POSITIVE PEER PRESSURE: THE EFFECTS OF PEER MONITORING ON CHILDREN'S DISRUPTIVE BEHAVIOR

Classroom peers can serve as powerful sources of reinforcement in increasing or maintaining both the positive and negative behaviors of their classmates. In two experiments, we examined the effectiveness of a peer-monitored token system on reducing disruption and nonparticipation during a transition period of a kindergarten class for behaviorally impaired children. Additionally, the effect of providing and subsequently withholding corrective feedback to peer mediators on the accuracy of their point awards was evaluated. Results in Experiment 1 suggest that both teacher-and peer-monitored interventions were successful in decreasing disruption and increasing participation of monitored peers. Experiment 2 further demonstrated that peer monitors could successfully initiate the token system without prior adult implementation. Analysis of the point awards in both experiments indicates that peer monitors consistently awarded points that were earned. However, when corrective feedback was withdrawn the peer monitors frequently awarded points that were not earned, i.e., they rarely withheld points for undesirable behavior. Even so, the monitored peers' disruptive behavior was maintained at low rates.     

Accuracy versus speed in the generalized effort of learning-disabled children

Reinforcement of effortful performance in a given academic task has been found to increase the subsequent performance of other academic tasks. The learned-effort hypothesis assumes that individuals learn which dimensions of task performance are correlated with reinforcement of high effort, and generalize across tasks. Therefore, reinforcement of increased effort in a given dimension of one task should result in greater generalized effort in the same dimension of transfer performance than in another dimension. In accord with this view, preadolescent learning-disabled students who received points for high reading accuracy subsequently produced more accurate drawings and stories than did students whose points had been based upon high reading speed or upon mere completion of the reading task. Students who received points for high reading speed subsequently constructed stories more quickly than did children whose points had been based upon high reading accuracy or upon reading-task completion. Consistent with the more explicit and frequent feedback for accuracy than for speed in most academic tasks, generalized accuracy was much more durable than generalized speed.     

THE EFFECT OF THE ABSENCE OF CLOSE SUPERVISION ON THE USE OF RESPONSE COST IN A PRISON TOKEN ECONOMY1

A naturally occurring experiment, in which direct supervision of a token economy in a penal system was removed and re-instated, is reported. A retrospective analysis revealed that in the absence of close supervision the use of response cost rose dramatically, both in terms of categories of behaviors for which response costs were levied and in the frequency of their use. The return of direct supervision led to a decreased use and an end to the growth of categories of behaviors punished.     

An analysis of daily report cards and parent-managed privileges in the improvement of adolescents' classroom performance

A daily report-card system, involving home privileges administered by parents, was developed for use with "problem" junior-high students. In Experiment I, when home privileges and parent praise were contingent on improved school conduct, classwork, daily grades, and teacher satisfaction, the school performance of three students improved considerably. In Experiment II, a similar report-card system was employed with two additional students, except only parent praise was contingent on improved school performance. Under these conditions, one of the students did not bring the report card home, and class performance did not improve until contingent home privileges were added. The school performance of the second student improved with the card and praise alone. However, there appeared to be a slow decline of classwork performance over time. For Experiment III, an instructional manual, describing the report-card program, was written for school guidance counsellors. Two guidance counsellors read the program, used it with one student each, and found that the school performance of both students improved. These results suggest that the daily report-card program with home consequences administered by parents can improve the school performance of, and teacher satisfaction about, students having considerable difficulty in school.     

GENERALIZATION OF THE EFFECTS OF TEACHER- AND SELF-ADMINISTERED TOKEN REINFORCERS TO NONTREATED STUDENTS

Ten, black, second-grade boys served in a series of single-subject studies. They were from poor families, did not do well in arithmetic, were deficient in sustained attention, and presented behavior problems at school. One boy was a therapeutic confederate. Of the remaining nine nontreated students, three observed the confederate reinforced by a teacher, three observed the confederate self-reinforce without having an opportunity to use “self-reinforcement” themselves, and three observed self-reinforcement while having an opportunity to use “self-reinforcement.” The target behavior was attending. Other measures of outcome were glancing, academic achievement, and accuracy of reinforcement. The basic experimental design consisted of an ABAB withdrawal applied to the confederate while the nontreated students remained on baseline. Generalization was expressed as a ratio (i.e., percent change in the generalization measure divided by percent change in the target behavior). Teacher-administered reinforcers to the confederate did not produce generalization of any kind. Both arrangements of self-administered reinforcers to the confederate produced across-subjects generalization and subject-response generalization. Additionally, the confederate manifested response generalization.     

