The problem: American education the solution: Use behavior analytic technology

In spite of numerous demonstrations that America's youth can be effectively educated with behavior analytic teaching techniques, few of the country's children are benefiting from the technology. In addition scholarly reviews of effective teaching strategies have often omitted reference to behavior analysis. One way to look at this problem is as a two-step operation. First, it is necessary to determine procedures that work; second it is necessary to devise strategies for effective dissemination. The present issue of JOBE (Vol. 1, No. 3, Sept. 1991) contains the recommendations of six outstanding behavioral educators as to how to deal with the dissemination problem. The initial article by Pumroy and McIntire describes the activities of an organization which trains school psychologists and teachers to use behavioral procedures and advocates for the techniques with a number of audiences. Next, Engelmann suggests that the public have more control over school activities and that legal action be taken against irresponsible administrative decisions. Hall advocates for less labor-intensive procedures and the sale of curricular materials based on behavioral principles. Binder proposes that dissemination of the technology become a private endeavor that responds to consumer needs. Rosenfield describes a collaborative model of consultation that increases treatment adherence. Finally, Albers and Greer describe research that isolates a key teacher behavior that results in greater academic proficiency.     

Problems with bootstrapping pearson correlations in very small bivariate samples

Efron'sMonte Carlo bootstrap algorithm is shown to cause degeneracies in Pearson'sr for sufficiently small samples. Two ways of preventing this problem when programming the bootstrap ofr are considered.     

Risk taking in achievement-oriented situations: Do people really maximize affect or competence information?

Several studies of choice behavior (risk taking) in achievement-oriented situations are reanalyzed. The usual ways of pooling all choices over trials and subjects conceal the series of subjects' decisions and the dynamics inherent in these decisions. A basic strategy of subjects in an achievement-oriented choice situation seems to be to start with an easy task, choose a more difficult one whenever you succeed, and stay mostly at the same difficulty level whenever you fail. A computer model, in which such simple assumptions are made, generates preference functions over the order of difficulty levels that are indistinguishable from those found in empirical studies. It is concluded that the study of choice behavior in achievement-oriented situations should be based on the analysis of the series of single decisions by one subject. For this we need models that allow the predictions of such decisions and the prediction of action-controlling cognitions and emotions.     

Acceleration of the therapeutic process with group

This paper deals with the impact of adding group to individual treatment of patients with neurotic character problems and attempts to illustrate the efficacy of this dual approach. The formidable task for the individual therapist is to make these patients see that their habitual ways of reacting are pathological and stem from repressed intrapsychic conflicts. This task is facilitated in a group in a number of ways since the group setting becomes an arena that affords wider therapeutic scrutiny. Having become aware that behavioral characteristics disguise anxiety, other group members initiate independent efforts to extract the underlying meanings for their fellow members. Their interventions are often more effective and acceptable because they are less likely than the therapist to be perceived in the projected image of the bad parent.Copyright, 1980, Washington Square Institute for Psychotherapy and Mental Health, which published this paper in No. 7 of the Group Psychotherapy Monograph Series, after the paper had been presented at the Seventh Annual Conference of the Group Psychotherapy Department.     

Understanding religious behavior

The attached (to mother) fetus-infant finds his religious expression in Buddhism. The attached (to group) juvenile finds his religious expression in Judaism and other tribalisms. The attached (to spouse) adult finds his religious expression in agnosticism and secularism. Attached phases are placid and of progressively decreasing emotional intensity. The three detaching phases are hurtful and hence soteriological, and are also of progressively decreasing emotional intensity. The toddler-young child finds his religious expression in Christianity, the adolescent in atheism and/or Marxism, and the aged, sick or dying plucks at any religious or secular aid.He has written numerous papers on aspects of child care, medical history, interrelations between medicine and religion, and between Judaism and Christianity.     

Homosexuality,the Halacha,and the helping professions

The position of Jewish writings on homosexuality is the topic of inquiry. Overt homosexuality, child homosexuality, and lesbianism are examined in the light of Jewish Halacha (law). Though Talmudic writings view homosexuality with severe disapproval, a sprrit of tolerance and compassion is also voiced in them. It is suggested here that Jewish law placed overt homosexuality in the category of illness to evoke compassion for it Halachic insights also suggest that homosexualities be viewed differentially. Activities involving minors and lesbians are not given equal weight in the realm of retribution. There are efforts to obviate social stigma. Prevention and rehabilitation are given major concern. To conclude the article, the role of the Jewish religious practitioner and his responsibilities vis-à-vis the homosexual client are given a brief examination.     

Personality patterns of adolescent poor and good sleepers

To determine whether poor sleepers have a unique personality constellation significantly different from that of good sleepers, a sample of 162 emotionally disturbed adolescent poor sleepers was compared to a sample of 153 emotionally disturbed adolescent good sleepers on standardized personality instruments. Poor sleepers were found to have a high incidence of neurotic psychopathology with personality patterns characterized by depression, fearfulness, inhibition, anxiety, and rumination. In contrast, good sleepers showed quasi healthy and/or characterological patterns. While this study does not resolve cause and effect relationships, it does establish a highly significant relationship between neuroticism and sleep disturbance for adolescent boys and girls, and also demonstrates a similarity of personality dynamics and patterns between adult and adolescent samples of patients with sleep disturbances.     

Directionally different expectancy theory predictions of work motivation and job satisfaction

Conventionally, expectancy theory has utilized a multiplicative combination of expectancy and value scores in predicting both job behavior (work motivation and job performance) and job-related affect (job satisfaction). An extensive clinical literature, however, suggests that affect is a function of the discrepancy between expectancies and values. Hence, two hypotheses were advanced and tested in organizational settings: (1) that the multiplicative formulation (EV) will yield superior predictions of work motivation and job performance in comparison to the discrepancy model (E-V), (2) that the discrepancy model (E-V) will yield superior predictions of job satisfaction in comparison to the multiplicative model (EV). Results from three studies (of 399 engineers, 202 librarians, and 1,777 engineers) were highly supportive of both hypotheses.An early version of this paper was presented at the 10th Annual National Meeting of the American Institute for Decision Sciences, November 1, 1978, and an abbreviated write-up appeared in the AIDSProceedings. The author is greatly indebted to the following people: Susanne P. Wahba, for allowing the use of her data (Study Two); Gene Dalton and Paul Thompson, for their contribution to the research in Study One; and Joe Folkman for his help with the data analysis in Study Three. Financial support was provided in part by the Research Foundation of the City University of New York (RF10662).     

Theories of family pathology: In what direction

Although specific typologies, classifications, or taxonomies of family pathology have been demonstrated to have research merit, it is clear that their practical or clinical application has been at best marginal. The general theories in family therapy have not yet led to the development of viable typologies.I believe there are three general theories which perhaps converge only in their acceptance of a process of victimization in families that may lead to the outbreak of psychiatric symptoms in members: the intergenerational, the communicational, and scapegoat theory. The paper describes these theories and suggests their strengths and limitations. The dominant family therapies that have arisen in the late 1970s are short-term approaches. These are especially favorable to the development of scapegoat theory, fit reasonably well with communicational theory, but are inconsistent with intergenerational theory.An invited lecture at the 11th International Congress of Psychotherapy in Amsterdam, August 28, 1979.