SHORT- AND LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF CONTINGENCY MANAGED INSTRUCTION ON LOW,MEDIUM, AND HIGH GPA STUDENTS1

Undergraduate students had been assigned to a contingency managed course or a conventional lecture course (Du Nann and Fernald, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1976, 9 , 373–374). Two years later, some 35% (N = 86) of the original classes responded to a letter offering them $2.00 to participate in a study of their educational experiences. These students completed a multiple-choice test on material from the course, and answered questions about activities and attitudes that might have been affected by the experience in Introductory Psychology. In the contingency management course 2 yr past, students were tested each week on a chapter of textbook material with 10-item multiple-choice quizzes. The course employed a modified “Doomsday Contingency”, requiring each student to achieve 80% mastery on one of the four weekly quizzes or drop the course. Quizzes were given in small groups and scored individually, while the student stood near, by an undergraduate proctor assigned to that group. The proctor was asked to show interest in the students' quiz performances, help clear up difficult areas, and develop a friendly working relationship with each student. While many students passed the quiz on the first attempt, others were given individual tutoring, so that no one was in fact forced to drop the course. In addition to the weekly quiz assignment, students in the contingency managed group were asked to attend one lecture each week. While the contingency management course procedures had much in common with PSI (Keller, Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1968, 1 , 79–89), several departures made them unique. First, self-pacing was curtailed because students were required to master one unit per week or drop the course. Second, proctors met with students in small groups, usually giving individual tutoring only to those students who did not pass the quiz on the first attempt. Finally, students were asked to attend one lecture per week. Students in the conventional lecture group were not asked to pass weekly quizzes, but instead attended three 50-min lectures each week. Two of these lectures followed the textbook material closely, while the third, which was also attended by students from the contingency management course, covered material only indirectly related to the text. This partition of lecture content allowed material to be similar across the two instructional groups. Although students in the lecture condition were told they could obtain copies of the quizzes, few of them did so. Course grades were determined by scores on two 45-item multiple-choice hourly exams, each covering half the semester material (each worth 25%), and by a 90-item final exam, which served as a measure of short-term retention. Before analyzing the follow-up data, several characteristics of the returning students were compared to determine the comparability of the sample from the two original classes. Most important, both attrition and the current mean GPAs of students from the two classes were very similar. These considerations, and others, suggested there was no systematic sampling bias to confound comparisons of student performance. A 2 (contingency management versus traditional lecture) by 3 (high, medium, and low GPA) analysis of variance was computed on the course final-exam scores and the follow-up measures. Instructional procedure and GPA interacted on the final exam such that low and medium GPA students performed significantly better under contingency management, but there was no significant effect of instructional procedure with high GPA students. On the 2-yr retention measures, students from the contingency management course performed significantly (p < 0.01) better on items drawn from quizzes used in their original course, and marginally better (p < 0.10) on items drawn from the final exams, but no interactions with GPA appeared. Furthermore, instructional method produced no significant main effects or interaction with how many students became majors or minors in psychology, how many psychology courses were later taken, how many books in psychology were reported to have been read, or on students' evaluation of the interest and importance of psychology.     

MODIFICATION OF THE EXCESSIVE INAPPROPRIATE CLASSROOM BEHAVIOR OF TWO ELEMENTARY SCHOOL STUDENTS USING HOME-BASED CONSEQUENCES AND DAILY REPORT-CARD PROCEDURES1

Two experiments investigated home-based reinforcement contingencies to control excessive behavior in normal classrooms. Subjects were, respectively, a 12-yr-old fifth-grade boy and a 9-yr-old fourth-grade boy, each in a separate classroom and with a different teacher. Following baseline observations in which observers recorded several categories of student behavior and teacher-student interaction, separate conferences were held including parents of the two children, the principal, teachers, and experimenters. A daily report-card procedure was agreed on, stipulating a one-day suspension from school following three successive “undesirable” daily report cards as well as the supervision of home-based privileges and other reinforcers usually contingent on satisfactory daily reports. Measurements of daily rates of teacher attention indicated no important change in this variable throughout the various experimental conditions. The daily report procedure significantly reduced disruptive classroom behavior. In a second experiment, a teacher-operated timer cued her own time-sample observations. Reliability measures revealed that the teacher could accurately measure the child's behavior while she was teaching the class. The procedure was ultimately successfully expanded to the teacher's total contact hours each day.     

Strategic Revenue Management under Uncertainty: A Case Study on Real Estate Projects in India

This paper proposes an approach for strategic revenue management under uncertainty for real estate projects. It integrates three modelling techniques: first, artificial neural network integrated support vector machines for forecasting the profit and loss‐making real estate residential projects; second, analytical network process approach using decision making trials and evaluation laboratory methodology for establishing interrelationships among factors; and third, multiobjective genetic algorithm approach for obtaining optimal numbers and types of apartments in a real estate project. We compare the respective revenues generated with the new number of apartments and price from the suggested revenue maximization model and that of the old practiced one through a case study of India. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Childhood Maltreatment,Emotional Response Inhibition,and Suicide in Psychiatric Inpatients

Childhood abuse and/or neglect adversely influences development of neurocognitive systems that regulate affect and behavior. Poor inhibitory control over emotional reactions is thus one potential pathway from maltreatment to suicide. Adult psychiatric inpatients completed the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire and an emotional stop-signal task indexing negative emotional action termination (NEAT): the ability to inhibit ongoing motor reactions to aversive stimuli triggered by negative affect. Clinical interviews assessed suicidal thoughts and behaviors during hospitalization (n = 131) and at follow-up assessments 6 months later (n = 87). Our primary aim was to examine whether maltreatment history and NEAT explain overlapping variance in suicidal behaviors (1) retrospectively and (2) 6 months following hospital discharge. Contrary to prediction, childhood maltreatment was unrelated to history of suicidal behaviors. However, NEAT was consistently associated with prior suicidal acts, even controlling for suicidal ideation and demographic covariates. NEAT similarly contributed to the prediction of post-discharge suicidal behaviors, whereas we found no effect of maltreatment history. The present study suggests that NEAT captures suicide risk independently of childhood maltreatment. Results implicated NEAT impairment specifically, rather than broader response inhibition deficits (e.g., to positive stimuli), in past and future suicidal behaviors. These findings provide preliminary support for NEAT as a behavioral vulnerability marker for suicide, with implications for understanding links between maltreatment history and suicidal acts.     

