Ritualized Play Using Role Play to Teach Pastoral Care and Counseling

The author's experience of reflection-on-action and reflection-in-action in clinical supervision for counseling provides the basis for an analogous experience in the classroom that promotes the teaching of the practice of general pastoral care. A classroom ritual of role play within a specific process for reflection provides the basis for integrating theory and practice.     

Large-scale databases of proper names

Few tools for research in proper names have been available—specifically, there is no large-scale corpus of proper names. Two corpora of proper names were constructed, one based on U.S. phone book listings, the other derived from a database of Usenet text. Name frequencies from both corpora were compared with human subjects’ reaction times (RTs) to the proper names in a naming task. Regression analysis showed that the Usenet frequencies contributed to predictions of human RT, whereas phone book frequencies did not. In addition, semantic neighborhood density measures derived from the HAL corpus were compared with the subjects’ RTs and found to be a better predictor of RT than was frequency in either corpus. These new corpora are freely available on line for download. Potentials for these corpora range from using the names as stimuli in experiments to using the corpus data in software applications.     

Effects of response type on coordinated responses during arm movement

This paper reports some experimental results on the coordination of finger and vocal responses with passing through a target position in multjjoint arm movement. In Experiment 1, we found that the difference in the timing of finger and vocal responses cannot be attributed entirely to efferent or representational effects. Instead, it appears to reflect the extent to which information about the internal stimuli generated by the arm movement are available to the centers controlling these different responses. That is, it is a compatibility effect. In Experiment 2, the case in which a finger response is made on the same side of the body as the moving arm was compared with the case in which it is made with the contralateral hand, which remains static. The interaction effect observed suggests that the path-ways subserving coordinated responses are informationally encapsulated, so that information about arm movement is not shared between the neural centers controlling different coordinated responses.     

What affects strategy selection in arithmetic? The example of parity and five effects on product verification

The parity effect in arithmetic problem verification tasks refers to faster and more accurate judgments for false equations when the odd/even status of the proposed answer mismatches that of the correct answer. In two experiments, we examined whether the proportion of incorrect answers that violated parity or the number of even operands in the problem affected the magnitude of these effects. Experiment 1 showed larger parity effects for problems with two even operands and larger parity effects during the second half of the experiment. Experiment 2 replicated the results of Experiment 1 and varied the proportion of problems violating parity. Larger parity effects were obtained when more of the false problems violated parity. Moreover, all three effects combined to show the greatest parity effects in conditions with a high proportion of parity violations in problems containing two even operands that were solved during the second half of the experiment. Experiment 3 generalized the findings to the case of five rule (i.e., checking whether a false product ends in 5 or 0), another procedure for solving and verifying multiplication problems quickly. These results (1) delineate further constraints for inclusion in models of arithmetic processing when thinking about how people select among verification strategies, (2) show combined effects of variables that traditionally have been shown to have separate effects on people's strategy selection, and (3) are consistent with a view of strategy selection that suggests a bias either in the allocation of cognitive resources in the execution of strategies or in the order of execution of these strategies; they argue against a simple, unbiased competition among strategies.     

The Interactive Role of Negative Affectivity and Job Characteristics: Are High-NA Employees Destined to Be Unhappy at Work?1

The present study examined whether employees high in negative affectivity (NA) are destined to be unhappy at work. Managerial employees provided information regarding perceptions of job characteristics, negative affectivity (NA), job satisfaction, and intentions to turnover. Using hierarchical regression, our findings suggest that employees who reported being high NA were more reactive to the environmental cues of perceived job scope. Specifically, NA interacted with job scope such that individuals high in NA who perceived their jobs as being higher (lower) in scope reported more (less) job satisfaction than did individuals low in NA. Implications for organizations and future research directions are discussed.     

Mitigating Burnout Among High-NA Employees in Health Care: What Can Organizations Do?

The purpose of this study was to examine the extent to which factors in the nursing environment have differential effects on burnout levels among nurses high and low in negative affectivity (NA). Specifically, this field study examined the moderating relationships among role ambiguity, role conflict, and collective efficacy on the NA–burnout relationship among nurses in a hospital setting. Findings suggest that perceived role conflict exacerbates while perceptions of collective efficacy reduce specific dimensions of burnout for nurses high in NA. These results offer some evidence regarding which environmental characteristics may mitigate burnout for high-NA nurses.     

COMPETITION BETWEEN POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT IN THE TREATMENT OF ESCAPE BEHAVIOR

We compared the effects of reinforcing compliance with either positive reinforcement (edible items) or negative reinforcement (a break) on 5 participants' escape-maintained problem behavior. Both procedures were assessed with or without extinction. Results showed that compliance was higher and problem behavior was lower for all participants when compliance produced an edible item rather than a break. Treatment gains were achieved without the use of extinction. Results are discussed regarding the use of positive reinforcement to treat escape behavior.     

THE EFFECT OF TOKEN REWARDS ON “INTRINSIC” MOTIVATION FOR DOING MATH

This study used a multielement baseline design to analyze the effects of token rewards delivered contingent upon completion of math problems by 2 middle-school boys. Time spent on math and number of work pages completed increased (with high accuracy) during reward conditions and were maintained during fading and withdrawal. At follow-up, time spent and work pages completed remained well above baseline for 1 boy and fell below for the other, while accuracy remained high and ratings of liking math were the highest possible for both boys. Overall, the results are inconsistent with warnings about use of token rewards to motivate children.     

Mothers’ attuned responses to infant affect expressivity promote earlier achievement of language milestones

To investigate infants’ affective expressivity and maternal attuned responsiveness to infant expressivity in relation to early language achievement, 77 dyads were visited in their homes at 9 and 13 months, and mothers were interviewed about their children’s language between 9 and 21 months. Maternal responses that were attuned to infant affect, by selectively matching either the gradient features or the valence of infants’ affective expressions, were more predictive of children’s language achievement than maternal nonmatching responses; and maternal matching responses at 9 months were more predictive of children’s language achievements than maternal responses at 13 months. Moreover, maternal matching responses at 9 months predicted second-year language achievements over and above infant affect expressivity at 9 and 13 months, and over and above maternal matching responses at 13 months. Infants’ affective expressivity per se was not predictive.