THE USE OF POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT IN THE TREATMENT OF ESCAPE-MAINTAINED DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIOR

We identified 3 clients whose destructive behavior was sensitive to negative reinforcement (break from tasks) and positive reinforcement (access to tangible items, attention, or both). In an instructional context, we then evaluated the effects of reinforcing compliance with one, two, or all of these consequences (a break, tangible items, attention) when destructive behavior produced a break and when it did not (escape extinction). For 2 clients, destructive behavior decreased and compliance increased when compliance produced access to tangible items, even though destructive behavior resulted in a break. For 1 client, extinction was necessary to reduce destructive behavior and to increase compliance. Subsequently, when the schedule of reinforcement for compliance was faded for all clients, destructive behavior was lower and fading proceeded more rapidly when compliance produced multiple functional reinforcers (i.e., a break plus tangible items or attention) and destructive behavior was on extinction. The results are discussed in terms of the effects of relative reinforcement value and extinction on concurrent operants.     

选择性注意中意识与无意识过程分离的实验研究

以汉语单字词为材料,通过颜色来区分目标和分心物,采用过程分离程序,直接探讨了目标激活与分心物抑制和意识、无意识过程之间的关系。结果表明,（１）靶词充当分心物时,不仅意识过程存在的概率降低,无意识过程存在的概率也降低。这一结果说明,在选择性注意任务中,信息是有关还是无关,并不能分离意识和无意识过程;（２）靶词充当目标时,加工水平影响Ｐｃ,但不影响Ｐｕ,而靶词充当分心物时,加工水平既不影响Ｐｃ,也不影响Ｐｕ。因此,加工水平能否分离意识和无意识过程,依赖于靶词的作用或信息是否有关     

The Experience of Caregiving Among Mothers of Adults Suffering from Psychotic Disorders: Factors Associated with Their Psychological Distress

To identify correlates of psychological distress among multiple indicators, 99 women with adult children suffering from a psychotic disorder were interviewed. The women, who were recruited through hospitals and self-help groups, represented different socioeconomic levels. A face-to-face standardized interview was conducted, mainly in the participants' homes. Multiple hierarchical regression analysis showed that dimensions of burden and social support were strongly associated with distress reported by the participants. The negative interactions that participants had with their main confidant or spouse constituted a more powerful correlate than their perception of the quality of this relationship. Furthermore, a perception of their own health as poorer is a strong correlate of their distress. Since no control group was studied simultaneously, these results suggest, but do not prove, the presence of differences between mothers of adults with psychotic disorders and other mothers.     

American Political Culture in Comparative Perspective

In order to formulate a comparative model of political cultures, a theory that integrates psychological, sociological and economic variables is developed. Within societies dominant political cultural themes stress particular patterns of right and obligation. These patterns simultaneously undergird social solidarity and justify an unequal distribution of rewards. Differences among political cultures exist vertically on an historical dimension of increasing moral comprehensiveness and horizontally on a dimension of moral content. Internal tensions deriving from technological development and from social discourse about the moral adequacy of norms stimulate change. A case study of American political culture, with its contrasting emphases on egalitarianism and individualism, assesses the theoretical claims.     

Impulsivity and anxiety differences in cognitive inhibition

An identity negative priming task was employed to investigate cognitive inhibition in 245 undergraduates. The task presented consecutively a prime and a probe display that contained a target and a distractor. Negative priming is observed when subjects must respond to a target in the probe display that had been a distractor in the prime display. This task also served to study the Eriksen interference effect by comparing a condition in which the target and the distractor had the same identity with a condition in which they had different identities. Subjects completed the Sensitivity to Punishment and Sensitivity to Reward Questionnaire designed to measure Gray's anxiety and impulsivity dimensions. Results showed that impulsives had a lower cognitive inhibition than non-impulsives, whereas impulsive women also showed a greater Eriksen interference effect than non-impulsive women. Furthermore, no differences in task performance were found between anxious and non-anxious groups. Our discussion considers the importance of studying cognitive functioning in personality research.     

Conjoint schedules of timeout deletion in pigeons.

