Children's verbalizations and cheating behavior during game playing: the role of sociometric status,aggression, and gender

The first goal of this study was to investigate sociometric status, aggression, and gender differences in children's verbalizations and cheating behavior during game playing using a fine-grained observational coding system. The second goal was to control for the effects of differential peer treatment and bias on children's behavior by observing children in a standardized procedure with unfamiliar peer confederates. Participants were 111 second-grade African American children, half average and half rejected sociometric status, half aggressive and half nonaggressive based on peer nominations, and half boys and half girls. Rejected children engaged in more cheating behavior and made more negative and argumentative verbalizations than average status children. Boys made more negative and argumentative verbalizations than girls. Aggressive children did not differ from nonaggressive children, in terms of either verbalizations or cheating behavior.     

Healing after Columbine: reflections of psychoanalytic responders to community trauma

Following the shootings at Columbine High School on April 20, 1999, the Denver Psychoanalytic Society provided both immediate and long-term interventions to those closely impacted by the tragedy. In this effort, analytically trained volunteers faced many personal challenges and role adjustments. To address these issues a reflective study group was formed twenty months after the traumatic event. Group discussions revealed a surprising number of residual symptoms from secondary trauma, as well as opportunities for shared coping among analysts. Little has been written about the very human and subjective responses of analysts in such circumstances. These experiences may be helpful to others in today's world of terrorism and unexpected violent events.     

Effects of Verbal Event Structure on Online Thematic Role Assignment

Event structure describes the relationships between general semantics (Aktionsart) of the verb and its syntactic properties, separating verbs into two classes: telic verbs, which denote change of state events with an inherent end-point or boundary (catch, rescue), and atelic, which refer to homogenous activities (tease, host). As telic verbs describe events, in which the internal argument (Patient) is affected, we hypothesized that processing of telic verb template would activate syntactic position of the Patient during sentence comprehension. Event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were recorded from 20 English speakers, who read sentences with reduced Object relative clauses, in which the verb was either telic or atelic. ERPs in relative clauses diverged on the definite article preceding the Agent: the atelic condition was characterized by larger amplitude negativity at the N100. Such processing differences are explained by activation of the syntactic position for the Patient by the event structure template of telic verbs.     

The Environmental Ethics of Fan Ruiping’s Revisionist Confucianism

Fan Ruiping is engaged in a wide-ranging project to reconstruct Confucianism for the contemporary period. It includes his sustained attack on John Rawls’ theory of distributive justice, various Chinese policies and practices on the delivery of health and elder care, and global business ethics. This paper describes his revised Confucian understanding of environmental morality under the metaphor of nature as garden and man as gardener. I argue the current state of this effort is in need of a more robust appropriation of Chinese sources and a greater attention to comparative analogues using the garden metaphor. I conclude with some suggestions that might advance this specific aspect of his project.     

The Evidence-Based Practice of Applied Behavior Analysis

Evidence-based practice (EBP) is a model of professional decision-making in which practitioners integrate the best available evidence with client values/context and clinical expertise in order to provide services for their clients. This framework provides behavior analysts with a structure for pervasive use of the best available evidence in the complex settings in which they work. This structure recognizes the need for clear and explicit understanding of the strength of evidence supporting intervention options, the important contextual factors including client values that contribute to decision making, and the key role of clinical expertise in the conceptualization, intervention, and evaluation of cases. Opening the discussion of EBP in this journal, Smith (The Behavior Analyst, 36, 7–33, 2013) raised several key issues related to EBP and applied behavior analysis (ABA). The purpose of this paper is to respond to Smith’s arguments and extend the discussion of the relevant issues. Although we support many of Smith’s (The Behavior Analyst, 36, 7–33, 2013) points, we contend that Smith’s definition of EBP is significantly narrower than definitions that are used in professions with long histories of EBP and that this narrowness conflicts with the principles that drive applied behavior analytic practice. We offer a definition and framework for EBP that aligns with the foundations of ABA and is consistent with well-established definitions of EBP in medicine, psychology, and other professions. In addition to supporting the systematic use of research evidence in behavior analytic decision making, this definition can promote clear communication about treatment decisions across disciplines and with important outside institutions such as insurance companies and granting agencies.     

