Heterogeneity of Incentives for Physical Activity and Self-Efficacy in Highly Active and Moderately Active Women Exercisers

The purpose of this investigation was to examine whether persons exercising 2 times per week or less versus 3 times per week or more, with intentions to maintain current level of activity form a homogenous group in terms of motivational features. A group of 86 women recruited from local fitness clubs reported on their exercise incentives, self-efficacy, exercise behavior, and exercise intentions. A discriminant function analysis revealed that self-efficacy and incentives for stress reduction and mental health discriminated highly active from moderately active women. The implications of these findings are discussed in terms of stage theory and research in exercise adherence.     

THE EFFECTS OF MEAL SCHEDULE AND QUANTITY ON PROBLEMATIC BEHAVIOR

We present 2 case examples that illustrate the effects of meal schedule and quantity on displays of problematic behavior. In the first example, self-injury displayed by a toddler with severe developmental delays was maintained by parent attention, but only when he was satiated for food. When he was food deprived, self-injury decreased but did not appear to be differentiated across low or high social conditions. In the second example, crying and self-injury displayed by an elementary-aged girl with severe disabilities were correlated: Both behaviors were associated with food quantity, and neither behavior was responsive to social stimuli. These results replicate and extend previous findings demonstrating that meal schedule or food quantity can affect problematic behavior. In the present studies, brief functional analyses of aberrant behavior provided useful information for interpreting distinct patterns of behavior displayed by each child. We discuss these results in terms of the concept of establishing operations.     

AN ALTERNATING TREATMENTS COMPARISON OF TWO INTENSIVE INTERVENTIONS FOR FOOD REFUSAL

We compared two treatment packages involving negative reinforcement contingencies for 3 children with chronic food refusal. One involved physically guiding the child to accept food contingent on noncompliance, whereas the other involved nonremoval of the spoon until the child accepted the presented food. Subsequent to baseline, an alternating treatments comparison was implemented in a multiple baseline design across subjects. After each child had been exposed to at least nine sessions of each treatment condition and percentage of bites accepted had increased to at least 80%, the child's caregivers selected the preferred treatment package. The results indicated that both treatments were effective in establishing food acceptance. However, physical guidance was associated with fewer corollary behaviors, shorter meal durations, and parental preference.     

Leadership emergence in task groups with egalitarian gender-role expectations

Although they differ in their explanations of the antecedents of gender-role expectations, gender role and expectation states theories agree that mixed-sex and initially leaderless task groups will confirm these expectations by selectively reinforcing male task participation and leadership emergence. Based upon this assumption held in common by the two theories, we hypothesized that groups whose members expressed significantly egalitarian gender-role expectations would reinforce male and female task participation and leadership emergence impartially. Analysis of data from 31 mixed-sex groups whose members expressed significantly egalitarian gender-role expectations, and who were racially and ethnically homogeneous, found that males participated more in group discussions and were more likely to be selected as task leaders. Male advantages were explained only partly by token effects and their advantages in task resources. Implications are suggested for theories of male and female role performance in initially leaderless groups.     

THE QUESTIONABLE UNITY OF THE CONCRETE OPERATIONS STAGE

This study was designed to investigate the reported capacity of some non-conservers of weight to deal successfully with tasks involving multiple classification. Tests of seriation, class inclusion, conservation of quantity, weight and volume, and eight multiple classification tasks (after Inhelder and Piaget) were given to 49 recently immigrated Yugoslav children (median age 10.5 years) in Australian primary schools, using Serbo-Croat as the language of administration. Performance on most of these tests of concrete operational behaviour was found to be about two years retarded as compared with Genevan data. On seven of the eight multiple classification tasks, not less than one-third of non-conservers of weight were able to give operational solutions. No differences were found in this group of 22 non-conservers, in terms of success vs. non-success in multiple classification, in age, sex, urban/rural domicile of origin, more/less recent arrival in Australia, or Macedonian/Serbian ethnicity. It is concluded that a case can be made for not regarding the concrete operations stage as a formal unity, but instead (following Flavell and Wohlwill) as a set of structures without necessary interdependence.     

Neighborhood-frequency effects when primes and targets are of different lengths

 The present study provides a further investigation of the neighborhood-frequency effect. Using the masked priming procedure, we found that the neighborhood-frequency effect is obtained not only with primes and targets of the same length but also with primes and targets of a different length. This result is not compatible with most current versions of the interactive activation model. Implications of the finding are discussed. Received: 25 January 1999 / Accepted: 7 July 1999     

舞动治疗：一种自下而上的精神分裂症干预探索

皮层-基底节-丘脑网络与脑岛网络属于感觉运动相关网络, 这两个网络的改变可能是导致精神分裂症的重要原因。目前主流研究与临床干预聚焦于患者的高级脑区异常, 对感觉运动系统的关注不足。对健康个体的研究发现舞蹈训练对感觉运动相关脑网络具有显著提升作用, 并自下而上地促进高级功能。以上研究提示舞蹈训练可能是干预精神分裂症、改善患者认知功能的新途径。本研究拟借助多模态磁共振成像技术, 以精神分裂症感觉运动相关网络为着力点, 通过分析精神分裂症患者在舞蹈训练前后的脑影像、临床症状及认知行为的改变, 揭示舞蹈训练临床干预的神经机制。     

Perspectives on Positive Academic Ethics: an Introduction

Journal of Academic Ethics -