Teaching metaphorical extensions of private events through rival‐model observation to children with autism

The study evaluated the efficacy of observational learning using the rival‐model technique in teaching three children with autism to state metaphorical statements about emotions when provided a picture, as well as to intraverbally state an appropriate emotion when provided a scenario and corresponding metaphorical emotion. The results provide a preliminary evaluation of how an observational teaching strategy may be effective in teaching children with autism to correctly tact emotions when given metaphors.     

What is Radical Behaviorism? A Review of Jay Moore's Conceptual Foundations of Radical Behaviorism

B. F. Skinner founded both radical behaviorism and behavior analysis. His founding innovations included: a versatile preparation for studying behavior; explicating the generic nature of stimulus and response; a pragmatic criterion for defining behavioral units; response rate as a datum; the concept of stimulus control; the concept of verbal behavior; and explicating the explanatory power of contingencies. Besides these achievements, however, Skinner also made some mistakes. Subsequent developments in radical behaviorist thought have attempted to remedy these mistakes. Moore's book presents a “party line” version of radical behaviorism. It focuses narrowly on a few of Skinner's concepts (mostly mentalism and verbal behavior) and contains no criticism of his mistakes. In fact, Moore adds a few mistakes of his own manufacture; for example, he insists that the mental realm does not exist—an unprovable and distracting assertion. The book's portrayal of behavior analysis would have been current around 1960; it mentions almost none of the developments since then. It also includes almost no developments in radical behaviorism since Skinner. Moore's book would give an unwary reader a highly distorted picture of contemporary behavior analysis and radical behaviorism.     

Evasion, private events, and pragmatism: A Reply to Moore's response to my review of Conceptual Foundations of Radical Behaviorism

Moore's screed in response to my review of his book uses several rhetorical tricks to counter criticism without actually addressing it: he tries to preempt the transparency of his own orthodoxy by groundlessly accusing me of orthodoxy; he caricatures my criticisms to make them appear obviously wrong; he professes lack of understanding so as to dodge having to attempt a genuine response; and he engages in pejorative labeling to dismiss the criticisms without analysis. From a scientific and pragmatic point of view, private events are a mistake, precisely because they are private. They cannot serve as independent variables, as Moore suggests, because they cannot be measured; “private independent variable” is a contradiction in terms. When we carefully examine locutions like “observe” and “report on,” we discover that they entail only public verbal and nonverbal behavior, not objects and not private events as objects. A person in pain is not reporting on anything, is engaging in public verbal and nonverbal pain‐behavior, and an infant or a dog may be considered to be in pain. The public behavior is all that matters, because determining whether a person is really in pain privately is impossible. The same is true of any private event, and the control of the public behavior on which the verbal community comments lies in the public environment. We cannot have two sets of principles, one for verbal behavior and one for nonverbal behavior or one for humans and one for other animals.     

Life Satisfaction from Late Adolescence to Mid-Life The Impact of Life Success and Success Evaluation on the Life Satisfaction of Former Gymnasium Students Between Ages 30 And 43

In order to be satisfied with one's life, one has to adapt goals to opportunities; from this, two hypotheses follow: Life satisfaction should be more strongly determined by success evaluation rather than life success, and more strongly by late rather than early life success. Both hypotheses are examined in a longitudinal study of former Gymnasium students from age 16 to 43.Dependent variables are the satisfaction with occupational and with private life at age 43. Independent variables are life success in occupational and private life between ages 16 and 43, satisfaction with occupational and private life at age 30, and strategies of coping with and attributing of success at age 43. As hypothesized, satisfaction with occupational and with private life are determined more strongly by success evaluation rather than by life success and by late rather than early life success. Furthermore, occupational satisfaction is more strongly determined by the former occupational career than private satisfaction by the private career.     

Teaching children with autism to tact private events based on public accompaniments

We evaluated a method for teaching children with autism spectrum disorder to respond to tactile stimulation of multiple body parts. Various objects (e.g., hairbrush) produced the sensations (e.g., prickly). In a multiple baseline design across participants, participants learned 9 sensation body part tacts and the evaluation concluded with tests of generalization to 3 novel body parts, 6 novel objects, and 3 novel sensations. Participants demonstrated generalization to novel objects, and to a lesser extent, novel body parts, but did not generalize tacts to novel sensations. These findings are discussed in terms of implications for teaching children with autism to tact sensations.     

Neither public nor private religion: the Russian Orthodox Church in the public sphere of contemporary Russia

Cross-country comparative studies of religion (e.g. the Religion Monitor) do not cover some important issues regarding the religious situation in Russia. The problem of contemporary Russian religiosity is beyond individual religiosity or religiosity as a spiritual phenomenon. In Russia—one of the countries which experienced Communism as a period of enforced secularization, there are very few people who have had any religious socialization or who have the experience of belonging to the Christian Church or to any religion. The main point of this article is that what is happening with religion in post-Soviet Russia cannot be adequately explained by the concept of ‘public religion’ and the dichotomy of public vs. private religion, due to the practices of private religion manifesting at a very low level among the Russian population, despite the fact that a large number of Russians consider themselves to be Orthodox Christians. However, the representation of the Church in the public sphere has little to do with what concerns Russians who are in some way involved in parishes. As an alternative tool we propose to describe the religiosity of Russians through the methods of network analysis. Results of a content analysis of contemporary Russian and Soviet media, survey data of the Russian population, and data obtained in a network analysis of parishes of the Russian Orthodox Church are used for substantiating this conclusion.     

Perfectionism and psychological distress: evidence of the mediating effects of rumination

Three studies investigated the role of ruminative tendencies in mediating the effects of multidimensional perfectionism (Hewitt & Flett, 1991) on psychological distress. Study 1 (Sample 1, N = 279; Sample 2, N = 224) and Study 2 (N = 205) found evidence, cross‐sectionally and prospectively, that brooding ruminative response style either fully or partially mediated the effects of socially prescribed and self‐oriented perfectionism on psychological distress, depression and hopelessness levels. In addition, Study 3 (N = 163) confirmed these mediation effects for socially prescribed perfectionism in relation to depression and hopelessness, 2 months later, after initial levels of distress were controlled. Overall, these findings provide evidence that brooding ruminative response style is an important mechanism that can explain, in part, the relationship between perfectionism and distress. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Family and Political Justice – The Case for Political Liberalisms

This paper examines two central arguments raised byfeminist theorists against the coherence andconsistency of political liberalisms, a recentrecasting of liberal theories of justice. They arguethat due to political liberalisms' uncritical relianceon a political/personal distinction, they permit theinstitution of the family to take sexist and illiberalforms thus undermining its own aims and politicalproject. Political liberalisms' tolerance of a widerange of family forms result in two fatalinconsistences. Firstly, it retards or completelyprevents women from developing the necessary politicalsense of self required for citizenship, and secondly,it prevents children from acquiring the requisitepolitical virtues and sense of justice necessary forthe viability and long-term stability of such asociety. In the paper, I argue that despite theirinitial appeal these feminist criticisms are notcompelling. Firstly, they misunderstand what politicalliberalisms mean by unjust family forms, secondly,they trade on a misunderstanding of thepolitical/personal distinction and, finally, they makequestionable empirical claims about the effects of theilliberal family on a viable political conception ofjustice.