Assessing Stimulus Control in a Discrimination Task with Compound Stimuli: Evaluating Testing Procedures and Tracking Eye Fixations

The Psychological Record - Experiments with pigeons have suggested that the way stimuli are arranged in tests affects the demonstration of the stimulus control established during training. The...     

Observing behavior and atypically restricted stimulus control

Restricted stimulus control refers to discrimination learning with atypical limitations in the range of controlling stimuli or stimulus features. In the study reported here, 4 normally capable individuals and 10 individuals with intellectual disabilities (ID) performed two-sample delayed matching to sample. Sample-stimulus observing was recorded with an eye-tracking apparatus. High accuracy scores indicated stimulus control by both sample stimuli for the 4 nondisabled participants and 4 participants with ID, and eye tracking data showed reliable observing of all stimuli. Intermediate accuracy scores indicated restricted stimulus control for the remaining 6 participants. Their eye-tracking data showed that errors were related to failures to observe sample stimuli and relatively brief observing durations. Five of these participants were then given interventions designed to improve observing behavior. For 4 participants, the interventions resulted initially in elimination of observing failures, increased observing durations, and increased accuracy. For 2 of these participants, contingencies sufficient to maintain adequate observing were not always sufficient to maintain high accuracy; subsequent procedure modifications restored it, however. For the 5th participant, initial improvements in observing were not accompanied by improved accuracy, an apparent instance of observing without attending; accuracy improved only after an additional intervention that imposed contingencies on observing behavior. Thus, interventions that control observing behavior seem necessary but may not always be sufficient for the remediation of restricted stimulus control.     

Adolescent–parent attachment as a mediator of relations between parenting and adolescent social behavior and wellbeing in China

The purpose of this study was to examine links between parenting dimensions (authoritative parenting, psychological control, and parental authority) and adolescent wellbeing (self‐esteem, autonomy, and peer attachments) as mediated by parent–teen attachment, among Chinese families. The sample included 298 Chinese adolescents, ages 15–18 years (M age = 16.36, SD = .68; 60% female). The mediation model was examined using path analyses (one model with parental authority as overprotection, and one with it as perceived behavioral control). To improve model fit a direct path was added from authoritative parenting to autonomy. Authoritative parenting was positively predictive of attachment, while psychological control and overprotection (but not behavioral control) were negative predictors. In turn, adolescent–parent attachment was positively related to the three outcomes. Lastly, the model paths did not differ by adolescent gender. These findings suggest that parenting behaviors may play a crucial role in adolescent social behaviors and wellbeing via adolescent–parent attachment.     

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Eating Disorders: Rationale and Literature Review

Empirical studies using Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) and its components to treat eating disorders (EDs) were reviewed. Evidence suggests that emotional avoidance is a major component in the onset and maintenance of EDs. Acceptance and commitment therapy targets emotional avoidance and control strategies with six core processes. These core processes have been applied to EDs and demonstrated improvement in subjects’ functioning and reduction in disordered eating. There are several advantages of using ACT for treating EDs: ACT fundamentally equalizes the therapeutic relationship; experiential techniques in ACT may facilitate lasting treatment gains; ACT navigates the ego-syntonic nature of EDs; the ACT conceptualization based on experiential avoidance and cognitive rigidity in EDs is consistent with current literature. The six core processes of ACT can be further modified to fit the challenges of treating EDs. Specifically, concerns about client motivation for treatment can be addressed by emphasizing creative hopelessness and a values construction process earlier in treatment.     

Psychological Distress in a Sample of Teachers

This article describes a cross-sectional study of the links between job-related stressors and depressive and psychophysiologic symptoms and morale in 67 New York City teachers. The teachers' mean score on the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (CES-D; M = 13.03) was higher than might be expected from average community residents. The teachers also tended to express dissatisfaction with their jobs. The CES-D and the Psychophysiologic Symptom Scale were correlated as highly as their reliabilities would permit, a finding consistent with the view that the CES-D and the Psycho physiologic Symptom Scale measure the same construct, nonspecific psychological distress. The correlational findings suggest that distress is distinct from job-related morale, which was indexed by measures of motivation to continue teaching and job satisfaction. The results of regression analyses, which controlled for sociodemographic factors, indicated that the level of job strain (frequency of ongoing stressors) is more closely related to psychological distress and low morale than episodic stressors, including crimes in which the teacher was victim. The regression analyses also indicated that colleague support was related to lower symptom levels and higher morale.     

For the new family therapist: A glossary of terms

Abstract

Traditional psychodynamic terms used in describing, diagnosing, and treating individual patients have proven less than helpful in working with families. In an attempt to alleviate this difficulty, and as an aid to the newcomer in the field of family therapy, this glossary of terms is presented. This glossary is not meant to be all-inclusive. Rather, its purpose is to provide the new family therapist with an introduction to the language of the field, an armamentarium from which to work, and to provide a basis of knowledge that is usually not accumulated by the new family therapist until he or she has worked with a number of families over a period of time.     

Ideological parsimony

The theoretical virtue of parsimony values the minimizing of theoretical commitments, but theoretical commitments come in two kinds: ontological and ideological. While the ontological commitments of a theory are the entities it posits, a theory’s ideological commitments are the primitive concepts it employs. Here, I show how we can extend the distinction between quantitative and qualitative parsimony, commonly drawn regarding ontological commitments, to the domain of ideological commitments. I then argue that qualitative ideological parsimony is a theoretical virtue. My defense proceeds by demonstrating the merits of qualitative ideological parsimony and by showing how the qualitative conception of ideological parsimony undermines two notable arguments from ideological parsimony: David Lewis’ defense of modal realism and Ted Sider’s defense of mereological nihilism.     

Development of a Research Instrument for Evaluating the Visitor Outcomes of Face-to-Face Interpretation

ABSTRACT

This article details the development, testing, and refinement of a set of indicators and a data collection instrument designed to be used to evaluate the outcomes of face-to-face interpretation across a range of heritage-based visitor settings and experiences. One of a suite of data collection instruments, the self-completing visitor questionnaire incorporates a set of indicators that (a) reflects the types of visitor outcomes that managers actually want from their interpretive programs; (b) is theoretically valid based on what is known about the potential cognitive, affective, and behavioural outcomes of interpretation, and (c) requires minimal effort, expense, and little or no social research expertise to collect and analyse the data, yet produces results with acceptable validity and reliability. While management and industry-driven, the research is underpinned by some thirty years of evaluation theory and practice, and is thus grounded in theories of psychology and human behaviour and methods from the social sciences and from applied program evaluation. This makes the final set of indicators an important contribution to the literature, and the questionnaire itself a useful and practical tool for those whose expertise and responsibilities lie primarily with managing and delivering rather than researching and evaluating the outcomes of interpretation.