Cognitive biases in blaming the victim

Past research on cognitive biases has demonstrated the existence of a hindsight effect, whereby the receipt of outcome knowledge increases the perceived likelihood of the reported event. Three experiments were conducted that tested and supported the hindsight effect as a cause of victim blaming. Subjects read detailed accounts that were identical except for the concluding sentence, which provided outcome information. Half the subjects in each experiment were informed that the woman narrating the account was raped; the other half read a neutral outcome. Experiment 1 demonstrated that subjects were unable to ignore the influence of outcome knowledge, leading to an exaggerated perception of how likely the outcome appeared. In Experiment 2, the woman was blamed more by subjects who read the rape outcome than by those who read the neutral outcome, despite the presentation of identical behaviors and personality traits prior to outcome information. The increased blame attributed by rape outcome subjects was behavioral, and not characterological, in nature. Experiment 3 found a direct association between the hindsight effect and victim blaming and also demonstrated that an attempt to reduce the negative impact of the hindsight effect on victim blaming was ineffective due to the salience of the rape outcome. Explaining how a neutral outcome was possible given the same account did not reduce victim blaming by subjects who received a rape outcome. Rather, those who received a neutral outcome increased their victim blaming when asked to explain a rape outcome. The implications for victims are discussed.     

CHOICE MAKING TO PROMOTE ADAPTIVE BEHAVIOR FOR STUDENTS WITH EMOTIONAL AND BEHAVIORAL CHALLENGES

Two analyses investigated the effects of choice making on the responding of elementary school students with emotional and behavioral challenges. In the first analysis, 2 participants were given choices from menus of academic tasks, all of which were pertinent to their educational objectives in English and spelling, respectively. Reversal designs showed that the choice-making conditions increased task engagement and reduced disruptive behavior for both students. An additional analysis was performed with a 3rd student in an effort to further distinguish the effects of choice making from preference. In this study, one of the no-choice phases was yoked to a previous choice-making condition. This analysis demonstrated that the choice-making condition was superior to baseline and yoked control phases as determined by levels of task engagement and disruptive behavior. The findings of the two analyses contribute information relevant to students with emotional and behavioral disorders, and to a growing literature on the desirable effects of choice making for students with disabilities and challenging behaviors.     

EFFECTS OF A VIDEOTAPE FEEDBACK PACKAGE ON THE PEER INTERACTIONS OF CHILDREN WITH SERIOUS BEHAVIORAL AND EMOTIONAL CHALLENGES

Peer interactions are among the greatest challenges experienced by children who have severe emotional and behavioral problems. This study evaluated an intervention package designed to increase the ratio of these children's desirable to undesirable interactions. The package included three principal components: (a) observation of videotapes following regularly scheduled peer activity sessions; (b) self-evaluation of the children's peer interactions observed on the videotapes; and (c) delayed feedback and reinforcement for desirable peer interactions. Five students from two elementary schools participated. Multiple baseline designs and one reversal were used to evaluate the effects of the intervention package. The results showed that the intervention produced lower levels of undesirable peer interactions and higher ratios of desirable to undesirable interactions for all participants. The results are discussed in regard to their conceptual and applied implications and in terms of specific directions for future research.     

Esteem and control bases of blame: "Adaptive" strategies for victims versus observers

An experiment was conducted to determine the esteem and control correlates of behavioral and characterological blame for victims and observers. On the basis of a proposed motivation to minimize perceptions of vulnerability, it was predicted that behavioral self-blame would be “adaptive” for victims, whereas both behavioral and characterological blame of the victim would be “adaptive” for observers. As hypothesized, behavioral self-blame by victims was associated with high self-esteem and perceptions of future avoid ability of the victimization, whereas both behavioral and characterological blame by observers were associated with high self-esteem. Behavioral blame was more likely to be engaged in by victims than by observers, and characterological blame was more likely to be engaged in by low esteem victims and high esteem observers. The study employed a role-playing/observer methodology. The adequacy of this methodology and the generalizability of results to actual victim/observer populations are discussed.     

Subjective Wellbeing and Income: Empirical Patterns in the Rural Developing World

A commonality in the economics of happiness literature is that absolute income matters more for the subjective wellbeing of people at low income levels. In this article, we use a large sample of people in rural areas of developing countries with relatively low income levels to test whether subjective wellbeing an increasing function of absolute income in our sample, and to analyze the existence of adaptation and social comparison effects on subjective wellbeing. Our sample includes 6,973 rural households in 23 countries throughout Asia, Africa, and Latin America. The average total income per adult equivalent in our sample was US$ 1555, whereas levels of subjective wellbeing resembled levels found in previous research using cross-country data. We find that, despite low levels of absolute income, levels of subjective wellbeing of our respondents resemble levels found in previous research using cross-country data. We also find remarkable similarities in many of the determinants of subjective wellbeing previously tested. Our data show that absolute income covariates with subjective wellbeing, but—as for richer samples—the magnitude of the association is lower once we control for adaptation and social comparison. Finally, our results suggest that social comparison has a stronger effect than adaptation in explaining the subjective wellbeing of our sample. Our findings highlight the importance of adaptation and social comparison even at low levels of absolute income.