Pigeons' preference for variable-interval water reinforcement under widely varied water budgets.

Water budget of pigeons was varied to assess the dependence of risk-sensitive preferences upon economic context such as has been reported for energy-budget manipulations with small animals in behavioral ecology research. Fixed- and variable-interval terminal-link water schedules reinforced choice between equal variable-interval initial-link schedules arranged on two pecking keys. While keeping a severely restrictive budget the same across three phases of the experiment, a contrasting distinct ample budget was arranged in each. To mimic typical methods in behavioral ecology studies, in each ample budget a more than three-fold increase in amount of water per reinforcer presentation was instituted simultaneously with significantly increased overall access to water. Total choice response rates plummeted in the ample budgets, and body weights either increased significantly or remained unchanged in different phases as expected by the nature of the different manipulations. Clear preferences for the variable-interval schedule were found throughout the experiment, except for rare instances of key bias. The results agree with similar operant food-reinforcement studies and extend conditions under which risk preference apparently does not depend upon economic context.     

Participatory management: Maintaining staff performance in a university housing cooperative

To apply behavior analysis to normal adults in non institutional settings, we may have to encourage their participation in the design and implementation of behavioral technology. This study evaluates a technology by which the members of a student housing cooperative manage their own staff with a minimum of supervision by one of the program designers. This staff management system consisted of prompts, self-reports, spot checks, and contingent rent reductions. Six resident staff members performed substantially more of their assigned tasks when this system was used. In addition, the management system was acceptable to the members, was affordable, and maintained high levels of staff performance during a 5-year follow-up. Participation by the members in the design and implementation of this system appears to have been useful in helping the behavior analysts to develop an unusually durable management system.     

Reversed effects in closed and open economies

Pigeons received food according to either fixed-interval, fixed-ratio, or random-interval schedules in both closed and open feeding economies. In the closed economy, they were not food deprived, they controlled the amount of food received at each meal, and they had no other source of food. In the open economy, each feeding bout consisted of one feeder cycle, and the pigeons received supplemental feeding as needed to maintain them at 80% of their free-feeding weights. Response rate always increased with larger schedule requirements in the closed economy, but it either decreased steadily or increased and then decreased in the open economy. Initial pauses lengthened with longer fixed intervals or fixed ratios (FR) in the open economy but less so in the closed economy. Responding continued under FR 10,000 schedules in the closed economy, but never survived FR 400 in the open economy. In the open economy, fixed-interval schedules could maintain far more behavior than could either fixed ratios or random intervals. Familiar concepts such as matching and arousal can describe at least some of the behavior in the open economy, but current theory does not apply well to behavior in the closed economy. An explanation of economy-dependent effects might begin with the possibility that the two economies invoke different evolved survival strategies. These strategies influence behavior by means of different mechanisms and laws. The strategy for the closed economy may relate to weight conservation, but that for the open economy may be based on energy conservation.     

A demonstration of a token economy for the real world

Token economies are rarely used in real-world psychiatric settings because of barriers to their implementation, such an institutional constraints and insufficient collegial support. The line-level treatment team at Elgin Mental Health Center was able to overcome these contraints and develop a user-friendly token economy. This article describes Elgin's simple yet effective token economy and the process used to develop it.     

关于全球伦理的哲学审思

全球化过程有两个基本方面：一是科学技术的发展,一是资本主义的发展。迄今为止的全球化过程是资本主义利用不断更新的科学技术来实现自己发展的过程,此过程的社会实质在于资本主义全球化——包括资本主义经济全球化和与之相适应的资本主义伦理全球化。然而,诸如反全球化浪潮之美的国际现象和国际事件表明,原来作为全球化之推动力量的资本主义,如今正在走向其反面,愈来愈成为全球化的阻碍力量了;而日益严重的全球性生态危机,更其表明资本主义再也不能按其固有的方式存在和发展了。因此,客观上要求变革现存的资本主义经济制度及其伦理——包括资本主义经济理性、人理性和科学理性。适应解决当今全球性生态危机的需要,一种新伦理——生态伦理正在形成之中,它有望最终演变为取代传统资本主义伦理的全球伦理。