The development of risk-taking in children

Since clear relationships exist between age, gender, and the occurrence of different kinds of accident, safety researchers and educators need to take account of recent work in developmental and environmental psychology, which is leading to a revised view of children’s environmental competence. Studies of the development of risk perception and risk-taking are first reviewed: these have identified three broad phases through which children proceed, culminating in an understanding of the interaction between their own perspective, that of other participants, and characteristics of the situation itself in the causation of accidents. This broad picture is in line with the reformulations of Piagetian stage theory which have occurred in recent years: rather than being “pre-operational” or “egocentric” in a global sense, young children’s main limitations seem to be in applying the principles of routines or drills from one setting to another, and studies of attention and memory show that the amount of information children are able to process improves with age, as does their resistance to distraction. Three aspects of individual differences seem to have an influence upon risk-taking, namelygender, reflection-impulsivity, andfamily structure, and the findings are reviewed in each case. As children get older they experience an increasingly wide variety of unfamiliar situations, and it is essential to understand the interaction between these age changes in environmental circumstances and mechanisms of developmental change in formulating programmes for safety education.     

Toilet rooms, body massages, and smells: Two field studies on human evaluative odor conditioning

In two experimental field studies, the hypothesis was tested that Pavlovian conditioning may modify adults’ liking or disliking of an odor. In Experiment 1, an odor (CS) was first paired unobtrusively with toilet stimuli (US). Next, Ss rated the experimental and a control odor on Semantic Differential items. For Ss evaluating going-to-the-toilet negatively, an acquired dislike for the toilet-paired odor relative to a nonexposed control odor was observed, whereas in Ss evaluating going-to-the-toilet positively, the reverse was observed. In Experiment 2, a neutral odor (CS) was mixed into the massage oil with which a physiotherapist treated his patients. Half of the Ss were treated with Positive-relaxing massage, half of the Ss with Negative-painful massage. At the medical follow-up, Semantic Differential ratings were obtained both for the treatment-odor and for a control odor. In the Positive massage group, the treatment odor was rated as more positive and as less dynamic than the control odor. No similar effects were observed in the Negative massage group, a failure which was probably due to the intended Negative massage not really being experienced as a disliked event. In both experiments, an almost identical pattern of results was observed in the subgroup of Ss who didnot consciously recognize the experimental odor as the treatment odor, eliminating the possibility that the results should be due to demand. As mere exposure cannot account for the results, they most probably represent genuine instances of evaluative odor conditioning. The results are discussed in terms of the understanding of the origins of the affective meaning of odorants, and are related to human evaluative conditioning and implicit memory issues.     

Test of the violation of local realism in quantum mechanics with no use of Bell's inequalities

A novel and versatile polarization-entanglement scheme is adopted to investigate the violation of the EPR local realism for a non-maximally entangled two-photon system according to the recent nonlocality proof by Lucien Hardy. In this context the adoption of a sophisticated detection method allows direct determination of any element of physical reality (viz., determined with probability equal to unity in the words of Einstein, Podolsky and Rosen) for the pair system within complete measurements that are largely insensitive to the detector quantum-efficiencies and noise.     

Identification with aggression vs. turning against the self: An empirical study of turn-of-the-century European Jewish humor

Self-directed demeaning ethnic humor is hypothesized to represent either a means of self-deprecation or a stance of disidentifying with one’s own group of origin. Compendia of published Yiddish humor were examined to empirically test competing conceptualizations of Jewish wit. Results are analyzed in the context of the social milieu of the publication samples.     

IMPLICATIONS OF BEHAVIORAL PHARMACOLOGY RESEARCH FOR APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSES: JEAB'S SPECIAL ISSUE CELEBRATING THE CONTRIBUTIONS OF JOSEPH V. BRADY (MARCH 1994)

We review four articles from JEAB's March 1994 issue celebrating the contributions of Joseph V. Brady. These articles have implications for studying private events and for studying multiple operants. We suggest that regularly including self-reports about private events in behavioral pharmacological research has resulted in an accumulated knowledge that has facilitated examination of interesting relations among self-reports, environmental factors, and other observable behaviors. Methodological lessons that behavioral pharmacologists have learned regarding the study of multiple operants are also relayed. We provide examples of how these lessons could be useful to applied behavior analysts studying nonpharmacological issues.     

Soft commitment: self-control achieved by response persistence.

With reinforcement contingent on a single peck on either of two available keys (concurrent continuous reinforcement schedules) 4 pigeons, at 80% of free-feeding weights, preferred a smaller-sooner reinforcer (2.5 s of mixed grain preceded by a 0.5-s delay) to a larger-later reinforcer (4.5 s of mixed grain preceded by a 3.5-s delay). However, when the smaller-sooner and larger-later reinforcers were contingent on a concurrent fixed-ratio 31 schedule (the first 30 pecks distributed in any way on the two keys), all pigeons obtained the larger-later reinforcer much more often than they did when only a single peck was required. This "self-control" was achieved by beginning to peck the key leading to the larger-later reinforcer and persisting on that key until reinforcement occurred. We call this persistence "soft commitment" to distinguish it from strict commitment, in which self-control is achieved by preventing changeovers. Soft commitment also effectively achieved self-control when a brief (1-s) signal was inserted between the 30th and 31st response of the ratio and with concurrent fixed-interval 30-s schedules (rather than ratio schedules) of reinforcement. In a second experiment with the same subjects, the fixed ratio was interrupted by darkening both keys and lighting a third (center) key on which pecking was required for various fractions of the fixed-ratio count. The interruption significantly reduced self-control. When interruption was complete (30 responses on the center key followed by a single choice response), pigeons chose the smaller-sooner reinforcer as frequently as they did when only a single choice response was required.     

Content validity: A neglected strategy for developing managerial selection tests?

There is a lack of quick, valid, and cost effective methods for selection of low-and mid-level managerial personnel. Using content-valid methods to develop managerial selection instruments may reap substantial benefits for applicants as well as for the organizations using such tools. To this end, based upon extensive job analysis, a content-valid managerial selection test was developed. Criterion-based validity collected on the new instrument suggested that an instrument developed using content-valid procedures can also show acceptable levels of criterion validity.     

Tolerance of ambiguity: A review of the concept, its measurement and applications

This paper reviews the scattered and diffuse literature on the tolerance of ambiguity construct (AT). The work by Frenkel-Brunswik (1948) is considered in some detail to help explain the origin of the concept as well as its diffusion to many areas of psychology. Second, thirty years of correlational research, which looks at the studies correlating AT measures with a variety of psychological variables, are reviewed. Third, evidence for the differential distribution of AT among particular groups is reviewed. Fourth, the psychometric properties of the various self-report AT measures are considered in some detail. The two final sections look at organizational and cultural correlates of AT (the areas currently most interested in the AT concept). The conclusion attempts to explain varying patterns of interest in the AT construct and its current status.