Unit price as a useful metric in analyzing effects of reinforcer magnitude.

In this paper, we applied the behavioral-economic concept of unit price to the study of reinforcer magnitude in an attempt to provide a consistent account of the effects of reinforcer magnitude on behavior. Recent research in the experimental analysis of behavior and in behavioral pharmacology suggests that reinforcer magnitude interacts with the schedule of reinforcement to determine response rate and total consumption. The utility of the unit-price concept thus stems from its ability to quantify this interaction as a cost-benefit ratio (i.e., unit price = characteristics of the schedule of reinforcement divided by magnitude of reinforcement). Research employing the unit-price concept has shown that as unit price increases, a positively decelerating function exists for consumption (i.e., a function with an increasingly negative slope, when plotted on log coordinates) and a bitonic function exists for response rate. Based on these findings, the present analysis applied the unit-price concept to those studies of reinforcer magnitude and drug self-administration that examined the effects of reinforcer magnitude on response rate using simple schedules of reinforcement (e.g., fixed-ratio schedule). This resulted in three findings: (a) Reinforcer-magnitude manipulations and schedule manipulations interact in a manner that can be quantified in terms of unit price as benefit and cost factors, respectively; (b) different reinforcer-magnitude manipulations are functionally interchangeable as benefit factors in the unit-price ratio; and (c) these conclusions appear warranted despite the differences in reinforcers (food or drug), species (dogs, monkeys, or rats), and schedules (interval or ratio), and despite the fact that these studies were not designed for a unit-price analysis. In methodological terms, these results provide further evidence that employing the unit-price concept is a parsimonious method for examining the effects of reinforcer magnitude. In theoretical terms, these results suggest that a single process may underlie the effect of combined reinforcer-magnitude and schedule manipulations.     

Phenomenology in Russia: The contribution of Gustav Shpet

Gustav Shpet,Appearance and Sense: Phenomenology as the Fundamental Science and Its Problems, Trans. Thomas Nemeth (Dordrecht, Boston, London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1991). xxxi+189 pages. $94.00. (Page references to this work are given in parentheses in the text.)     

JOB SATISFACTION, ORGANIZATIONAL COMMITMENT, TURNOVER INTENTION, AND TURNOVER: PATH ANALYSES BASED ON META-ANALYTIC FINDINGS

Cross-study differences in the contributions of work attitudes to the turnover process led us to (a) estimate the six relations among job satisfaction, organizational commitment, turnover intention/withdrawal cognitions, and turnover using meta-analysis; (b) assess the effects of several psychometric moderators on those relations; and (c) compare the influences of satisfaction and commitment in the turnover process by applying path analysis to the meta-analytic correlations. Based on aggregations involving a total of 178 independent samples from 155 studies, results showed that (a) satisfaction and commitment each contribute independently to the prediction of intention/cognitions; (b) intention/cognitions are predicted more strongly by satisfaction than by commitment; (c) intention/cognitions mediate nearly all of the attitu-dinal linkage with turnover; and (d) attitudinal contributions to the turnover process vary with the use of single- versus multi-item scales, the 9- versus 15-item version of the Organizational Commitment Questionnaire, and turnover intention versus withdrawal cognition scales.     

Schedule-induced defecation by rats during ratio and interval schedules of food reinforcement.

Lever pressing in rats was maintained by continuous and intermittent schedules of food while defecation was monitored. In Experiment 1, reinforcement densities were matched across variable-ratio and variable-interval schedules for three pairs of rats. Defecation occurred in all 3 rats on the variable-ratio schedule and in all 3 rats on the yoked variable-interval schedule. In Experiment 2, fixed-ratio and fixed-interval schedules with similar reinforcement densities maintained lever pressing. Defecation occurred in 3 of 4 rats on the fixed-ratio schedule and in 4 of 4 rats on the fixed-interval schedule. Almost no defecation occurred during continuous reinforcement in either experiment. These results demonstrate that defecation may occur during both ratio and interval schedules and that the inter-reinforcement interval is more important than the behavioral requirements of the schedule in generating schedule-induced defecation.     

FIXED-INTERVAL PERFORMANCE AND SELF-CONTROL IN INFANTS

Twenty-six infants, 3 to 23 months old, were trained on fixed-interval schedules ranging from 10 s to 80 s. The operant response was touching an illuminated location on a touch-sensitive screen, and 20 s of cartoon presentation was the reinforcer. The subjects were also trained in a six-phase self-control procedure in which the critical phases involved choice between 20 s of cartoon available after a 0.5-s delay (impulsive choice) and 40 s of cartoon delayed for 40 s (self-controlled choice). All the youngest children (3 to 5 months) showed long postreinforcement pauses on the fixed-interval schedule, with most intervals involving the emission of a single, reinforced, response, and all made self-controlled choices. Older subjects (9 to 23 months) either produced the same pattern as the younger ones on the fixed-interval schedule (classified as pause-sensitive subjects) or produced short pauses and higher steady response rates (classified as pause-insensitive subjects). All pause-sensitive subjects made self-controlled choices in the self-control condition, and all pause-insensitive subjects made impulsive ones.     

The use of partial temporal information in dating personal events

Memory & Cognition - The use of different types of partial temporal information is shown to affect dating accuracy and the distribution of errors in event dating. Several different types of...     

The gender role journey measure: Scale development and psychometric evaluation

The Gender Role Journey concept was developed to help women and men explore their gender role changes and transitions. A 34-item Gender Role Journey Measure (GRJM) was conceptualized and developed through empirical methods. The construct validity of the five phases of the gender role journey is assessed. The GRJM and the Personal Attributes Questionnaire (PAQ) were given to a sample of women and men (N=878). The sample was predominantly Caucasian from a mixed ethnic background. Principle factor analysis indicated three meaningful factors: Acceptance of Traditional Gender Roles; Gender Role Ambivalence, Confusion, Anger, and Fear; and Personal-Professional Activism. Moderately high test-retest and internal consistency reliabilities were found for each of the factors. Gender differences and gender by PAQ interactions were found for all three of the factors of the GRJM. Implications for future research, teaching, and workshops are suggested.This article was presented at the 99th convention of the American Psychological Association, San Francisco, California, August 1991. It was supported by a grant from the Research Foundation of the University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut.     

Gender differences in self-evaluations of information about current affairs

This study examines how gender is related to self-evaluations of information to discuss current social and political issues. The sample is one of predominantly white (96%) college graduates. Using alumni samples, we look at how members of four classes that span 20 years evaluate their knowledge to hold conversations on a variety of public affairs issues ranging from the Strategic Defense Initiative to government funding of abortion. We find gender differences, with men perceiving themselves more knowledgeable in conversations and women less so. We raise the possibility that they are “doing gender.” The implications of these findings are explored.     

Auditory accessory effects on visual processing

A series of experiments on intersensory facilitation demonstrates that non-informative sound of low to moderate intensity (30/80 dB) facilitates the reaction to a visual stimulus. By manipulating the preprocessing and perceptual stages of the visual signals, it appears that auditory intensity reduces choice reaction time independently from the positive influence of the intensity and duration of the visual imperative signal, but interacts with the effect of stimulus degradation. Degraded stimuli take more profit of the sound than intact stimuli. Besides a short-term activation effect, originated by accessories of the auditory modality, on the motor adjustment stage (cf. Sanders 1983), the results suggest that the accessory influences the stage of feature extraction.