THE TREATMENT OF COVERT SELF-INJURY THROUGH CONTINGENCIES ON RESPONSE PRODUCTS

Assessment and treatment of covert self-injurious behavior are complicated because it is difficult to quantify and apply differential consequences to covert responses. In this study, both tangible and social reinforcers were identified using reinforcer assessment methods. These reinforcers were then provided contingent upon the absence of tissue damage identified during physical examinations, resulting in near 100% success in physical assessment checks that was maintained over 10 months.     

ASSESSMENT AND TREATMENT OF DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR MAINTAINED BY STEREOTYPIC OBJECT MANIPULATION

In the current investigation, 2 participants with mental retardation displayed property destruction and stereotypy, and both responses involved the same materials (e.g., breaking and tapping plastic objects). Three experiments were conducted (a) to indirectly assess the functions of these two responses, (b) to determine their relation to one another, and (c) to develop a treatment to reduce the more serious behavior, property destruction. In Experiment 1, previously destroyed materials were either present or absent, and their presence reduced property destruction but not stereotypy. In Experiment 2, matched toys (ones that produced sensory stimulation similar to stereotypy) were either present or absent, or were replaced by unmatched toys (for 1 participant). Matched toys produced large reductions and unmatched toys produced small reductions in property destruction and stereotypy. In Experiment 3, attempts to pick up undestroyed objects were either blocked or not blocked while matched toys were continuously available. Response blocking reduced property destruction (and attempts), prevented stereotypy, and increased manipulation of matched toys. These results suggest that the two aberrant responses formed a chain (e.g., breaking and then tapping the object), which was maintained by the sensory consequences (e.g., auditory stimulation) of the terminal response, and that previously destroyed material or matched toys made the initial response (property destruction) unnecessary.     

PSYCHOLOGY AND SOCIETY IN ISRAEL*

The development of psychology in Israel is presented as a reflection of its society's aims and needs. Until the early 50′s, the major orientation of Israel's population was geared towards achieving national and ideological goals. Scientific as well as applied psychology was not perceived as being able to fulfill or even being in line with these goals. However, starting from the early 50′s, Israel's ideological orientation as well as its practical needs changed dramatically. Mass immigration, housing problems, ethnicity, urbanization, industrialization, the emergence of underprivileged groups and a more individualistically oriented ideology raised new problems and strongly required the services of psychology. This paper tries to show how different branches of psychology - scientific as well as applied ones - developed as a direct function of the country's social needs and problems and its search for appropriate ways of dealing with them.     

Gender role typing,the superwoman ideal,and the potential for eating disorders

The interactive effects of gender role typing and adherence to a superwoman ideal (desiring to excel in many diverse roles) on the potential for disordered eating were examined among a nonclinical sample of women. Results indicated that both masculine and feminine gender-typed women who strongly adhered to a superwoman ideal were at greater risk for eating disorders than androgynous superwomen. In contrast, androgynous superwomen had relatively low potential for disordered eating and appeared comparable to women who, regardless of gender typing, rejected the superwoman ideal. Women undifferentiated with regard to gender type, whether superwomen or not, also had reduced potential for disordered eating. Findings are discussed with regard to gender role socialization and expectations, and the implications for mediating the potential for eating disorders are considered.     

Age-related increases in the effects of automatic semantic activation.

Automatic semantic activation was assessed in a version of the flanker task, in which nominally irrelevant words were presented above and below a target word. The category membership of the flanking word was consistent, inconsistent, or neutral with respect to the target word. Older adults showed greater inhibition and equivalent facilitation in the time taken to classify the target words than did younger adults in 2 of 3 experiments, in contrast to previous findings. The present results are generally consistent with 3 dominant perspectives in cognitive aging: the complexity hypothesis, environmental support, and the inhibition-deficit view. Manipulation of the overall magnitude of the flanker effect produced results most consistent with the inhibition-deficit view that older adults are less able to inhibit automatic processes than are younger adults. Some problems with the inhibition-deficit view are also discussed.     

Effects of adult age on structural and operational capacities in working memory

Eight experiments were conducted in which young adults and older adults were asked to report the latest value of 1 of several continuously changing numeric or spatial variables. Accuracy of reporting the current value of the target variable was lower with increases in the number of potentially relevant variables and with increases in the number of required processing operations. Young and older adults exhibited similar effects of the number of potentially relevant variables (hypothesized to be sensitive to the structural capacity of working memory) and of the number of required processing operations (hypothesized to be sensitive to the operational capacity of working memory), but older adults were generally less accurate than young adults.     

Reaction time in reading a tachistoscopic display for a memory set item

Reaction times were measured in a task which requires the subject to search a brief visual array for a critical letter embedded in a row of background letters. In Experiment 1, the position of a critical letter in an instructed reading order and the size of a set of memorized letters were varied. Mean reaction time increased monotonically with distance of the critical letter from the beginning of the instructed reading path in the display. The variables reading position and memory set size were additive in their effect on mean reaction time. Data from a second experiment in which the retinal location of the critical letter and its reading position were varied showed that both reading position and retinal location influenced mean reaction time, but the effect of reading position on reaction time was greater. These variables interacted.