Dating age and stage as correlates of adolescent sexual attitudes and behavior

Dating experiences, especially the type or stage of dating, have consistently been found to be related to premarital sexual behavior. Findings regarding the age at 1st date and sexual behavior have been less consistent. This paper examined the age at which dating began and the type of dating relationship as correlates of premarital sexual attitudes and behavior among mid-teen adolescents. The analyses were based on a sample of high school students (n=836), most of whom were between the ages of 15 and 18 when the surveys were conducted. Early dating, especially early steady dating, was related to permissive attitudes and to premarital sexual experience among both males and females. The relationship between early dating and intercourse experience was particulary strong among Mormons, a religious group which has institutionalized age 16 as the legitimate age to begin dating.     

Fertility of mating in rats (Rattus norvegicus): contributions of androgen-dependent morphology and actions of the penis

Three experiments with rats (Rattus norvegicus) were conducted to examine the roles of the male's penile spines and penile cups (flaring of the distal glans) in the induction of luteal activity in the female, and in the removal of copulatory plugs from the vaginal tract. The results of Experiment 1 revealed no role for the cup in luteal induction but did suggest that elements of the ejaculatory reflex apart from cup formation contribute to the elicitation of this neuroendocrine response. The origin of this stimulatory effect was not directly determined, but indirect evidence suggested a role for penile spines. In Experiments 2 and 3, features of the glans penis that might help effect plug removal were investigated, and the experiments demonstrated that penile spines, perhaps in conjunction with penile cups, contribute to the extraction of plugs from the vagina.     

Acquisition of discrimination learning of patterns identical in configuration in macaques (Macaca mulatta and M. fuscata)

The acquisition of discrimination of five pairs of pattern cues in a Wisconsin General Testing Apparatus by 223 naive macaque monkeys was compared. The pairs of discriminanda were identical in configuration but varied slightly in either the size of the cue or the size of the background plaque; thus, the degree of separation of the cue from the fringe of the plaque, the response site, was slightly different for each pair of discriminanda. These small differences in cue-response separation had marked effects on the rate of acquisition of the discriminations. Even an increment of separation as small as 0.5 cm resulted in a remarkable retardation of the acquisition. This retardation was due entirely to prolonged performance at the chance level, and not to a slow rate of improvement from the chance to a criterion level. The finding indicates that the difficulty in the acquisition learning on pattern tasks depends largely on the difficulty of attending to the pattern cues at small cue-response separations.     

The challenge of technology transfer: Buying in without selling out

Highly effective technologies flowing from the discipline of behavior analysis have not been widely adopted, thus threatening the survival of the discipline itself. An analysis of the contingencies underlying successful technology transfer suggests the need for direct, empirical involvement in the marketplace in order to insure that the maximum demonstrable benefits reach the ultimate users. A successful example of this strategy of technology transfer is provided. Three areas of intense national concern-urban violence, illiteracy, and declining industrial productivity-provide immediate opportunities for the technologies of behavior analysis to secure the place of the discipline in the intellectual mosaic of the 21st century.     

Mentalism, behavior-behavior relations, and a behavior-analytic view of the purposes of science

In a behavioral view, the purposes of science are primarily prediction and control. To the extent that a scientist embraces both of these as a unified and generally applicable criterion for science, certain philosophical and theoretical practices are counterproductive, including mentalism in both its metaphysical and metatheoretical forms. It is possible and often worthwhile to recast some mentalistic talk into an issue of behavior-behavior relations. When behavior-behavior relations are approached non-mechanistically, however, analysis cannot stop at the level of the relations themselves. Several analytic concepts common in the behavioral community share some of the dangers of mentalism if not employed properly, including such concepts as self-reinforcement, response-produced stimulation, and self-rules.     

The right to refuse treatment: Paradox,pendulum and the quality of care

This clinical and theoretical overview of the right to refuse treatment will address some of the themes that have dominated this area of interface between psychiatry and the law, and have, perhaps, obscured the real concern of the right to refuse treatment question; i.e., the issue of quality of care. Central themes include factors present in the medicolegal context and recent events, origin of the concept of the right to treatment, the separation of confinement from treatment, and the changing models of vicarious decision making. This review also addresses judicial conceptualizations of treatment, including the concept of quarantine, judicial risk-aversiveness, and judicial fantasies of drug action. Some possible directions for the future are also examined.     

Criminal profiling from crime scene analysis

Since the 1970s, investigative profilers at the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit (now part of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime) have been assisting local, state, and federal agencies in narrowing investigations by providing criminal personality profiles. An attempt is now being made to describe this criminal-profile-generating process. A series of five overlapping stages lead to the sixth stage, or the goal of apprehension of the offender: (1) profiling inputs, (2) decision-process models, (3) crime assessment, (4) the criminal profile, (5) investigation, and (6) apprehension. Two key feedback filters in the process are: (a) achieving congruence with the evidence, with decision models, and with investigation recommendations, and (b) the addition of new evidence.     

The process of scapegoating in a neonatal nurses' group

This paper reviews the literature on scapegoating, elaborating on the underlying mechanisms before describing the process of scapegoating as it occurred in a neonatal nurse support group. Illustrative vignettes are used to discuss how scapegoating was used by group members to avoid painful feelings arising from their care of extremely ill infants. Group process is related to the stages of the group's development as feelings were addressed more directly and the need to use scapegoating as a defense decreased.