Exposure and response prevention in the natural environment: A comparison with obsessive-compulsive patients

Thirteen obsessive-compulsive clients were treated with different methods of response prevention. Four experimental conditions were obtained through a 2 × 2 factorial design, in which the two main variables were varied: (1) gradual treatment vs flooding; and (2) modeling vs no-modeling. Clients were treated at their homes, three times weekly. Each session lasted 2 hr. Results at the post-test revealed, that modeling was superior to no-modeling (p < 0.05) on avoidance-other compulsions, therapist-rating only. On anxiety-main compulsions, clients rating the gradual method of treatment had been superior to flooding (p < 0.05). No other significant differences were found.     

Stimulus control of generalized imitation in subnormal children

Generalized imitation was established in three young subnormal children by reinforcing their imitations of a limited set of modeled actions in the presence of a large ball. A discrimination was then established by training nonimitation in the presence of a small ball. Imitation was then tested for various other ball sizes. Rate of imitation decreased as the test stimuli increasingly differed in size from the large ball. Imitations that were never reinforced occurred at about the same rate as those that were reinforced when in the presence of the large ball in training.     

Imagery and associative memory in children

Second and sixth graders, ages 7–8 and 11–12, respectively, were presented with lists of pairs of nouns. They were asked to represent each pair in memory as a single interactive image, as two separate images, or by a control procedure. After presentation of the pairs, the children were tested either by cued or noncued recall. The difference between the interaction condition and the other conditions appeared in recall measures which reflect pairwise organization in memory (cued recall, pair recall, conditional recall probabilities, and χ²) to a much greater extent than in measures of individual item recall. The results were interpreted as supporting an imagery-organization hypothesis.     

When unexpected behavior is attributed to the environment

Two experiments were conducted to investigate a modification of the Jones and Davis (1965) analysis of attribution. Subjects were confronted with a situation in which there were two possible causes for an event, and differential information about these causes was provided such that subjects were much more informed about the nature of one potential cause than the other. This information also imparted to the subjects a definite expectancy about the forthcoming event. When the event disconfirmed subjects' expectancies, responsibility was attributed to the cause about which least was known. This result was found in both experiments. In addition, Experiment II offered some suggestive evidence that a disconfirmed expectancy will lead the person to direct his attention toward potential causes about which he is uninformed.     

Physiological and behavioral concomitants of mild stress: The effects of accuracy of temporal information

Sixty human subjects were exposed to a mild auditory stress after a fixed anticipatory period during which they performed a reaction time task. Suspense subjects were correctly informed of the time of onset of stress; Surprise subjects were told to expect the stress 10 min. later than it actually occurred. Subjects were provided with elapsed time information either automatically or on demand. Suspence subjects showed larger anticipatory electrodermal responses and smaller responses to stress than Surprise subjects but the two groups did not differ in their ratings of the unpleasantness of the stress. Female subjects showed greater anticipatory responses and consistently slower reaction times than males. The data are discussed in terms of explanations of the negative preception effect.     

Locus of control,perceived responsibility for prior fate,and helping behavior

One-hundred-and-sixty adolescents participated in two studies designed to investigate the relationship between $\text{I}\text{E}$ and helping behavior as mediated by the perceived cause of another's need. In the first study, Ss were given the opportunity to help, either “indirectly” or “directly,” a supervisor who had been over- or underpaid in a prior similar task. Internals helped more in the “direct” help than the “indirect” help conditions but their helping behavior and their perceptions of their supervisors were not consistent. The perceptions of the externals were relatively consistent with their greater help of the “overpaid” supervisor. In study 2, the Ss were given additional information to increase the possibility of their making causal attributions as a function of the supervisor's prior fate. Once again, the external subjects' helping behavior reflected their perception of their supervisor's merit. The internal subjects exhibited relatively little helping behavior regardless of their supervisors' prior fate or perceived competence.