Increasing Community Recycling with Persuasive Communication and Public Commitment

Persuasive communication and public commitment were used to encourage recycling in a citywide program. The persuasive communication was a combination of factors which have been found by laboratory researchers to produce attitude and/or behavior change. The public commitment manipulation involved signing a statement supportive of recycling. Households which did not recycle during a 6-week baseline period were selected for experimental study. Trained Boy Scouts made an oral informational statement and then gave each of 201 experimental households one of three treatments (a written persuasive communication, public commitment, or both). A control group of 132 homes received no treatment. Recycling was observed for 6 weeks following delivery of all treatments. Results indicated that the three treatment groups recycled significantly more than the control group but did not differ significantly from each other. Future directions for applied work in this domain are discussed.     

The effects of choice-making on the problem behaviors of high school students with intellectual disabilities

This investigation was conducted in an effort to systematically extend the emerging data base having to do with choice-making opportunities and the behavior of students with disabilities. In particular, the current analyses examined the effects of choice-making on the problem behavior and task engagement of three high school students with intellectual disabilities as the students performed domestic and vocational activities. Multiple baseline and reversal designs demonstrated that the choice conditions reduced problem behaviors and increased task engagement for all participants. Data having to do with student affect and task productivity were less consistent. The findings on the relationship between choice making and problem behavior replicate and extend a growing literature on the desirable effects of choice-making for individuals with disabilities. The results are discussed in terms of recent developments in behavioral support, as well as the need for ongoing conceptual and applied research.     

Childhood tomboyism and adult androgyny

Female university and community college students (N =194) completed the Bem Sex-Role Inventory and a 12-item tomboyism index. Subjects were predominantly Euro-American (71%). A multiple regression analysis was used to test the prediction that androgyny and masculinity would significantly predict tomboyism scores. The proportion of variance in tomboyism accounted for by masculinity was significant, but once masculinity was entered, no additional predictive value was added by the entry of androgyny or femininity. Tomboyism was not related to the development of expressive qualities such as compassion and sensitivity to the needs of others. However, tomboyism was positively related to some desirable instrumental qualities such as assertiveness and self-reliance. Tomboyism was common and generally declined at puberty due to social pressure. To whom correspondence and reprint requests should be addressed at Department of Psychology & Human Development, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, CA 93407.The second and third authors were senior undergraduates at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo when this research was conducted.     

Psychiatric sequelae of low birth weight at 6 years of age

The study examined the association between low birth weight (LBW) (2,500 g) and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in two socioeconomically disparate populations. LBW and normal birth weight (NBW) children from the 1983 to 1985 newborn lists of an urban and a suburban hospital in Southeast Michigan were randomly selected. A total of 823 children, 473 LBW and 350 NBW, participated. Data were gathered in 1990 to 1992, when the children were 6 to 7 years of age. The National Institute of Mental Health Diagnostic Interview Schedule for children—Parent version (DISC-P) was used to elicit information on DSM-III-R diagnoses of simple phobia, overanxious, separation anxiety, oppositional defiant, and ADHD. Teachers' ratings of behavior problems were obtained. LBW was associated with ADHD but not with childhood anxiety disorders or oppositional defiant disorder. The association was stronger in the urban than in the suburban population. Data from teachers' ratings revealed an association between LBW and attention problems. The prognostic significance of the observed psychopathology at 6 years of age requires follow-up assessment as the children mature.This research was supported by NIMH research grant MH-44586 and NIMH Research Scientist Development Award MH-00380 to Dr. Breslau.     

Should One be Free to Choose the Sex of One's Child?

ABSTRACT Tests which predict the sex of a fetus have led to female feticide in India, and hence to demands that such tests be banned. This paper examines the arguments for banning such tests. These will depend partly on one's views regarding the morality of feticide: different views are discussed. However the morality of feticide is not the only relevant consideration, especially since it may become possible to choose the sex of the child at conception. Whether or not parents have the right to freedom of choice and information is analysed. Many non-western societies have special problems since the strong preference for boys may lead to the neglect of female children and to female infanticide. In heavily populated countries like India and China the need to control population growth is an additional complication. The paper concludes that in these societies the case for banning tests is weak.     

