Treatment for Youth in Short-Term Care Facilities: The Impact of a Comprehensive Behavior Management Intervention

We describe a comprehensive program to train emergency shelter staff in effective methods for dealing with youth who have behavioral and emotional problems; assess the degree to which staff implemented the treatment approach; measure the impact of the intervention on shelter-wide incidents such as out-of-control behavior, runaways, and violence against other youth; and examine pre-post changes in staff experiences at the shelter via anonymous surveys. Overall, the short-term shelter staff indicated adequate implementation of the intervention. The rate of youth incidents at the shelter significantly declined from pre to post assessment. Direct-care staff ratings of their satisfaction with their proficiency in behavior management and teaching youth skills increased significantly from pre to post implementation. These findings suggest that it is feasible to deliver an effective staff-training program to improve the behavior management and social skills of youth residing in short-term care facilities within the child welfare system.     

Organizational socialization tactics and newcomer proactive behaviors: An integrative study

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between organizational socialization tactics, newcomers’ self-efficacy, proactive behaviors, and socialization outcomes. Based on a sample of 140 co-op university students who completed surveys at the end of their work term, the results indicated that newcomers’ self-efficacy and institutionalized socialization tactics were positively related to newcomer proactive behaviors. The results also indicated that newcomer proactive behaviors partially mediated the relationship between their self-efficacy and organizational socialization tactics with a number of proximal and distal socialization outcomes. Furthermore, feedback-seeking and information-seeking moderated the relationship between socialization tactics and several socialization outcomes. Institutionalized socialization tactics were more strongly related to socialization outcomes for newcomers who engaged in less feedback-seeking and information-seeking behavior. These results support an interactionist approach to organizational socialization in which newcomers’ self-efficacy, proactive behavior, and organizational socialization tactics all contribute to newcomers’ adjustment and socialization.     

Effects of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Vocational Rehabilitation on Metacognition and Coping in Schizophrenia

The Indianapolis Vocational Intervention Program (IVIP) is a cognitive behaviorally based program of group and individual interventions that seeks to help persons with schizophrenia improve vocational function and sustain hope. In this study we compared baseline and follow-up assessments of coping and metacognition among 50 participants with schizophrenia spectrum disorders offered a six-month job placement and randomized to receive IVIP (n = 25) or standard services (n = 25). ANCOVA controlling for baseline suggest that the IVIP group gained greater ability to think about their own thinking and to cope by seeing what were previously perceived as negative stressors in more positive light. An erratum to this article can be found at     

Drivers’ attitudes toward imperfect distraction mitigation strategies

Studies were conducted to assess driver acceptance of and trust in distraction mitigation strategies. Previous studies have shown that in-vehicle tasks undermine driver safety, and that there is a need for strategies to reduce the effects of in-vehicle distractions. Trust and acceptance of such strategies strongly influence their effectiveness. Different strategies intended to reduce distraction were categorized in a taxonomy. Focus groups were conducted to help refine this taxonomy and explore driver acceptance issues related to these strategies. A driving simulator experiment was then conducted using two of the strategies: an advising strategy that warns drivers of potential dangers and a locking strategy that prevents the driver from continuing a distracting task. These strategies were presented to 16 middle-aged and 12 older drivers in two modes (auditory, visual) with two levels of adaptation (true, false). Older drivers accepted and trusted the strategies more than middle-aged drivers. Regardless of age, all drivers preferred strategies that provided alerts in a visual mode rather than an auditory mode. When the system falsely adapted to the road situation, trust in the strategies declined. The findings show that display modality has a strong effect on driver acceptance and trust, and that older drivers are more trusting and accepting of distraction mitigation technology even when it operates imperfectly.     

