RELATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF TEACHER ATTENTION AND THE “GOOD BEHAVIOR GAME” IN MODIFYING DISRUPTIVE CLASSROOM BEHAVIOR1

A variety of behavioral procedures have been employed in recent years to modify disruptive classroom behavior. Such methods have been developed with the belief that curtailing disruptive behavior would strengthen positive classroom performance. In this study, two procedures, the good behavior game and the teacher-attention method, were compared to determine short-run effectiveness. Four teachers (two fourth-grade and two fifth-grade) implemented both methods in their classrooms over a five-week period. Presentation of methods was alternated in a counterbalanced design to control for order effects. Each of the four classrooms consisted of 25 students. A time-sampling procedure was used to record the presence or absence of disruptive behavior within 15-second intervals. Disruptive behavior was defined as any talking-out or out-of-seat behavior without permission. The results indicated that both procedures were effective in modifying disruptive classroom behavior, but that the good behavior game reduced disruptive behavior significantly better than the teacher-attention method. In addition, all teachers preferred the game to the teacher-attention procedure. This reaction seemed related to the effort involved in initiating the two activities. The good behavior game required less effort on the teacher's part. However, use of the game alone raises certain ethical considerations. One such issue involves abuse of peer pressure. Also, there is a possibility that negative rules may tend to promote resentment. Positively stated rules would ameliorate that problem. Another relates to the possibility that some teachers might be carried away by the ease of the game's implementation to the extent that behavior control becomes the primary objective in the classroom. As a result, one might consider use of the game to maximize short-term change, but then phase out this procedure in favor of another method (e.g., teacher attention) for long-run effects.     

INCREASING EXTENDED CARE FACILITY RESIDENTS' ATTENDANCE AT RECREATIONAL ACTIVITIES WITH CONVENIENT LOCATIONS AND PERSONAL INVITATIONS1

Residents of extended care facilities generally exhibit a low level of attendance at recreational and therapeutic activities. Spatial arrangement of rooms, prompting, snacks, and small prizes have been suggested as factors that affect attendance. The present study examined the effects of an extensive system of prompts and the location of activity areas on the attendance of residents at a variety of activities. Twenty-six subjects were randomly selected from the ambulatory population of the facility. The first time each subject entered the activity room during the first 6 min of an activity session their name was recorded. Reliability measures were taken at 10 sessions, with a 95% mean agreement between observers. The variables examined were the amount of individualization of subjects (experimental group I: names announced versus experimental group 2: names not announced), room location (central or peripheral), use of names in announcements (activity only versus activity and group I names), and mode of announcement (PA system only versus PA system and in-person). A counter-balanced group design with repeated measures was used, with a randomly determined order of application of experimental treatments. An analysis of variance split plot 2.222 (Kirk, R. E. Experimental Design: Procedures for the Behavioral Science. Belmont, Ca.: Brooks-Cole, 1968.) of the level of subject attendance yielded significant main effects for room location, F(1, 24) = 5.47, p < 0.05, and type of announcement, F(1, 24) = 9.10, p < 0.01, and significant interactions for Individualization × Use of Names in Announcements, F(1, 24) = 5.57, p < 0.05, and Room Location × Mode of Announcement, F(1, 24) = 7.90, p < 0.01. The results indicate that using a centrally located room and announcement of resident names increases attendance at a variety of activities. The increased social and environmental interaction generated by activity attendance has potential therapeutic benefits for the residents involved. Furthermore, the kind of information reported here and by others should be taken into consideration by planners of a variety of group living facilities, ranging from nursing homes to residential treatment cottages.     

The effects of instructions, incentive, and feedback on a community problem: dormitory noise

A reinforcement system utilizing instructions, modelling, feedback, and group reinforcement was employed in an attempt to reduce disruptive noise on three university residence halls. A fourth hall received the same treatment program without the reinforcement component. Noise scores were determined by recording the number of discrete noise occurrences over a criterion decibel level. On all four residential floors, noise scores during treatment conditions were lower than initial and final baseline levels. Additionally, periods of noise reduction corresponded to the changing criterion multiple-baseline and reversal designs utilized. Pre- and posttreatment questionnaire responses from the three reinforcement floors paralleled changes in objective noise data. At posttreatment, residents reported less noise disturbance of study and sleep and more control over the noise situation and floor problems in general. These results indicated that a comprehensive behavior-modification treatment package was effective in reducing disruptive noise in university residence halls. Difficulties in data collection and anomalies in the data are discussed. Future directions for field-based behavior-modification research are outlined.     

Facilitating paper recycling: effects of prompts, raffles, and contests

The effects of prompts and reinforcement to promote paper recycling were compared in six university dormitories. For a Prompt condition, residents were urged to recycle paper for ecological reasons via flyers distributed to each room. For a Raffle contingency, residents were given one raffle ticket for every pound of paper brought to a collection center. For a Contest contingency, two dorms were paired and the dorm whose residents delivered the most paper won $15 for its treasury. Contingency awareness was strengthened via a flyer placed under the door of each resident's room. Flyers alone had little effect in increasing paper-recycling behaviors, but the raffle (substantially) and the contest (somewhat) increased the amount of paper brought to a dorm's recycling center. Students whose rooms were closest to the collection center showed the greatest participation. Removal of the reinforcement contingencies resulted in a return to baseline levels.     