“Leave Your Comment Below”: Can Biased Online Comments Influence Our Own Prejudicial Attitudes and Behaviors?

Increased use of online communication in everyday life presents a growing need to understand how people are influenced by others in such settings. In this study, online comments established social norms that directly influenced readers' expressions of prejudice both consciously and unconsciously. Participants read an online article and were then exposed to antiprejudiced or prejudiced comments allegedly posted by other users. Results revealed that exposure to prejudiced (relative to antiprejudiced) comments influenced respondents to post more prejudiced comments themselves. In addition, these effects generalized to participants' unconscious and conscious attitudes toward the target group once offline. These findings suggest that simple exposure to social information can impact our attitudes and behavior, suggesting potential avenues for social change in online environments.     

Risking Future Generations

Many of the policy choices we face that have implications for the lives of future generations involve creating a risk that they will live lives that are significantly compromised. I argue that we can fruitfully make use of the resources of Scanlon’s contractualist account of moral reasoning to make sense of the intuitive idea that, in many cases, the objection to adopting a policy that puts the interest of future generations at risk is that doing so wrongs those who will live in the further future.     

Prepubertal social gender transitions: What we know; what we can learn—A view from a gender affirmative lens

ABSTRACT

?Background: This article provides a review and commentary on social transition of gender-expansive prepubertal youth, analyzing risks, and benefits based on a synthesis of research and clinical observation, highlighting controversies, and setting forth recommendations, including the importance of continued clinical research.

Methods: This article involved: (1) a review and critique of the WPATH Standards of Care 7th edition guidelines on social transition; (2) a review and synthesis of empirical research on social transition in prepubertal children; (3) a discussion of clinical practice observations; (4) a discussion of continuing controversies and complexities involving early social transition; (5) a discussion of risks and benefits of social transition; and (6) conclusions and recommendations based upon the above.

Results: Results suggest that at this point research is limited and that some of the earliest research on young gender-expansive youth is methodologically questionable and has not been replicated. Newer research suggests that socially transitioned prepubertal children are often well adjusted, a finding consistent with clinical practice observations. Analysis of both emerging research and clinical reports reveal evidence of a stable transgender identity surfacing in early childhood.

Discussion: The authors make recommendations to support social transitions in prepubertal gender-expansive children, when appropriate, as a facilitator of gender health, defined as a child's opportunity to live in the gender that feels most authentic, acknowledging that there are limitations to our knowledge, and ongoing research is essential.     

Average group behavior does not represent individual behavior in classical conditioning of the honeybee

Conditioned behavior as observed during classical conditioning in a group of identically treated animals provides insights into the physiological process of learning and memory formation. However, several studies in vertebrates found a remarkable difference between the group-average behavioral performance and the behavioral characteristics of individual animals. Here, we analyzed a large number of data (1640 animals) on olfactory conditioning in the honeybee (Apis mellifera). The data acquired during absolute and differential classical conditioning differed with respect to the number of conditioning trials, the conditioned odors, the intertrial intervals, and the time of retention tests. We further investigated data in which animals were tested for spontaneous recovery from extinction. In all data sets we found that the gradually increasing group-average learning curve did not adequately represent the behavior of individual animals. Individual behavior was characterized by a rapid and stable acquisition of the conditioned response (CR), as well as by a rapid and stable cessation of the CR following unrewarded stimuli. In addition, we present and evaluate different model hypotheses on how honeybees form associations during classical conditioning by implementing a gradual learning process on the one hand and an all-or-none learning process on the other hand. In summary, our findings advise that individual behavior should be recognized as a meaningful predictor for the internal state of a honeybee--irrespective of the group-average behavioral performance.