西方社会能力的研究及启示

从20世纪70年代开始,社会能力的概念为国外研究者广为接受,有关社会能力的理论和实践探索不断深化扩展,西方学者对社会能力的定义和测量、对教师期望、成绩差异、危险行为以及对社会能力的结构、作用和培养方案进行的探讨,极大地增进了教育、心理学工作者对于儿童社会适应和认知发展的理解。西方学者关于社会能力的研究成果对于我国素质教育有着重要的启示。     

高级职业经理人胜任特质评定探索

为了方便企业甄选所需要的高级管理人才,本文就“高级职业经理人胜任特质评定量表”的编制过程及其量表的结构分析做一报告。该量表分为认知基质、组织协调、领导力、个性倾向和自我调节五个纬度和一个测谎的分量表。本研究立足于中国本土文化,采用小组中心访谈和多种统计分析技术对中国的高级职业经理人的胜任特质进行测评,结果显示总量表和各纬度上的项目具有较高的同质性信度和结构效度,具有较好的鉴别力。     

童年中期同伴关系、同伴关系知觉与心理行为适应的关系

本研究以422名小学二、三、四年级的儿童进行为期3年的纵向研究,考察了时间2的同伴关系知觉在时间1的同伴关系和时间3的心理行为适应之间的中介效应。结果表明,自我知觉的社会能力在同伴接纳与社交/领导行为和孤独感之间的中介作用显著,自我知觉的友谊质量在双向互选朋友与社交/领导行为和孤独感之间的中介作用显著。     

An analysis of coordinated responding of pigeons

Experimental analyses of coordinated responding (i.e., cooperation) have been derived from a procedure described by Skinner (1962) in which reinforcers were delivered to a pair of subjects (a dyad) if both responded within a short interval, thus satisfying a coordination contingency. Although it has been suggested that this contingency enhances rates of temporally coordinated responding, limitations of past experiments have raised questions concerning this conclusion. The present experiments addressed some of these limitations by holding the schedule of reinforcement (Experiment 1: fixed ratio 1; Experiment 2; variable interval 20 s) constant across phases and between dyad members and by varying, in different conditions, the number of response keys (one to three) across which coordination could occur. Greater percentages of coordinated responding occurred under the coordinated-reinforcement phases than under independent-reinforcement phases in most conditions. The one exception during the one-key condition of Experiment 1 appeared to be a consequence of variability introduced by the independent-reinforcement phase procedure. Furthermore, coordination percentages decreased with increasing response options under both schedules. These results confirm and extend the finding that coordination contingencies control higher rates of temporally coordinated responding than independent-reinforcement contingencies do.     

Relating different perspectives on how outcomes of behavior influence behavior

Many researchers have tackled the question of how behavior is influenced by its outcomes. Some have adopted a nonmechanistic (functional) perspective that attempts to describe the influence of outcomes on behavior. Others have adopted a mechanistic (cognitive) perspective that attempts to explain the influence of outcomes on behavior. Orthogonal to this distinction, some have focused on the influence of outcomes that a behavior had in the past, whereas others also consider the influence of outcomes that a behavior might have in the future. In this article, we relate these different perspectives with the goal of reducing misunderstandings and fostering collaborations between researchers who adopt different perspectives on the common question of how behavior is influenced by its outcomes.     

Caregiver involvement in applied behavior-analytic research: A scoping review and discussion

We conducted a scoping review to characterize the role of caregiver involvement in behavior-analytic research. We reviewed eight behavioral-learning journals from 2011–2022 for works that included children or caregivers as participants and characterized caregiver involvement as passive (implications for caregivers, input, social validity) and active (implementation, caregiver behavior, training, caregiver-collected data). The review identified 228 studies, and almost all (96.1%; n = 219) involved caregivers in some capacity; 94.3% (n = 215) had passive involvement (26.8% had only passive involvement; n = 61), 69.3% (n = 158) had active involvement (1.8% had only active involvement; n = 4), and 3.9% (n = 9) had neither passive nor active involvement. Involvement generally increased over publication years. The most common types of involvement were implications for caregivers, implementation, and input; caregiver-collected data were rare. We propose considerations when engaging caregivers in research and suggest new avenues of inquiry related to caregivers' treatment objectives and social validity, treatment implementers, and caregiver-collected data.