Alcohol as social lubricant.

This study examines how consuming alcohol differentially affects the communicative behavior and perceptions of high and low social self‐esteem (SSE) women as they engage in a brief interaction with a flirtatious male. Alcohol myopia theory proposes that alcohol affects behavior when it blocks a person's normal inhibitions about enacting a behavior. It was predicted that low SSE women would be more inhibited when talking to a flirtatious male than would high SSE women and, therefore administration of a social self‐esteem measure and random assignment to an alcoholic or nonalcoholic beverage condition, participants (N=50) talked with an attractive, flirtatious male confederate. Low SSE women were less anxious and self‐disclosed more when drinking than when sober, whereas high SSE women were not significantly affected by alcohol consumption. The discussion highlights the complex and often contradictory effects of alcohol consumption on social interaction.     

PRODUCING GENERATIVE SENTENCE USAGE BY IMITATION AND REINFORCEMENT PROCEDURES1

Three retarded subjects and two developmentally normal toddlers were trained using imitation and reinforcement procedures to use correct sentences. The experimental task was to use sentences with correct subject-verb agreement to describe pictures that were presented to the subjects. Two classes of sentences were taught: those involving a plural subject that required the use of the verb “are” (for example, “the boys are running”) and those involving a singular subject that required the use of the verb “is” (for example, “the boy is running”). The basic design of the study involved multiple baselines for each class of sentences. Four of the subjects began to produce novel, untrained sentences of a particular type to generalization probe pictures when that particular class of sentence was currently being trained. Thus, the imitation and reinforcement procedures appeared to be functional in producing generative sentence usage for both types of sentences. One subject produced correct sentences to both singular and plural probe pictures when only “is” sentences had been taught. A reversal procedure and retraining phase indicated that for this subject, imitation and reinforcement procedures for training one class of sentence behavior seemed functional in producing generative responses of the other class of sentences.     

TEACHING GENERATIVE USE OF SENTENCE ANSWERS TO THREE FORMS OF QUESTIONS1

Three retarded and four economically disadvantaged children were taught, through modelling and reinforcement procedures, to produce complete sentences in response to three types of questions involving changes in verb inflections. To evaluate generalization of training, new but similar questions were periodically asked, answers to which were never modelled or reinforced. Modelling and reinforcement effectively taught correct sentence answers to training questions and produced new sentence answers to questions for which no specific training had been given.     

Picture memory improves with longer on time and off time.

Both recognition and recall of pictures improve as picture presentation time increases and as time between pictures increases. Processing of the pictures, rehearsal and/or encoding, continues after the picture has disappeared, just as for verbal material. Both the results and conclusions stand in contrast to those of Shaffer and Shiffrin.     

The effects of parent-presented models and praise on the vocal behavior of their children

The combined and separate effects of parent-presented models and praise on specific vocalizations of three children (15, 17, and 20 months old) were investigated. The frequency of a specific vocalization was higher when parents modeled and praised it than when they did not. In addition, modeling and praise, when used in combination, had a greater effect on the frequency of specific vocalizations than when used separately. Three additional parents were asked to attempt, by any means they wished, to increase the frequency of a specific vocalization by their children. These parents used modeling almost, exclusively, and the children did not exhibit the specific vocalizations as frequently as did the children whose parents were instructed both to model and praise specific vocalizations.     

Effects of cooperation and competition on responsibility attribution after success and failure

Pairs of Ss cooperated (Experiment I) or competed (Experiment II) in a response-matching task whose outcome either exceeded (Success condition), met (Neutral condition), or did not reach (Failure condition) a prior-established expected outcome level. Afterwards, Ss attributed responsibility for their outcomes. It was found under both cooperation and competition that neutral outcomes tended to produce situational attribution, and success produced self-attribution. However, failure produced partner attribution under cooperation but situational attribution under competition. The results were discussed from the standpoint of two general theories of responsibility attribution, the first emphasizing problem solving based on cues, and the second emphasizing motivational biases.     

An experimental analysis of verbal imitation in preschool children

A model presented English words to three preschool children and reinforced accurate imitation of these words. The model also presented novel Russian words but the subjects' imitation of these words was never reinforced. As long as the subjects' imitation of English words was reinforced, their accuracy of imitating non-reinforced Russian words increased. When reinforcement was not contingent upon imitation of English words, accuracy of imitating both the English and the Russian words decreased. These results support and extend previous work on imitation.