The design and evaluation of a worksharing system for experimental group living

Failure to share household chores equitably may be a major cause of the high failure rate of experimental group-living arrangements. A behavioral approach to worksharing based on a point system was implemented in one experimental group and its most important components experimentally evaluated. Experiment I showed that awarding credits produced more work than not awarding credits. Experiment II showed that making credits contingent on the outcome of a detailed inspection produced more work than awarding credits noncontingently. Experiment III demonstrated that awarding rent reductions contingent on credit earnings produced more work than awarding rent reductions noncontingently. Other evaluative data suggest that the resulting living arrangement is cheaper, more effective, and more satisfactory to the residents when compared to the most popular alternative living arrangements.     

人际关系适应特征的情境评价方法研究

本研究运用情境评价法对人际关系适应特征进行了实验研究 ,结果表明 :1以 Schutz提出的人际关系六因素为评价标准 ,采用情境评价法比问卷形式能更有效地揭示人际适应特征 ;2在情境评价中 ,以合作为主的情境设置比以竞争为主的情境设置更利于反映出人际适应特征 ;3情境评价采用定向、组织、交流和问题解决等阶段的过程设计符合情境评价的实际进程 ,有助于分阶段展开被试的行为特征 ,提高情境评价的可控性和准确性。     

群体绩效和团队效能研究的新进展

近几年来 ,在群体和团队方面的研究比较活跃 ,并取得了不少新的进展。本文在近几年的国内外文献的基础上 ,着重讨论几个与群体绩效有关的长期存在的问题 ,主要包括群体构成、凝聚力、激励、领导、群体目标等因素。同时探讨团队与组织之间的内在联系。然后 ,讨论团队效能研究中的几个开放性问题 ,以及将来研究的新动向新趋势。最后 ,对影响团队效能的几个关键的调节因素作一简要的讨论。     

Performance of typical and superior face recognizers on a novel interactive face matching procedure

Unfamiliar simultaneous face matching is error prone. Reducing incorrect identification decisions will positively benefit forensic and security contexts. The absence of view-independent information in static images likely contributes to the difficulty of unfamiliar face matching. We tested whether a novel interactive viewing procedure that provides the user with 3D structural information as they rotate a facial image to different orientations would improve face matching accuracy. We tested the performance of ‘typical’ (Experiment 1) and ‘superior’ (Experiment 2) face recognizers, comparing their performance using high-quality (Experiment 3) and pixelated (Experiment 4) Facebook profile images. In each trial, participants responded whether two images featured the same person with one of these images being either a static face, a video providing orientation information, or an interactive image. Taken together, the results show that fluid orientation information and interactivity prompt shifts in criterion and support matching performance. Because typical and superior face recognizers both benefited from the structural information provided by the novel viewing procedures, our results point to qualitatively similar reliance on pictorial encoding in these groups. This also suggests that interactive viewing tools can be valuable in assisting face matching in high-performing practitioner groups.     

A preliminary sketch of a Jungian socioanalysis – an emerging theory combining analytical psychology,complexity theories,sociological theories,socio- and psycho-analysis,group analysis and affect theories1

This paper presents a preliminary sketch of what we have termed a Jungian socioanalysis – an emerging theory combining analytical psychology, complexity theories, sociological theories, socio- and psycho-analysis, group analysis and affect theories. Our assumption is that Jungian theory and practice need to attend to and focus more on social contexts, sociality and the influence of societal developments. But also, on the other hand, that analytical psychology, primarily Jung’s theory of individuation and the transcendent function as well as the broad complexity perspective of his theory of psyche, can be extended to a ‘socio’ and not just a ‘psycho’ perspective. The paper presents five foundational assumptions for a Jungian socioanalysis, with the following headings: 1) A Jungian socioanalysis calls for a complex psychology; 2) (Un)consciousness is social and sociality has a dimension of (un)consciousness; 3) A Jungian socioanalysis explores social fields ‘from within’ by smaller groups; 4) A Jungian socioanalysis enables and is enabled by emerging metaphors and affect-imagery; 5) Socio-cultural fields have an impulse toward individuation. This is the first of two papers in the present edition of the journal – the second paper gives socio-clinical illustrations of our thesis in this paper.     

Interactive effects of social network centrality and social identification on stress

The present study aimed to integrate the social identity approach to health and well-being with social network analysis. Previous research on the effects of social network centrality on stress has yielded mixed results. Building on the social identity approach, we argued that these mixed results can be explained, in part, by taking into account the degree to which individuals identify with the social network. We hence hypothesized that the effects of social network centrality on stress are moderated by social identification. Using a full roster method, we assessed the social network of first-year psychology students right after the start of their study programme and three months later. The effects of network centrality (betweenness, closeness, eigenvector centrality) and social identification on stress were examined using structural equation models. As predicted, our results revealed a significant interaction between network centrality and social identification on stress: For weakly or moderately identified students, network centrality was positively related to stress. By contrast, for strongly identified students, network centrality was unrelated to stress. In conclusion, our results point to the perils of being well-connected yet not feeling like one belongs to a group.