THE EFFECT OF EXPERIMENTER FACIAL ORIENTATION DURING IMITATION MAINTENANCE1

The training and maintenance of imitative responding has become an important therapeutic process with language-handicapped children, as indicated by Garcia and DeHaven (American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 1974, 79 , 169–178). Typically a training “package” is used, that might entail the use of operant shaping, fading, reinforcement, and punishment techniques designed to increase correct imitation and decrease incorrect responding. Only recently have studies begun to concentrate on the components of these training “packages”. Steinman (Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1970, 3 , 159–167) highlighted the roles played by less conspicuous but functionally important components of these packages. The present study attempted to provide a systematic extension of this work within an applied context. Using subjects who were responding at high levels during an imitation-maintenance procedure, experimenter facial orientation (experimenter's eyes and head oriented towards the subject's face and head), was systematically manipulated for experimentally determined “types” of imitative behavior. Differential responding within these parameters provided an evaluation of facial orientation as a functional component within this training package. Three retarded children participated in the study. Two types of topographically different imitative responses were defined for experimental purposes (“standing” and “sitting”). Each subject progressed through four conditions of the study, which called for the reinforcement of all imitative responses. But during preselected conditions, experimenter facial orientation was removed from the therapeutic package for one of the two topographical types of imitation. Results indicated that imitation of the two topographical types of models was dependent on the presence of experimenter facial orientation within the experimental procedure.     

On the Relation Between Religiosity and the Endorsement of Conspiracy Theories: The Role of Political Orientation

Religious and conspiracy beliefs share the feature of assuming powerful forces that determine the fate of the world. Correspondingly, they have been theorized to address similar psychological needs and to be based on similar cognitions, but there exist little authoritative answers about their relationship. We delineate two theory-driven possibilities. If conspiracy theories and religions serve as surrogates for each other by fulfilling similar needs, the two beliefs should be negatively correlated. If conspiracy and religious beliefs stem from the same values and cognitions, this would speak for a positive correlation that might be diminished—for example—by controlling for shared political ideologies. We approached the question with a meta-analysis (N = 10,242), partial correlations from large Christian-dominated datasets from Germany, Poland, and the United States (N = 12,612), and a preregistered U.S. study (N = 500). The results indicate that the correlations between religiosity and conspiracy theory endorsement were positive, and political orientation shared large parts of this covariance. Correlations of religiosity with the more need-related conspiracy mentality differed between countries. We conclude that similarities in the explanatory style and ideologies seem to be central for the relation between intrinsic religiosity and endorsing conspiracy theories, but psychological needs only play a minor role.     

Relationship between orientation toward multicultural competence,multicultural competent behaviors,and working alliance: Examining a multigroup mediation model

In this study, the researchers examined the relationship among an orientation toward multicultural counseling competence, multicultural competent behaviors, and the working alliance from the perspective of 574 client participants across various therapeutic dyads. There was a positive relationship between clients’ perspectives on counselors’ multicultural orientation, counselors’ multicultural competent behavior, and working alliance. Multicultural competent behaviors mediated the relationship between an orientation toward multicultural competence and working alliance. However, the mediated effect was inconsistent across cross and similar racial/ethnic therapeutic dyads. Implications for counselors, limitations of the study, and future directions for research are provided.     

社会价值取向与损失情境对不同时间压力下双人社会困境中合作行为的影响

为揭示双人社会困境中合作行为的影响因素,选取四种不同类型的双人社会困境,采用实验法考察社会价值取向与损失情境对不同时间压力下合作行为的影响。结果显示,亲社会个体的合作率显著高于亲自我个体的合作率,收益情境下的合作率显著高于损失情境下的合作率,在社会困境中双方冲突程度越大合作率越低;此外,高时间压力提升了亲自我个体在囚徒困境以及收益情境下信任困境中的合作率,同时降低了亲自我个体在损失情境下最大差异困境中的合作率。结果表明,社会价值取向、收益损失情境以及困境冲突程度均对合作行为的发生具有影响作用,而时间压力对合作行为的作用也同样受到三者的影响。这些发现能够为合作行为自动性的理论分歧提供新的证据。     

目标倾向测量及其与绩效的关系

本文修订了B.Button等人所编制的目标倾向调查问卷,修订后的问卷具有较好的信效度。选取了58名文科大二学生为被试,以本学期各科期末成绩作为绩效指标,经偏相关分析,结果表明:绩效目标倾向和中国近代教育史、管理学概论、世界文化史等科目的成绩有显著相关,学习目标倾向与儿童发展心理学、教育测量学、英语4级等科目的成绩有显著相关。两类目标倾向与英语成绩的关系随课程难度的不同而变化,在此基础上,作者提出在目标倾向与绩效的关系上,可以从资源需求的角度来加以考察。     

高师学生教学态度研究

对503名高师学生的教学态度进行问卷施测,结果显示:当前高师学生的教学态度是较积极、进步的,倾向人文取向的;性别、学科以及中学教学经验对高师学生教学态度有显著的影响,但当前的高师教育并未能有效促进学生养成积极的教学态度.     

