小学儿童奖赏公平性的认知发展

采用信息加工研究途径并假设故事情境探索小学儿童对奖赏公平性的社会认知发展,并将儿童的发展与成人作对比。研究结果表明,７,９岁儿童容易将＂均等＂与＂公平＂混淆,还没形成一个稳定的分配模式,而１２岁儿童已能运用＂努力＂、＂成果＂、＂能力＂等规则较为稳定地作出公平奖赏决定或评价,但还没达到对更高层次的社会准则的理解和掌握。儿童这一发展制约于他们的信息加工能力以及获得有关社会价值观的社会化过程。     

Exchange delays and impulsive choice in adult humans.

Choice responding by adult humans in a discrete-trial task was examined as a function of conditions that manipulated either the delay to point delivery or the delay between points and their exchange for money. In point-delay conditions, subjects chose between an "impulsive" alternative that provided a small amount of points immediately and a "self-control" alternative that provided a larger amount of points delayed by 15, 30, or 60 s. Points were exchanged for money immediately following the session. Subjects preferred the self-control alternative. In exchange-delay conditions, subjects chose between a small amount of points exchangeable for money immediately following the session and a larger amount of points exchangeable for money after 1 day, 3 weeks, or 6 weeks. A self-control preference observed for all subjects in the 1-day exchange-delay condition reversed to exclusive impulsive preference for 4 of the 6 subjects when choice conditions involved exchange delays of 3 or 6 weeks. These results show that human choice is sensitive to the manipulation of exchange delays and that impulsive preference can be obtained with exchange delays on the order of weeks.     

Human choice in concurrent ratio-interval schedules of reinforcement.

Seven undergraduates participated in a concurrent-choice experiment with monetary reinforcers. Response-independent analogues of variable-interval and variable-ratio schedules were used to assess whether subjects would maximize reinforcement rate. The optimal pattern of behavior, in terms of maximizing reinforcement rate, involved a large bias toward the ratio alternative, with only occasional sampling of the interval schedule. Most experiments with pigeons, however, demonstrate matching of response rates to reinforcement rates, with only slight biases for the ratio schedule. Although subjects in the present experiment allocated more time to the ratio alternative than required by matching, the magnitude of the bias did not approximate that predicted by a maximizing account. After exposure to clock stimuli correlated with the operation of each schedule, 1 subject's behavior did show a substantial level of bias, increasing the total number of reinforcers obtained, and lay at a point between the predictions of matching and maximizing. The other subjects, however, continued to respond less optimally. The present results can be accounted for by a view of matching that incorporates the effects of delayed reinforcement.     

Psychological determinants of decision attitude

Decision attitude — an analog of risk attitude — is the propensity to make (or avoid making) a decision: in decision aversion, a person finds it more desirable to receive through fiat the better of two options than to have a choice between them; in decision seeking, the choice is more desirable, even though it can lead to nothing better than the best option. Both decision aversion and decision seeking were found in hypothetical scenarios. Experimental manipulations and subjects' justifications point to anticipated regret, fear of blame for poor outcomes, and desire for equitable distributions as sources of decision aversion. One source of decision seeking (for self) and decision aversion (when deciding for others) appears to be the desire for the self-determination of the affected parties. We consider the implications of our results for personal choice and public policy decisions.     

An integrated mindfulness and acceptance-based program for young elite female basketball players: Exploratory study of how it works and for whom it works best

In order to better understand how an integrated mindfulness and acceptance-based intervention works and for whom it works best, study objectives were to examine (i) the trajectories of mindfulness skills and performance-related outcomes during the intervention, and athletes’ perceptions of the impact of the intervention; and (ii) the potential moderating effects of personality characteristics on changes in targeted variables associated with the intervention. The sample consisted of 40 young elite female basketball players (M = 16.33, SD = 0.75 years) from three incoming groups at the French Federal Basketball Center over a 3-year period. All players participated in a 15-week Mindfulness BasketBall Integrated program. They completed online questionnaires measuring personality traits 10 months before the intervention, as well as pre-, mid- and post-intervention measurements of mindfulness skills, intensity and directional interpretation of stress, and performance satisfaction. They also participated in semi-structured social validation interviews conducted one month after the intervention. The results of the multilevel growth curve (MGCA) and thematic analyses revealed how the mindfulness skills and performance-related outcomes evolved over the course of the intervention and how these changes were perceived by the athletes. Specifically, the MGCA showed significant linear increases in acceptance, positive stress direction, and performance satisfaction. The complementary social validation data indicated perceived improvements in mindfulness skills and performance. The MGCA also showed that baseline personality traits moderated the effects of the program on acceptance and experience of stress. These findings may be used to inform the design of more effective integrated mindfulness and acceptance-based interventions.     

