Counterfactual and Factual Reflection: The Influence of Past Misdeeds on Future Immoral Behavior

Though the decision to behave immorally is situated within the context of prior immoral behavior, research has provided contradictory insights into this process. In a series of experiments, we demonstrate that the effects of prior immoral behavior depend on how individuals think about, or reflect on, their immoral behavior. In Experiment 1, participants who reflected counterfactually on their prior moral lapses morally disengaged (i.e., rationalized) less than participants who reflected factually. In Experiment 2, participants who reflected counterfactually on their prior moral lapses experienced more guilt than those who reflected factually. Finally, in Experiments 3 and 4, participants who reflected counterfactually lied less on unrelated tasks with real monetary stakes than those who reflected factually. Our studies provide important insights into moral rationalization and moral compensation processes and demonstrate the profound influence of reflection in everyday moral life.     

Signaled alternative reinforcement and the persistence of operant behavior

Differential reinforcement of alternative behavior (DRA) is a treatment designed to eliminate problem behavior by reinforcing an alternative behavior at a higher rate. Availability of alternative reinforcement may be signaled, as with Functional Communication Training, or unsignaled. Whether or not alternative reinforcement is signaled could influence both the rate and persistence of problem behavior. The present study investigated whether signaling the availability of alternative reinforcement affects the rate and persistence of a concurrently available target response with pigeons. Three components of a multiple concurrent schedule arranged equal reinforcement rates for target responding. Two of the components also arranged equal reinforcement rates for an alternative response. In one DRA component, a discrete stimulus signaled the availability of response‐contingent alternative reinforcement by changing the keylight color upon reinforcement availability. In the other DRA component, availability of alternative reinforcement was not signaled. Target responding was most persistent in the unsignaled DRA component when disrupted by satiation, free food presented between components, and extinction, relative to the signaled DRA and control components. These findings suggest the discrete stimulus functionally separated the availability of alternative reinforcement from the discriminative stimuli governing target responding. These findings provide a novel avenue to explore in translational research assessing whether signaling the availability of alternative reinforcement with DRA treatments reduces the persistence of problem behavior.     

An investigation of cognitive test performance across conditions of silence,background noise and music as a function of neuroticism

The present study investigates the role of trait neuroticism on cognitive performance under distraction. Seventy participants were given a personality test and then undertook a number of different cognitive tasks in silence, in the presence of popular music and in background noise. It was predicted that performance on a general intelligence test, a test of abstract reasoning, and a mental arithmetic task would be adversely affected by background sounds. It was predicted that neuroticism would be negatively correlated with performance on the mental arithmetic task but only when the individuals were working in the presence of background sound. Stable vs. unstable participant's performance on a mental arithmetic task during noise was significantly higher as predicted. The results provided partial support for the hypotheses and are discussed with respect to previous findings in the literature on personality (particularly introversion–extraversion) and distraction on cognitive task performance. Limitations are noted.     

Comparing the Effectiveness and Efficiency of Response Repetition to Simultaneous Prompting on Acquisition and Maintenance of Multiplication Facts

This study compared the effectiveness and efficiency of an error-correction procedure, response repetition, to a prompting procedure, simultaneous prompting, on the acquisition and maintenance of multiplication facts for three typically developing 3rd grade students. This study employed an adapted alternating treatments design nested in a multiple probe design across three sets of multiplication facts. Results indicated that correct responding increased upon intervention implementation for all participants. For two participants, response repetition was a more effective teaching procedure. For one participant, while both teaching procedures were effective, response repetition was more efficient in terms of sessions to mastery while simultaneous prompting was more efficient in terms of errors and seconds to mastery. Maintenance data were variable. Discussion focuses on conceptual differences between response repetition and simultaneous prompting that might have accounted for results.     

A Conversation Worth Having: Hauerwas and Gustafson on Substance in Theological Ethics

When a debate is misplaced, new problems are cast in the distorting language of the settled problems of the past while, at the same time, the participants in the debate are assimilated into communities of thought with which they have little in common. The result is that their work, and our response to it, is distorted. This article contends that the polemical debate between James Gustafson (and his followers) and Stanley Hauerwas (and his followers) is just such a misplaced debate. In fact, both can be shown to be Troeltschianhistoricists, and it is only when this commonality is recognized that their very real and deep differences can be rightly appreciated as emblematic of the true sources of disagreement at the growing edge of the discipline.