This experiment attempted to bring behavior under joint control of two distinct contingencies, one that provided food and a second that extended the periods during which that food was available. Pigeons' responses on each of two keys were reinforced according to a single random-interval schedule of food presentation except during signaled timeout periods during which the schedule was temporarily disabled. By means of a conjoint schedule, responses on the initially less preferred key not only produced food but also canceled impending timeouts. When behavior came to predominate on this conjoint alternative, the consequences of responding on the two keys were reversed. Responding in 3 of 4 pigeons proved sensitive to the conjoint scheduled consequences, as evidenced by systematic shifts in response rates favoring the conjoint key. In 2 of these 3 pigeons, sensitivity to the conjoint contingency was evident under time-in:timeout ratios of 2:1 (time-in = 120 s, timeout = 60 s) and 1:5 (time-in = 30 s, timeout = 150 s), whereas for the other pigeon preference for the conjoint key was observed only under the latter sequence of conditions. There was only weak evidence of control by the conjoint scheduled consequences in the 4th subject, despite extended training and forced exposure to the conjoint alternative. The overall pattern of results is consistent with studies of timeout avoidance but also shares features in common with positively reinforced behavior.     

Judging psychopathology: Expectation and contrast

An experiment was performed to assess the role of expectations in psychosocial contrast effects. Subjects were initially presented with a series of word definitions that were either high or low pathology; their task was to indicate those definitions that had been produced by schizophrenic (vs nonschizophrenic) patients. After this “induction” series, subjects were presented with a common “test” series that included both definitions and handwriting samples; they evaluated the degree of psychopathology that was implied by each item. Some subjects were required to state their expectations in connection with the test items. First they attempted to guess the percentage of schizophrenics in the overall test series; second, before being presented with each test item, they guessed whether the patient in question was (or was not) schizophrenic. Subjects' expectations were consistent with the induction series to which they were assigned; those assigned to the high-pathology induction expected the test series to include more schizophrenic patients than those in the low-pathology group. Nonetheless, despite these expectations, subjects showed a contrast effect in their evaluations of the test definitions (but not in evaluating the handwriting samples). That is, subjects from the low-pathology induction group rated the test definitions as being more pathological than did those in the high-pathology condition. Within-group correlations indicated that the subjects' expectations were directly related to subsequent judgments. A two-path model is discussed, relating (a) the respondents' induction group assignment, (b) his/her expectations, and (c) subsequent test judgments.     

父母心理控制和儿童消极情绪性对学前儿童问题行为的共同作用:“素质-压力”还是“差别易感性”

本研究以226名学前儿童和其父母为研究对象,从儿童气质-家庭环境交互作用的视角,采用父母报告的方法收集数据,考察了父母心理控制及儿童消极情绪性对儿童问题行为的共同作用。结果发现：在预测外化问题时,父亲和母亲心理控制的主效应均显著,同时父亲心理控制与儿童消极情绪性的交互作用也显著。显著性区域分析发现,高消极情绪性的学前儿童更易受高父亲心理控制的不利影响,也更易受低父亲心理控制的有利影响,该结果支持差别易感性模型;在预测内化问题时,父亲和母亲心理控制的主效应及其与儿童消极情绪性的交互作用均不显著,说明无论是对高消极情绪性还是低消极情绪性儿童,父母心理控制对其内化问题的影响相对较弱。     

Optimism as a mediator between resilience and affective states in older adults / El optimismo como mediador entre la resiliencia y estados afectivos en adultos mayores

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to explore whether resilience is associated with and a predictor of depression, anxiety, negative and positive affect, life satisfaction and subjective happiness in older adults, and whether these relationships are mediated by optimism. To analyse this, different scales were administered to a sample of 240 elderly people and correlational and mediational analysis was carried out. The results showed relationships between all the variables. Similarly, we found that optimism is a partial mediator of the relationship between resilience and the aforementioned variables. Our results evidenced that increasing resilience and optimism in elderly people could be favourable to successful ageing.     

Curiosity about a positive or negative event prolongs the duration of emotional experience

Some researchers claim that uncertainty prolongs the duration of emotional experiences because uncertainty toward an emotion-eliciting event prolongs attention to that event. However, some results contradict this claim. We assumed that curiosity rather than uncertainty prolongs the duration of emotional experience via attention, and that attention and emotional experience are prolonged only when uncertainty elicits curiosity. This assumption is based on the information gap theory, which proposes that curiosity increases with uncertainty, but that curiosity decreases at a certain level of uncertainty. We conducted a survey study to investigate the relationships among curiosity, uncertainty, attention and duration of positive and negative emotional experiences. The results showed that curiosity, but not uncertainty, prolonged the duration of emotional experiences and the process was completely mediated by attention both for positive and negative emotions. Moreover, uncertainty prolonged the duration of emotional experiences only when uncertainty elicited curiosity, which in turn prolonged attention to the emotion-eliciting event.