CHOICE-MAKING TREATMENT OF YOUNG CHILDREN'S SEVERE BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS

The choice-making behavior of 5 young children with developmental disabilities who engaged in aberrant behavior was studied within a concurrent operants framework. Experimental analyses were conducted to identify reinforcers that maintained aberrant behavior, and functional communication training packages were implemented to teach the participants to gain reinforcement using mands. Next, a choice-making analysis, in which the participants chose one of two responses (either a mand or an alternative neutral response) to obtain different durations and qualities of reinforcement, was conducted. Finally, treatment packages involving choice making via manding were implemented to decrease inappropriate behavior and to increase mands. The results extended previous applications of choice making to severe behavior disorders and across behaviors maintained by positive and negative reinforcement.     

Token reinforcement, choice, and self-control in pigeons.

Pigeons were exposed to self-control procedures that involved illumination of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) as a form of token reinforcement. In a discrete-trials arrangement, subjects chose between one and three LEDs; each LED was exchangeable for 2-s access to food during distinct posttrial exchange periods. In Experiment 1, subjects generally preferred the immediate presentation of a single LED over the delayed presentation of three LEDs, but differences in the delay to the exchange period between the two options prevented a clear assessment of the relative influence of LED delay and exchange-period delay as determinants of choice. In Experiment 2, in which delays to the exchange period from either alternative were equal in most conditions, all subjects preferred the delayed three LEDs more often than in Experiment-1. In Experiment 3, subjects preferred the option that resulted in a greater amount of food more often if the choices also produced LEDs than if they did not. In Experiment 4, preference for the delayed three LEDs was obtained when delays to the exchange period were equal, but reversed in favor of an immediate single LED when the latter choice also resulted in quicker access to exchange periods. The overall pattern of results suggests that (a) delay to the exchange period is a more critical determinant of choice than is delay to token presentation; (b) tokens may function as conditioned reinforcers, although their discriminative properties may be responsible for the self-control that occurs under token reinforcer arrangements; and (c) previously reported differences in the self-control choices of humans and pigeons may have resulted at least in part from the procedural conventions of using token reinforcers with human subjects and food reinforcers with pigeon subjects.     

An investigation of the validity of the SPSI and SPSI-R in differentiating high-suicidal from depressed,low-suicidal college students

The present study examined the validity of the Social Problem-Solving Inventory (SPSI) and SPSI—Revised in differentiating 65 high-suicidal from 63 depressed, low-suicidal college students. Results from multivariate analyses indicated overall differences in problem-solving between these two groups as measured by the SPSI but not by the SPSI-R. Further examination of these differences revealed the high-suicidal group was different in problem-solving orientation, rather than problem-solving skills, compared to the depressed, low-suicidal group. However, when depression was statistically controlled in hierarchical regression analyses, none of the problem-solving measures predicted group membership. The superiority of the SPSI to the SPSI-R in differentiating these two groups appears to be accounted for by the elimination of 28 items in the revised version, many of which measure orientation to problem-solving. Also explored was the possibility that objective measures of problem-solving provide a better prediction of adjustment than do self-report measures.     

Age changes in nonverbal decoding as a function of increasing amounts of information

A test of nonverbal decoding skill (the PONS test) was administered to 632 subjects of eight different age levels, ranging from third graders to adults (Ages 8–33 years). Females were more accurate than males, older subjects were more accurate than younger ones, and all samples tended to decode more successfully when more information was available. Three different analyses showed that the increase in accuracy with increasing amounts of information was more pronounced for the older than for the younger groups. This differential effectiveness in the utilization of available information was discussed in terms of processing capacity, effort, and strategies for sampling a diversity of cues.