Sources cited most frequently in the experimental analysis of human behavior

We conducted an analysis of the sources cited most frequently in primary empirical reports in the experimental analysis of human behavior (EAHB) published in four journals between 1990 and 1999. Citation patterns suggest that modern EAHB is topically focused and relatively independent of both animal operant research and human research conducted outside of behavior analysis.     

Dialogue Groups in the 21st Century: An Extension of Practice

Experts in group dynamics are needed to work with societal-level identity groups to facilitate productive dialogue in lieu of destructive action or stalemate. Group therapists can promote dialogue about feelings and thoughts regarding societal-level identity issues that contribute to stuck destructive intra and intergroup relationships. After an introduction to the politics of identity and the importance of societal-level groups, the theory and practice of dialogue groups will be introduced and our own dialogue group described.     

Parent and Primary Care Provider Priorities for Wellness in Early Childhood: A Discrete Choice Experiment

Journal of Child and Family Studies - Guidelines recommend that primary care clinicians address a broad range of wellness topics, but time constraints limit clinicians’ ability to address...     

What Is the Buzz About Iconicity? How Iconicity in Caregiver Speech Supports Children's Word Learning

One cue that may facilitate children's word learning is iconicity, or the correspondence between a word's form and meaning. Some have even proposed that iconicity in the early lexicon may serve to help children learn how to learn words, supporting the acquisition of even noniconic, or arbitrary, word–referent associations. However, this proposal remains untested. Here, we investigate the iconicity of caregivers’ speech to young children during a naturalistic free-play session with novel stimuli and ask whether the iconicity of caregivers’ speech facilitates children's learning of the noniconic novel names of those stimuli. Thirty-four 1.5-2-year-olds (19 girls; half monolingual English learners and half bilingual English-Spanish learners) participated in a naturalistic free-play task with their caregivers followed by a test of word-referent retention. We found that caregivers’ use of iconicity, particularly in utterances in which they named the novel stimuli, was associated with the likelihood that children learned that novel name. This result held even when controlling for other factors associated with word learning, such as the concreteness and frequency of words in caregiver speech. Together, the results demonstrate that iconicity not only can serve to help children identify the referent of novel words (as in previous research) but can also support their ability to retain even noniconic word-referent mappings.     

Women’s Income-generating Activity and Experiences of Economic Intimate Partner Violence in Rural Bangladesh

Sex Roles - Economic coercion is a form of intimate partner violence (IPV) that is distinct from but often co-occurs with physical, psychological, and sexual IPV. Women’s experiences of...     

Evaluation of the Self-Report Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits in a Sample of Urban Middle School Students: a Multidimensional Rasch Analysis

Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment - Callous-Unemotional (CU) traits are characterized by limited empathy, lack of guilt, and callous use of others. The Inventory of Callous...     

Integrating Exposure and Response Prevention With a Mobile App to Treat Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Feasibility,Acceptability, and Preliminary Effects

Many individuals with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) do not receive evidence-based care (specifically exposure and ritual prevention; EX/RP) due to barriers such as a lack of EX/RP-trained clinicians, geographic obstacles, and the cost and time associated with the treatment. Offering an integrated treatment model consisting of brief in-person therapy coupled with a mobile application (app) might be one way to increase access to and reduce the time burden (to clinicians and patients) of EX/RP. This pilot trial evaluated the feasibility, acceptability, and clinical effects of such a treatment program for adults with OCD. Thirty-three participants enrolled in the 8-week open trial. The integrated treatment program consisted of 3 to 5 in-person sessions followed by weekly phone calls supported by a mobile app (nOCD). Participants were evaluated by trained raters and completed self-report measures at baseline, midtreatment, posttreatment and 2-month follow-up; the Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) was the primary outcome. This integrated treatment program was feasible and acceptable to participants. Of the 33 study entrants, 14 (42%) responded to treatment (Y-BOCS decrease ≥ 35% with CGI- of 1 or 2), and 8 (24%) achieved minimal symptoms (i.e., Y-BOCS ≤ 12). At 2-month follow-up (n = 20), 7/20 (35%) met criteria for treatment response, and 3/20 (15.0%) met criteria for treatment remission. Although preliminary, this model warrants further study as an efficacious and resource-efficient way to deliver EX/RP for some patients with OCD.     

Dreading the pain of others? Altruistic responses to others' pain underestimate dread

A dislike of waiting for pain, aptly termed ‘dread’, is so great that people will increase pain to avoid delaying it. However, despite many accounts of altruistic responses to pain in others, no previous studies have tested whether people take delay into account when attempting to ameliorate others' pain. We examined the impact of delay in 2 experiments where participants (total N = 130) specified the intensity and delay of pain either for themselves or another person. Participants were willing to increase the experimental pain of another participant to avoid delaying it, indicative of dread, though did so to a lesser extent than was the case for their own pain. We observed a similar attenuation in dread when participants chose the timing of a hypothetical painful medical treatment for a close friend or relative, but no such attenuation when participants chose for a more distant acquaintance. A model in which altruism is biased to privilege pain intensity over the dread of pain parsimoniously accounts for these findings. We refer to this underestimation of others' dread as a ‘Dread Empathy Gap’.     

Collectives’ and individuals’ obligations: a parity argument

Individuals have various kinds of obligations: keep promises, don’t cause harm, return benefits received from injustices, be partial to loved ones, help the needy and so on. How does this work for group agents? There are two questions here. The first is whether groups can bear the same kinds of obligations as individuals. The second is whether groups’ pro tanto obligations plug into what they all-things-considered ought to do to the same degree that individuals’ pro tanto obligations plug into what they all-things-considered ought to do. We argue for parity on both counts.