Radio psychology: A comparison of listeners and non-listeners

The major objective of this study was the application of help-seeking models to the study of radio psychology. A total of 443 subjects was divided into two research groups, non-listeners (n = 246) and listeners (n = 197) to at least one of two Israeli radio counselling programmes dealing with parent-child and interpersonal relationships. Through telephone interviews the subjects' responses to the instruments designed specifically for this type of study were reported: listening motivations, attitudes towards psychological help and reasons for non-listening. The results revealed that while listeners do not necessarily perceive themselves as help-seekers they, as well as the non-listeners, attributed listening to the motivations of curiosity, comparison with others and attaining psychological knowledge. The results suggested that listening to radio psychology programmes is a means of facilitating the earlier stages of the help-seeking process.     

INTERVENTIONS TO REDUCE HIGH-VOLUME PORTABLE HEADSETS: “TURN DOWN THE SOUND!”

Two studies examined effects of interventions to reduce noise levels from portable stereo headphones. Study 1 examined the effectiveness of warning signs posted in and nearby public elevators with 567 passengers possessing a portable headphone (total N = 7,811). During a 9-day baseline, the mean percentage of headphones played at an observer-audible level was 85%. During a subsequent 6-day warning sign phase, the mean percentage of audible headphones declined to 59%, which increased to a mean of 76% during a second baseline phase (5 days). Study 2 assessed the impact of a student confederate who lowered his or her observer-audible headphone volume at the polite request of a second student confederate. Of the 4,069 elevator passengers, 433 possessed a portable headset. The mean percentage of observer-audible headphones during a 4-day baseline was 85%. Subsequently, a 5-day modeling intervention reduced audible volumes to a mean of 46%. During a second baseline phase of 4 days, the mean level was 77%, and during reintroduction of the modeling phase (9 days) the mean level was 42%. The modeling intervention was significantly more effective with women (53% compliance) than men (29% compliance).     

THE EFFECTS OF SEVERE BEHAVIOR PROBLEMS IN CHILDREN ON THE TEACHING BEHAVIOR OF ADULTS

Applied behavior analysts have focused on how adults can influence the problem behavior of children using a variety of behavior modification strategies. A related question, virtually unexplored, is how the behavior problems of children influence adults. This child-effects concept was explored empirically in a study involving 12 adults who were asked to teach four pairs of children in which one member of the pair exhibited problem behavior and the other typically did not. Results demonstrated that problem children displayed tantrums, aggression, and self-injury contingent on adult instructional attempts but not at other times, whereas nonproblem children showed little or no problem behavior at any time. Importantly, from a child-effects perspective, adults engaged in teaching activities with nonproblem children more often than with problem children. Also, when an adult worked with a problem child, the breadth of instruction was more limited and typically involved those tasks associated with lower rates of behavior problems. The implications of these results are discussed with respect to theories of escape behavior, current assessment practices, and intervention issues related to maintenance. The existence of child effects suggests that problem behavior may be better understood when it is conceptualized as involving a process of reciprocal influence between adult and child.     

Teacher rated problems and school ability tests in relation to preschool problems and parents'' health information at school start. A study of first-graders

The reliability of assessments at four and six years of age in identifying teacher rated problems in behaviour, concentration, motor skill and school achievement was investigated in a study of first-graders. Relationships between preschool data and school ability tests, and between parents' information at school start and teacher ratings were also studied. Problems noted in preschool and school were often present in more than one area. Multiple problems at four and six years were strong predictors of later school problems, but preschool assessments of separate areas could not in general predict problems in corresponding areas in school. However, cross situational concentration deficits at the age of six did reliably identify concentration problems in the first grade, at the age of seven.     

