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.     

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.     

人格结构的动态分析

为了动态化地分析人格的结构。研究一采用个体性自由命名描述法考察人格的动态内容。１５０名大学生分别用１０个词描述实际的自我、理想的自我、应该的自我。词频统计反映了不同自我的内容特点。研究二采用常模化限定性描述法考察人格的结构特点,用研究珠高频词制成实际、理想、应该的自我词表。２００名大学生用７点量表分别评定各词表中的每个词适合描述相应的自我的程度。结果表明,实际的自我有５个因素,解释４７．１％的变异     

Utilizing structural family therapy and systems theory in the business world

The structure of businesses and the structure of families are very similar, considering the fact that so many businesses are owned or operated by families. Structural family therapists who are knowledgeable in systems theory and have an adequate understanding of the underlying concepts of structural family theory (including hierarchy, boundaries, and coalitions) can translate their knowledge to the structure of businesses and organizations. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the similarities between the structures of families and businesses. In doing so, an application of structural family theory to the business world (employee assistance programs, business consultation, and family businesses) will be demonstrated.     

Psychopathy and structure of primary mental abilities

The Comprehensive Ability Battery (CAB) was used to assess 18 primary mental abilities in 53 white, male prison inmates for whom highly reliable ratings of psychopathy were available. None of the correlations between ratings of psychopathy and scores on the CAB tests was significant, and the overall pattern or structure of abilities was the same for inmates with low and high ratings of psychopathy. The possibility is raised that the personality characteristics of psychopaths make them appear to be brighter and more creative than they actually are. Compared with norms for male high school students, the inmates as a group generally performed well, falling near the 50th percentile on 11 of the tests. The inmates performed significantly better than the normative sample on tests of verbal ability, esthetic judgment, aiming, and representational drawing, and significantly worse on tests of ideational fluency, spontaneous flexibility, and word fluency.This research was supported by Grant MT-4511 from the Medical Research Council of Canada.     

Choice and reinforcement delay

Previous studies of choice between two delayed reinforcers have indicated that the relative immediacy of the reinforcer is a major determinant of the relative frequency of responding. Parallel studies of choice between two interresponse times have found exceptions to this generality. The present study looked at the choice by pigeons between two delays, one of which was always four times longer than the other, but whose absolute durations were varied across conditions. The results indicated that choice is not uniquely determined by the relative immediacy of reinforcement, but that absolute delays are also involved. Models for concurrent chained schedules appear to be more applicable to the present data than the matching relation; however, these too failed to predict choice for long delays.     

Self-control in pigeons under the Mischel paradigm

Walter Mischel studied self-control in preschool children in the following manner: if the child waited for an interval to end, he or she received the more preferred of two reinforcers; if the child responded to terminate the interval by ringing a bell, the less preferred reinforcer was given. We used an analogous procedure to study self-control in pigeons: if the bird waited for a trial to end, it received the more preferred reinforcer; if the bird terminated the trial by pecking a key, the less preferred reinforcer was given. We explored the effects on self-control of a number of variables analogous to those studied by Mischel and co-workers, e.g., presence versus absence of reinforcers, of alternative responses, and of stimuli during the wait interval; prior experience of the subjects; and test paradigm. The results obtained with pigeons paralleled the results obtained by Mischel with human children.