Guess Who Buys Cheap? The Effect of Consumers’ Goal Orientation on Product Preference

The current research examines how goal orientation affects consumer preference among products with different prices. We argue that a less expensive product may have not only lower perceived quality but also greater perceived quality variability. This greater perceived variability provides the opportunity for optimistic, promotion‐oriented consumers to overestimate the quality of the less expensive product. This effect is weaker, however, for a more expensive product that consumers perceive to have less quality variability and which thus provides less room for quality overestimation. As a result, we hypothesize that promotion‐oriented consumers, as compared to prevention‐oriented consumers, will demonstrate a stronger preference for a less expensive product. In a field study and two laboratory experiments, we obtain empirical support both for the hypothesized effect of consumers’ goal orientation on their product preference and for its underlying process. We conclude with a discussion of the theoretical and practical implications of our results.     

Brain tumor detection using fusion of hand crafted and deep learning features

The perilous disease in the worldwide now a days is brain tumor. Tumor affects the brain by damaging healthy tissues or intensifying intra cranial pressure. Hence, rapid growth in tumor cells may lead to death. Therefore, early brain tumor diagnosis is a more momentous task that can save patient from adverse effects. In the proposed work, the Grab cut method is applied for accurate segmentation of actual lesion symptoms while Transfer learning model visual geometry group (VGG-19) is fine-tuned to acquire the features which are then concatenated with hand crafted (shape and texture) features through serial based method. These features are optimized through entropy for accurate and fast classification and fused vector is supplied to classifiers. The presented model is tested on top medical image computing and computer-assisted intervention (MICCAI) challenge databases including multimodal brain tumor segmentation (BRATS) 2015, 2016, and 2017 respectively. The testing results with dice similarity coefficient (DSC) achieve 0.99 on BRATS 2015, 1.00 on BRATS 2015 and 0.99 on BRATS 2017 respectively.     

How Do Religion and Sexual Orientation Affect Support for U.S. Presidential Candidates? Evidence from a Survey Experiment

A growing body of research has examined how candidates’ religion or sexual orientation affect voting likelihood among the U.S. public. No systematic study, however, has focused on the combined effect of these traits. We draw on the intersectionality literature to develop and test hypotheses for this neglected, but important, combination. Results from an original survey experiment conducted in late June 2019 demonstrate that all respondents, as well as the Republican subgroup, tend to disapprove of a gay, religious candidate relative to other options (i.e., gay, nonreligious; straight, religious; and straight, nonreligious). Even Democrats expressed little support except when a straight, religious candidate was the alternative. Our findings underscore the need to study how overlapping—rather than discrete—traits influence political views and behaviors. They also raise important questions about the future of U.S. identity politics. Efforts to rally Republican and Democrat voters by mixing particular types of traits may not be a very effective strategy.     

The analysis of the homoerotic and the pursuit of meaning

This paper explores the dynamic tension between an evolving collective phenomenon and the nature of analytic process. Specifically, the focus will be erotic experiences which acquire a meaning through the culture at large, a meaning that may not be supportable when that material is subjected to psychological analysis. This stimulates a conflict between the symbolic attitude and the cultural perspective of the time. While the struggle between the individual and collective consciousness always emerges in analysis, the subject of same-gender sexual relations has become such a controversial and divisive issue in the current political environment that views toward homosexuality demand powerful allegiances and identification with either historic or contemporary ideas. People now identify as 'gay' and tend to see themselves as something akin to a race or perhaps alternative gender. Sexuality and relationship between same gendered people tends to be viewed through the lens of civil rights and the undeniable need for social equality. In this far-reaching and expanding collective phenomenon, psychology, in its support of human rights and accommodation to emerging trends, may be diminished in its capacity to pursue the meaning inherent in these human experiences. The position developed in this paper is that psychological experience, whether in the imaginal realm, dreams or personal consciousness, must be available for full analysis. Clinical experience and dreams are used to amplify this challenge to dynamic analytic practice.