Changes in Hungarian academic psychology after the end of “people's democracy”

The paper surveys the last 30 years of Hungarian academic psychology. Around 1989–1990, the time of the great social changes Hungarian psychology was rather Westernized, but still a relatively small scientific field and applied profession. The opening and liberalization of politics made psychology in Hungary a booming profession and a rich research field. Education of psychologists was spreading, and becoming more Westernized in textbook usage and reading materials. Entrance numbers at two universities with 80 students were replaced by 2010 by 6 university programs and about 8000 incoming students. The training system is a Bologna type BA + MA + PhD system, The educational booming has its own problems. As all university subjects, psychology training is also underfinanced, with high teaching loads and a move by university management towards applied areas, neglecting basic research. The research activity is characterized by a fivefold increase of English language publications coming from Hungary over a 20 years period. University research was strengthened, and competitive grant systems were introduced, whth good success aretes by psychologists. Here again, managerial thinking questions many aspects of basic research and liberalized science management. These factors are peculiar to psychology, but they do have an impact on it. The paper gives some details about one chapter of academic psychology, cognitive psychology. Institutionally, support by the Soros foundation in the 90s for the university cognitive programs had as one consequence that three departments of cognition are active in Budapest today. Another aspect of insitutional development was the series of multidisciplinary conferences in Hungary (MAKOG), and Hungarian involvement in international graduate training programs in cognitive science. The most successful cognitive group, at Central European University (5 ERC grants, publications in leading journals) is recently chased out of Hungary by anti-Western and antiliberal legal moves. This would certainly have a detrimental effect on Hungarian cognitive psychology for quite a time.     

A brief history of Romanian psychology

The evolution of Romanian psychology followed several stages, similarly to other countries in Eastern Europe, yet with its own particularities. The first psychology institutes were introduced by former students of Wilhelm Wundt, and the field saw a rapid development, with distinguished scholars making relevant scientific contributions. However, after the communist regime was enforced, psychology stagnated somewhat due to ideological, financial, and political reasons, and, in 1977, it was even removed from academia. After 1989, psychology revived in academia and research, and as a profession as well. This article summarizes the evolution of Romanian psychology through these stages, focusing on its postcommunist revival.     

The society for community research and action on a path toward conocimiento: From silences and statements to solidarities in action in U.S. community psychology

A first-person narrative essay is presented through a critically reflexive auto-ethnography of a community psychologist's experiences as a member of the Society for Community Research and Action (SCRA) and (as of this writing) co-chair of the Cultural, Ethnic and Racial Affairs council. Through this methodological orientation, an analysis of some of the discourses that circulated within the SCRA listserv in relation to the murder of Mr. George Floyd, and amidst an ensuing pandemic are analyzed and discussed in relation to Anzaldúa's seven stages of conocimiento. The intentions that guide and ground this first-person account are to animate deeper reflection, accountability, and solidarity-in-action, as well as an organizational shift in the culture of the SCRA. Guided by a set of questions—What accounts for the organizational silences within the SCRA? How did the SCRA respond or engage with the murder of Mr. Floyd, anti-Blackness, Black Lives Matter, and related racial justice efforts?—the purpose is to turn a critical social analysis gaze to the SCRA in order to align its purpose, values, and mission with liberation and a decolonial feminist praxis. Anzaldúa's seven-stage framework of conocimiento is utilized to describe the possibilities for an organizational cultural shift in the SCRA that aligns with racial justice and liberatory decolonial feminist praxes.     

Coding infant engagement in the Face-to-Face Still-Face paradigm using deep neural networks

BackgroundThe Face-to-Face Still-Face (FFSF) task is a validated and commonly used observational measure of mother-infant socio-emotional interactions. With the ascendence of deep learning-based facial emotion recognition, it is possible that common complex tasks, such as the coding of FFSF videos, could be coded with a high degree of accuracy by deep neural networks (DNNs). The primary objective of this study was to test the accuracy of four DNN image classification models against the coding of infant engagement conducted by two trained independent manual raters.Methods68 mother-infant dyads completed the FFSF task at three timepoints. Two trained independent raters undertook second-by-second manual coding of infant engagement into one of four classes: 1) positive affect, 2) neutral affect, 3) object/environment engagement, and 4) negative affect.ResultsTraining four different DNN models on 40,000 images, we achieved a maximum accuracy of 99.5% on image classification of infant frames taken from recordings of the FFSF task with a maximum inter-rater reliability (Cohen's κ-value) of 0.993.LimitationsThis study inherits all sampling and experimental limitations of the original study from which the data was taken, namely a relatively small and primarily White sample.ConclusionsBased on the extremely high classification accuracy, these findings suggest that DNNs could be used to code infant engagement in FFSF recordings. DNN image classification models may also have the potential to improve the efficiency of coding all observational tasks with applications across multiple fields of human behavior research.