Self-control and choice in humans: Effects of video game playing as a positive reinforcer

Participants chose between reinforcement schedules differing in delay of reinforcement (interval between a choice response and onset of a video game) and/or amount of reinforcement (duration of access to the game). Experiment 1 showed that immediate reinforcement was preferred to delayed reinforcement with amount of reinforcement held constant, and a large reinforcer was preferred to a small reinforcer when both were obtainable immediately. Imposing a delay before the large reinforcer produced a preference for the immediate, small reinforcer in 40% of participants. This suggested a limited degree of “impulsivity.” In Experiment 2, unequal delays were extended by equal intervals, the amounts being kept equal. Preference for the shorter delay decreased, an effect that presumably makes possible the “preference reversal” phenomenon in studies of self-control. Overall, the results demonstrate that video game playing can produce useful, systematic data when used as a positive reinforcer for choice behavior in humans.     

Language loss in bilingual Chicano children

The results of two studies on language loss in bilingual Chicano children are reported. In Study I, focusing on normal language acquisition in balanced bilinguals, 41 children in kindergarten through fourth grade were administered the Bilingual Language Acquisition Scale (BLAS), an instrument testing comprehension and production of the following features: number, gender, word order, relatives, conditionals, and Spanish subjunctive and its English equivalents. Most development occurred between kindergarten and the upper grades in the English Comprehension and Production subscales. In the production of Spanish, significant differences appeared between kindergarten and the upper grades to grade three. Unexpectedly, in the fourth grade, performance dropped sharply, with children performing almost at the kindergarten level. There were no significant differences by grade in Spanish comprehension. Most significant differences among grades were produced in the more complex categories (conditionals, Spanish subjunctive/English equivalents, and relatives) in the production subscales in English and Spanish. By fourth grade, in Spanish (and sometimes by third grade), children were performing with significantly lower accuracy than the younger children, particularly in the more complex structures (subjunctive and conditionals, for example). In Study II, 32 of the original subjects were retested two years later using the same instruments and procedures. While performance in English continued to improve for the sample as a whole, performance in Spanish production deteriorated to a significant degree. In Spanish, significant differences in performance between the two administrations were found, both for the scale as a whole and for the following categories: past tense, relatives, and the subjunctive. The influence of personal history and language use patterns was tested. The most severe incidence of loss occurred among children who tended to use both English and Spanish with the same speaker.     

Caregiver behavior in center and family day care

In an effort to examine relationships between variations within day care settings and adult caregiving behaviors the social experiences of 40 toddlers and their caregivers in family and center care were systematically observed. Caregivers were interviewed and conditions of caregiving recorded. Caregivers in both settings with fewer children in their care, who worked shorter hours, with less housework responsibilities engaged in more facilitative social stimulation, expressed more positive affect, were more responsive, and less restrictive and negative. Family day care caregivers who worked in spaces specifically designed to be safe and appropriate for children were less restrictive of toddler activity. Adult-child ratio and caregiver training appeared to be the best indicators of quality care in center day care, while a safe and appropriate caregiving environment and small groups appeared as quality indicators in family day care.     

The linkage of work achievement to self-esteem,career maturity,and college achievement

This study tested whether self-esteem and mature career attitudes related to one another and complemented one another in predicting academic and work achievement for 174 college students. Analysis showed both constructs related to achievement and supported the thesis that self-esteem facilitates development of mature career attitudes, which in turn promote academic and work achievement. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for theory and practice.     

On data-limited and resource-limited processes

This paper analyzes the effect on performance when several active processes compete for limited processing resources. The principles discussed show that conclusions about the interactions among psychological processes must be made with caution, and some existing assumptions may be unwarranted. When two (or more) processes use the same resources at the same time, they may both interfere with one another, neither may interfere with the other, or one may interfere with a second without any interference from the second process to the first. The important principles are that a process can be limited in its performance either by limits in the amount of available processing resources (such as memory or processing effort) or by limits in the quality of the data available to it. Competition among processes can affect a resource-limited process, but not a data-limited one. If a process continually makes preliminary results available even before it has completed all its operations, then it is possible to compute performance-resource operating characteristics that show how processes interact. A number of experiments from the psychological literature are examined according to these processing principles, resulting in some new interpretations of interactions among competing psychological processes.     

Verbal-vocal integration as a function of sex and methodology

The process by which persons appear to combine content and intonation to form an impression of a speaker's friendliness may be a function of sex and the analytical techniques used to evaluate the models. Sixty subjects (half male, half female) from the campus population were asked to rate the content, tone, and total message of short sentences from male speakers. Analysis of variance and regression analysis were used to evaluate Linear, Multiplicative, Minimum, and Maximum models. Responses were essentially linear, although the multiplicative component was significant in some results, and the Minimum model received some support for males. More weight was given to tone than content, especially by females and for inconsistent messages. Idiographic analysis proved superior to normative analysis, and the ignored content method provided greater reliability and explanation than previously used filtered speech.     

The relation of esteem and social class to self-occupational congruence

The relation of self-esteem and social class to congruence with chosen occupation (the incorporation score) was analyzed by ANOVA and a priori contrasts. Fifty-four accounting majors were differentiated from 58 non-accounting, business majors on the basis of their ideal-self-accounting congruence (p < .01) and their self-accountant congruence (p < .05). Both high- and low-esteem accounting majors' congruence scores for accountant were higher than other S's accountant congruence, and high-esteem accounting majors had the highest congruence (p <.05). Working class accounting majors had higher congruence than middle class accounting students (p <.05). The implications of the findings for theory development and counseling were discussed.     

The effects of expectations upon task performance as moderated by levels of self-esteem

The study investigated the effects of expectations upon task performance in a simulated work environment. In a 2 × 2 factorial design, individuals of high and low self-esteem responded to either a favorable or unfavorable expectation. It was found that only high self-esteem individuals differed significantly in their response to the expectation manipulation. The results were discussed relative to self-consistency formulations and implications for organizational behavior were suggested.     

Role of referent concreteness in the acquisition of passive sentence comprehension through abstract modeling

The present experiment tested the hypothesis that development of syntactic comprehension through verbal modeling is enhanced by referent concreteness as a contextual influence. Young children heard a model narrate a series of events in passive form while the model either performed the corresponding activities, showed pictures portraying the same activities, or displayed no referential aids. In accord with prediction, verbal modeling with enactive referents produced higher levels of comprehension of passives than modeling with pictorial referents or modeling without referential aids. Modeling with pictorial referents and modeling without referents did not differ in overall efficacy. However, modeling alone produced results that were less consistent across different measures of comprehension. Children who lacked understanding of passives were more dependent on concrete referents than those who had some initial comprehension of the linguistic form. The results suggest that verbal modeling with pictorial referents and verbal modeling alone facilitate comprehension of passives, whereas verbal modeling with enactive referents promotes learning. Findings of a supplemental experiment reveal that the effects of verbal modeling on comprehension are enhanced when syntactic forms occur in a meaningful verbal context.