Cognitive behavior modification: ‘Motivated learning’ reading treatment with subprofessional therapy-technicians

A method of treating reading deficits based upon an extrinsic motivational system previously employed successfully with a single subject was extended to eighteen additional subjects. The junior-high age subjects included retarded children in special classes, several emotionally disturbed children, and culturally deprived children. The method of training used in the original study was designed to be simple to administer and simple to record the performance of the child. Thus, it was hypothesized that subprofessional personnel could be employed to administer the treatment. Adult volunteers and high school seniors were used as the therapy-technicians.

The eighteen Ss were given 38.2 hr of training in daily half-hour sessions, during which period the average reinforcement earned was $22.29. The mean number of single word reading responses was 94,425. The rate of reading accelerated over the period of training even though the reading material became more difficult. This occurred during a period when progressively less (about one-fourth as much) reinforcement was given per reading response. A mean of 593.5 new words were learned and 70.9 per cent of these were retained in a long-term test. The attention, attendance, cooperation, and diligent work behavior of the various children were maintained in good strength throughout the duration of the study. The results suggest that research be conducted to develop methods for treatment of behavioral deficits that can be widely applied by subprofessional therapy-technicians supervised by clinical psychologists.     

Iterative techniques for unbiased rating scales

Three iterative techniques for neutralizing the effects of stimulus bias in category rating experiments were examined with a wide variety of stimulus variables. Under all conditions examined, the iterative techniques quickly led to a stable category estimation. This result was obtained for stimulus variables with strong measurement properties, e.g. length and weight; for stimulus variables with only ordinal properties, e.g. emery papers; and for stimulus variables with only nominal properties, where an ordered set is obtained only in the course of the category scaling, e.g. female profiles.     

Historical perspectives on near-death phenomena

The authors present an introductory overview of the history of near-death phenomena, followed by a synopsis of near-death research representative of three historical eras: 1880s–1930; 1930s–1960; and 1960 to the present.     

In search of depth

Four experiments designed to investigate a visual search task are reported. In each experiment, subjects searched for either a two-dimensional shape rotated in depth among frontal-parallel distractors or a frontal-parallel shape among distractors that were rotated in depth. The principal independent variable was search-set size. In addition, over the four experiments, a variety of spatial arrangements and two axes of rotation in depth were sampled. The chief aim of the experiments was to adduce evidence bearing on the attentional demands of searching for depth. The slopes of the reaction-time (RT) functions were taken as diagnostic. Experiments 1–3 exhibited positive slopes for the RT-set-size function. These slopes appear to be due to a conscious adoption of a serial search strategy by the subjects. When this tendency was suppressed by the procedures of Experiment 4, the slope of the RT-set-size functions did not differ significantly from zero. We conclude that, in agreement with the findings of other studies, slant-in-depth can be detected preattentively.     

Assessing Adolescent and Adult Attachment: A Review of Current Self-Report Measures

Increased interest in attachment theory among counseling researchers and practitioners has led to the development of several measures of attachment-related constructs. Following a brief overview of the theoretical foundations of attachment theory as conceptualized by Ainsworth (1989) and Bowlby (1988), the authors of this article review four self-report measures of adolescent and adult attachment. Many considerations for the selection and use of these instruments in future counseling research and assessment are discussed.     

Interrelationships among students' study activities,self-concept of academic ability,and achievement as a function of characteristics of high-school biology courses

This investigation focused on the interrelationships among students' study activities, students' self-concept of academic ability ratings, students' academic achievement, and instructional practices in 12 high school biology courses. Using a framework derived from a previous investigation, course features were classified into those that appear to (a) place demands on, (b) support, or (c) compensate for student engagement in particular study activities. Students' study activities, self-concept of academic ability ratings, and achievement were measured with experimenter-developed instruments. Results are reported for (a) characteristics of instruments and course features, (b) relationships between central factors of the investigation, and (c) multi-level relationships between course features and student variables. Results at the student level indicated that self-concept of academic ability and, to a lesser extent, students' study activities were positively associated with student achievement. Students' self-concept of academic ability ratings were also linked to students' engagement in generative, proactive study activities. At the course level the supportive practices of providing challenging homework assignments and extensive feedback on student coursework were associated with student engagement in effortful, generative, proactive study activities. The provision of extensive feedback was also associated with high student achievement. Multi-level relationships were analysed using hierarchical linear modelling (HLM) analyses. These analyses revealed, for example, that in courses in which little or no feedback is given on homework assignments, the relationship between achievement and student engagement in diligent effort management activities was enhanced. Other HLM analyses were conducted to examine the mediating role of course features on the relationship between students' self-concept of academic ability and their study activities and achievement. For example, the presence of challenging course demands was associated with an enhancement of the relationship between self-concept of academic ability and achievement whereas the presence of instructor provisions (supports and compensations) designed to reduce course demands was associated with a reduction in this relationship.     

Order effects in belief updating with consistent and inconsistent evidence

The current study tests for the presence of differential order effects in evaluation tasks with consistent and inconsistent evidence as predicted by the Hogarth and Einhorn (1992) belief-adjustment model. The results, based on both between-subjects and within-subjects experiments, demonstrate that there were significant recency effects with inconsistent evidence as predicted, larger recency effects when the inconsistent evidence was farther apart in subjective value as predicted, and significant recency effects even when subjects were given training designed to both help them understand the task as completely as possible and to be better able to assess the pieces of evidence. By including a within-subjects design, we were able to demonstrate that the difference in subjective value between two pieces of evidence is the primary factor influencing the magnitude of the recency effect, regardless of whether the evidence is consistent or inconsistent. This latter finding is unique and contrary to previous research and theory.     

Teaching ret in the financial and investment industry

Conclusion The investment and financial industry is ripe with opportunities for emotional turmoil! Turmoil that is not only painful in itself, but that contaminates subsequent thinking and behavior and decision-making, and thus frequently costs firms and their clients substantial sums of money. Convincing the decision-makers as well as the professionals on-the-line that psychological training would be very useful is a difficult task, but certainly possible with hard and persistent work! The potential gains must be tied to the bottom line to get their attention. Once in the door, the opportunities are numerous for the application of RET within the workplace. And hopefully, the positive results in terms of both happier workers and an improved bottom line will be the ultimate data to convince the decision-makers to keep the door open and continue to have RET infused into the workplace!Address for correspondence to William D. Criddle, Ph. D., Four Seasons Olympic, Suite 1200, 411 University Street, Seattle, Washington, 98101 Bill Criddle is a managerial psychologist based in Seattle, Washington, where he consults with a variety of businesses on all kinds of psychological people-problems in the workplace. He has an MBA in management from the International Management Institute in Geneva, Switzerland, as well as his doctorate in Psychology.