Relevance of physical environment influences for toddler temperament

The present study investigated the relation of the physical environment to toddler and parent temperament. Measurement of the physical environment offers a unique way of disentangling environmental influences on temperament from child influences on the environment. Subjects were 82 12-month-old toddlers. The physical environment was assessed during six separate home observations, using codes from the Purdue Home Stimulation Inventory. Toddler temperament was measured by the Toddler Temperament Scale, and maternal temperament was assessed with the revised Dimensions of Temperament Scale. Results indicated that measures of crowding and availability of objects and visual stimuli were most consistently related to specific dimensions of toddler temperament. Relations between physical environment and maternal temperament were inconsistent. Partialling out maternal temperament did not substantially change observed relations between the physical environment and toddler temperament. Implications of these findings for our understanding of environmental contributions to the expression of temperament are discussed.     

FANTASY WORLDS AND SELF-MAINTENANCE IN CONTEMPORARY AMERICAN LIFE

Abstract. Because actual social experience is often damaging to conceptions of self, individuals in all societies engage in identity work beyond ordinary social interaction. For people in religious groups, identity work may involve the subjective experience of interactions with spirit beings as in altered states of consciousness such as dreams, reverie, or trance. In memories, anticipations, and fantasies, secular Americans, too, may experience gratifying imaginary social interactions when they gain recognition and acclaim from imagined others. Unlike spirit relations these fantasies are not culturally defined as "real." However, like spirit relations, they may have very real effects on self-maintenance.     

The effect of punishment on a factor I stuttering behavior

On each of five days the subject of this experiment read aloud different material during an 18-min A₁ (base rate), B (experimental), and A₂ (extinction) period. No stimulation was delivered during the first three days. On the fourth day, the nonsense word “norg” was presented noncontingently during the experimental period. There was no statistically significant difference between the A₁ and B periods on any of these four days. On day five, “wrong” was made contingent on Factor I prolongations during the experimental period. As a result, there was a statistically significant increase in their frequency. When the response consequence was removed in the A₂ priod, there was a reliable reduction in prolongations and the frequency closely approximated that found in the A₁ period. These data suggest that response-contingent negative stimulation is contraindicated as a clinical tactic for use with Factor I prolongations. It not only failed to suppress them, it increased their frequency.     

Stuttering adaptation under distributed and massed conditions

An identical-subject-repeated-measures design, involving two counterbalanced conditions, was employed to investigate adaptation when the presentation of a 100-word list is distributed and when it is massed. In Condition I, the entire list was read aloud during each of five successive trials. Since a specific word reoccurred only after all of the others were displayed, the presentation may be said to be distributed. In contrast, the Condition II presentation was massed. Only after a word was read five times was the next one presented. The results indicate that significant adaptation occurred in both conditions. However, adaptation plateaued in the distributed condition. This was not the case when massing was employed. The among-condition analyses revealed that significantly more adaptation occurred in the massed than in the distributed condition.     

Positive conditioned suppression: an explanation in terms of multiple and concurrent schedules

Rats performed under a baseline variable-interval schedule of food presentation. A response-independent food schedule was then superimposed on the baseline schedule for different periods of time across different conditions. The response-independent schedule operated for the whole session in some conditions, intermittently for sixty second periods in some, and intermittently for ten-second periods in others. Under these latter two sets of conditions, the response-independent food schedule was stimulus correlated and alternated with the baseline schedule according to a multiple schedule. Response-independent food presentations always suppressed responding. The degree of suppression tended to increase the longer the period of response-independent food. Control conditions, in which the superimposed schedule was response-dependent, rather than response-independent, did not produce response suppression. The results fit an analysis of positive conditioned suppression phenomena in the context of multiple and concurrent schedule effects.     

Students’ achievement motivation in Finnish and Chinese higher education and its relation to perceived teaching-learning environments

This cross-cultural study of Finnish and Chinese students set out to compare the levels of achievement motivation (AM) in order to investigate whether the differences in them might be explained by the different cultural response styles and whether these response styles could be controlled for with a method which includes response style variables as covariates in ANCOVA. This study also scrutinizes relationships between perceived teaching-learning environments (TLE) and AM within each cultural group. The survey sample consisted of 3,035 Finnish and 2,309 mainland Chinese university students. Finnish students were found to rate the level of AM markedly higher than do Chinese students. It was determined that the method applied for response style controlling is not suitable for cross-cultural studies, even though it is recommended for this use. A modification of the method, which is based on robust statistical tools, was found not to change this conclusion, but it can nevertheless be used to obtain useful information about the effects of response style differences. The results also show that similar relationships between AM and TLE could be identified in the data of both groups. However, for the Finnish group AM is related to perceived suitable workload, whereas for the Chinese group it is related to teacher encouragement.