Mood-congruent biases in facial emotion perception and their gender dependence

Due to mood-congruency effects, we expect the emotion perceived on a face to be biased towards one's own mood. But the findings in the scant literature on such mood effects in normal healthy populations have not consistently and adequately supported this expectation. Employing effective mood manipulation techniques that ensured that the intended mood was sustained throughout the perception task, we explored mood-congruent intensity and recognition accuracy biases in emotion perception. Using realistic face stimuli with expressive cues of happiness and sadness, we demonstrated that happy, neutral and ambiguous expressions were perceived more positively in the positive than in the negative mood. The mood-congruency effect decreased with the degree of perceived negativity in the expression. Also, males were more affected by the mood-congruency effect in intensity perception than females. We suggest that the greater salience and better processing of negative stimuli and the superior cognitive ability of females in emotion perception are responsible for these observations. We found no evidence for mood-congruency effect in the recognition accuracy of emotions and suggest with supporting evidence that past reports of this effect may be attributed to response bias driven by mood.     

激活右腹外侧前额叶提高抑郁症患者对社会疼痛的情绪调节能力：一项TMS研究

负性人际交往经历和负性社会事件是抑郁症的重要诱导因素, 而社会功能受损是抑郁症患者的重要特征之一, 患者通常表现出对社会疼痛的情绪失调。为了提高抑郁症患者在负性社交情境中或面对负性社会事件时的情绪调节能力, 本研究采用经颅磁刺激技术(transcranial magnetic stimulation, TMS), 考察抑郁症患者在腹外侧前额叶(the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex, VLPFC)被激活后其情绪调节能力的改变。结果表明, 当右侧VLPFC被TMS激活且患者采用认知重评策略调节情绪时, 实验组患者(n = 64)比对照组患者(n = 63)在社会排斥情境下报告了更弱的负性情绪体验, 这说明激活右侧VLPFC可以有效提高患者对社会疼痛的外显性情绪调节能力。本研究是采用TMS提高抑郁症患者情绪调节能力的首次尝试, 实验发现不但支持了VLPFC与认知重评策略的因果关系, 还为临床改善抑郁症等社会功能障碍患者的情绪调节能力提供了明确的神经治疗靶点。后续研究还需探讨多疗程TMS刺激方案、改变社会疼痛的诱发方式、对比左右侧VLPFC的治疗效果、尝试使用其他的情绪调节策略, 进一步验证本研究的结论, 优化TMS治疗方案。     

规范错觉对外出就餐中食物浪费的影响：心理机制与应对策略

规范错觉是指个体的规范感知与实际存在于群体中的社会规范之间存在差异, 规范错觉影响了社会生活的方方面面。对957份问卷调查的分析显示, 人们普遍高估了他人的食物浪费(行为错觉)以及对浪费的赞同程度(态度错觉), 而这两种错觉又加剧了人们自身的浪费行为。中介效应检验显示, 印象管理中的社交性维度部分中介了两种错觉与浪费行为间的关系。两个随机对照实验进一步检验了描述性(命令性)规范信息对行为(态度)错觉的影响, 结果发现, 描述性规范信息降低了行为错觉, 并通过社交性减少了浪费行为; 而命令性规范信息并不改变态度错觉本身, 但通过降低态度错觉对浪费的影响而减少了浪费行为。上述结果意味着两种规范信息尽管高度相似, 但其作用机制却可能不同, 同时这一发现也为政策制定者提出了两种干预途径。     

情绪效价与面孔类型对幼儿无意视盲的影响

幼儿对不同的情绪面孔图片存在不同的注意偏向,考察情绪效价与面孔类型对幼儿无意视盲的影响,可以帮助我们进一步认识幼儿对情绪面孔的注意偏向。本研究采用静态无意视盲的实验范式,通过2（面孔类型：符号化卡通、真人）×2（情绪效价：积极、消极）被试间完全随机设计,考察了111名幼儿（62.5±3.6个月,男生60名）在无意注意条件下对不同情绪效价和不同类型面孔的觉察情况。结果表明：（1）幼儿对积极情绪面孔的觉察率显著高于消极情绪面孔;（2）符号化卡通面孔与真人面孔的整体觉察率不存在显著差异;（3）积极情绪面孔中符号化卡通面孔的觉察率高于真人面孔。综上,情绪效价对无意视盲的影响会基于面孔类型的不同而不同,幼儿对卡通积极情绪面孔有更显著的注意偏向。     

Prepared to fake? The relationship between applicants’ job interview preparation and faking

Multiple frameworks and models postulate an effect of job interview preparation on faking. Two studies were conducted to examine if applicants’ interview preparation is correlated with higher faking. Besides analyzing the general extent of preparation, we also distinguished between different preparation categories. In Study 1 (N = 237), a presented preparation video led to higher intentions on image protection but did not increase overall faking intentions. Study 2 (N = 206) focused on past preparation and impression management (IM). The total time spent on preparation was positively correlated with faking. Applicants’ preparation via online videos and professional interview preparation was correlated with higher deceptive and honest IM. Preparation via online videos was additionally correlated with a higher perceived interview difficulty.