that subjects who responded most to vicarious verbal conditioning were aware of the contingency involved. Experiment II attempted to examine the effects of prior history with the verbal reinforcer on vicarious verbal conditioning by providing seven groups of subjects with varying classic conditioning histories prior to vicarious verbal conditioning. The null results associated with this experiment were hypothesized to be due to the fact that the vicarious verbal conditioning took place in a language laboratory where the subjects could hear but not see the model. Experiment III replicated Experiment II in a live group context as was done in Experiment I. The results showed a) that vicarious verbal conditioning was again found to take place, b) that associating the verbal reinforcer with a tone or tone plus money via forward classic conditioning potentiated the effects of the verbal reinforcer, c) that backward classic conditioning did not potentiate the reinforcer, d) nor did either of two sensitization procedures potentiate the effects of the verbal reinforcer. Both aware and unaware subjects evidenced vicarious verbal conditioning.     

Albert Ellis' personal responses to the Survey of Rational-Emotive Therapists

This article presents Albert Ellis' personal responses to the Survey of Rational-Emotive Therapists and his answers to a number of questions that the first and second authors asked Ellis regarding some of his responses. Ellis also commented on how adequately he thought the results of the survey appeared to represent the current philosophies and practices of RET.     

Reformatory blame

It is argued that blame is an ambiguous and misused term leading to ineffective, harmful consequences, such as hate, guilt, revenge (retaliation, or retribution), or punishment for its own sake. A clarification of blame is given by showing that it is an open-context, value term and, so, meaningless in itself. For intelligibility, it must be reduced to naturalistic and pragmatic terms. The definition almost universally given is based on the fallacious beliefs that (1) we can change the past, and (2) we can have done otherwise than we did. But can here is seen also to be used in a pseudo-scientific and subjunctive, rather than in a factual sense. It is shown that retributive blame makes no sense because, as Marcus Aurelius said, we must accept what is and we can only do what is within our power. We cannot change past behavior, but we can try to change present behavior. For effectiveness and intelligibility, we are forced to substitute rehabilitative blame for retributive blame. Thus, in the prevention and elimination of such negative emotions as guilt, inferiority, hatred, revengefulness, a thorough understanding of the term blame is required.     

Preferences for Individual Video Games as a Function of Their Emotional Effects on Players

Video games vary in terms of the emotional states they elicit from players. These differences in emotional reactions, in turn, help account for differential preferences of individual games. The three independent dimensions of pleasure-displeasure, arousal-nonarousal, and dominance-submissiveness were used to assess emotional impacts of individual games. In addition, a preference measure was constructed to evaluate attraction toward, versus avoidance of, specific games. In Study One, a group of subjects provided data on emotional responses to 22 common arcade video games and a different group rated their preferences for the same games. The emotional impact of video games was highly unpleasant, moderately arousing, and moderately dominance-inducing; thus, the predominant emotional response to these games was aggression, anger, or hostility. I n Study Two, subjects visiting a video game arcade were recruited and assigned to play two games each and to report their reactions to each game immediately after playing the game. Results showed that greater feelings of pleasure, and separately of arousal, while playing video games resulted in higher preferences for the games and that greater dominance (significant only for males) also led to higher preferences. It may be beneficial, therefore, to experiment with more arousing and more dominance-inducing game designs which are not necessarily unpleasant or which definitely yield high pleasure.     

Visual control of step length during running over irregular terrain

Running over uneven ground requires visually regulating step length to secure proper footing. To examine how this is achieved, we studied subjects running on a treadmill on a series of irregularly spaced targets. The movements of their lower limbs and coccyx relative to the targets were monitored opto-electronically by a Selspot system. The results indicated that step length was adjusted to strike the targets primarily by varying the vertical component of impulse applied to the ground during the stance phase. In contrast, horizontal impulse was not varied significantly, and changing the reach forward of the foot on landing contributed little to variation in step length. Changing the vertical impulse simply altered the step time proportionately. Thus the data are consistent with a time-based model in which vertical impulse is modulated by the optic variable delta tau (Lee, 1976) specifying the time gap that has to be bridged by the runner between two targets.     

Parent and actometer measures of motor activity level in the young infant

Motor activity level is one dimension of infant temperament for which parental judgment can be validated against a truly independent criterion. Two studies were conducted, the first involving a 27-min sample of behavior in a structured, attention-getting situation, and the second involving a 24-hr sample of in-home behavior. In both studies, parent perception of the 3- or 4-month-old as measured by the Activity Level (AL) scale of the Rothbart Infant Behavior Questionnaire was compared to the composited readings from four mechanical motion recorders (actometers) worn, one per limb, by the infant. The AL scale did not correlate with the actometer measure, r=.05 and R=.00, and the expected convergence of the 3-month version of the IBQ activity scale with its mechanical counterpart was not found. In the 24-hr study, birth order and ponderal index were significantly correlated with 24-hr actometer scores; first-borns and thin infants were most active.     

The effectiveness and generalization of a cognitive-behavioral group treatment to reduce impulsive/aggressive behavior for boys in a residential setting

Twenty of 150 boys living in a residential setting who were emitting high levels of impulsive/aggressive behavior participated in a study of the effectiveness of a cognitive-behavioral group treatment procedure designed to equip them with skills conducive to alternate and more socially appropriate behavior. Treatment involved 13 meetings of 55 minutes duration over a six-week period. The results indicated significant behavioral changes in school regarding: (1) the intensity of physical fighting, (2) the frequency and intensity of verbal fighting, (3) noncompliance, and (4) being in an inappropriate location. These behavioral changes did not generalize beyond the school setting. Significant increases in the number of identified logical consequences of aggressive behavior and in the number of alternative responses to aggressive behavior were observed compared to control boys. The behavioral changes observed in school largely extinguished during the five weeks between the last treatment session and the follow-up observations.     

Measurement of social-evaluative anxiety in junior high school students

This paper provides some initial normative and validity data on the Social Avoidance and Distress (SAD) and the Fear of Negative Evaluation (FNE) scales for junior high school students. Findings indicated: the level of social-evaluative anxiety does not significantly vary during the junior high school years or between sexes, junior high school students report similar levels of FNE to college students but less SAD, a significant positive correlation between treatment subjects' SAD scores and peer sociometric ratings of social-evaluative anxiety, and subjects treated for social anxiety reported significantly less SAD and FNE at follow-up assessment. Recommendations for future research and clinical use of the SAD and FNE are offered.     

Auditory perception of breaking and bouncing events: a case study in ecological acoustics

The mechanical events of bouncing and breaking are acoustically specified by single versus multiple damped quasi-periodic pulse patterns, with an initial noise burst in the case of breaking. Subjects show high accuracy in categorizing natural tokens of bouncing and breaking glass as well as tokens constructed by adjusting only the temporal patterns of components, leaving their spectral properties constant. Differences in average spectral frequency are, therefore, not necessary for perceiving this contrast, though differences in spectral consistency over successive pulses may be important. Initial noise corresponding to glass rupture appears unnecessary to categorize breaking and bouncing. The data indicate that higher order temporal properties of the acoustic signal provide information for the auditory perception of these events.