Parental Monitoring and the Prevention of Child and Adolescent Problem Behavior: A Conceptual and Empirical Formulation

The present report accomplishes three goals. First, to provide an empirical rationale for placing parental monitoring of children's adaptations as a key construct in development and prevention research. Second, to stimulate more research on parental monitoring and provide an integrative framework for various research traditions as well as developmental periods of interest. Third, to discuss current methodological issues that are developmentally and culturally sensitive and based on sound measurement. Possible intervention and prevention strategies that specifically target parental monitoring are discussed.     

Teaching self-protection to young children

Self-protective behaviors were taught to three preschool children in order to prevent the opportunity for abduction. An analogue measure of self-protection was developed in which confederate adults approached and verbally attempted to lure each child from the setting, before, during, and after training. A multiple baseline design across subjects was used. During baseline, all the children displayed susceptibility to the lures. Training procedures included modeling, behavior rehearsal, and social reinforcement. Within 1 week after training began, all children displayed appropriate responses to all of the lures both in the training setting and in the community.     

BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH IN PREVENTIVE DENTISTRY: EDUCATIONAL AND CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT APPROACHES TO THE PROBLEM OF PATIENT COMPLIANCE

This study examined the effects of reinforcement on compliance with an oral hygiene education program. Patients 18 years of age or older who enrolled in an ongoing program at a periodontal practice received 3–5 sessions of instruction in preventive dental care. Using a between-subjects design, patients who entered the program during alternating months also had a portion of their fees refunded contingent upon improvements in their dental plaque scores. Pre- and posttreatment data showed that all subjects exhibited lower plaque levels following the program, but that greater improvements were seen in patients who were exposed to the fee reduction contingency. Plaque scores taken at a 6-month follow-up revealed some relapse for the Fee Reduction subjects. However, their scores were still substantially better than pretreatment, and better than those of the Education only subjects, whose data differed little from untreated Controls. Methodological and practical issues related to behavioral research in preventive dentistry are discussed.     

EMPIRICALLY DERIVED INJURY PREVENTION RULES

This study describes a set of empirically derived safety rules that if followed, would have prevented the occurrence of minor injuries. Epidemiologists have criticized behavioral interventions as increasing “safe” behavior but failing to demonstrate a decrease in injury. The present study documents retrospectively the link between safe behavior and injury. It demonstrates that these empirically derived rules are very similar to rules for the prevention of serious injury. The study also shows that these rules are not widely accepted and implemented by parents. Suggestions for future research in this area are advanced.     

听力正常人与聋人短时记忆的比较研究

以视觉系列呈现,自由回忆的方法比较了听力正常人与聋人对分别被强化的厂类相似性汉语字表的短时记忆获得量。从总的平均获得量来看,两组结果没有显著差异,而从每一编码维量在短时记忆的加工过程中的作用来看,两组被试都显示出了形、义两维编码维量的作用最强,而音码的作用相对比较弱。两组被试也都显示出了明显的系列位置效应,但聋人组的次级记忆容量明显地低于听力正常组,而初级记忆容量两组没有显著差异。并对可能的机制进行了讨论。     

ALTERING SHOPPERS' SUPERMARKET PURCHASES TO FIT NUTRITIONAL GUIDELINES: AN INTERACTIVE INFORMATION SYSTEM

This study reports the results of one effort to help supermarket shoppers alter food purchases to make purchases (and meals) that are lower in fat and higher in fiber. A prototype interactive information system using instructional video programs, feedback on purchases with specific goals for change, weekly programs, and the ability to track user interactions and intended purchases was evaluated. The major dependent measure was users' actual food purchases as derived from participants' highly detailed supermarket receipts. After a 5- to 7-week baseline phase, participants were randomly assigned to an experimental or control condition for the 7- to 8-week intervention phase. A follow-up phase began 5 to 8 weeks after participants completed the intervention and discontinued use of the system. The results indicated that experimental participants, when compared to control participants, decreased high fat purchases and increased high fiber purchases during intervention, with evidence for some maintenance of effect in follow-up. Plans for increasing the use and impact of the system are discussed.     

INTERVENTIONS TO REDUCE HIGH-VOLUME PORTABLE HEADSETS: “TURN DOWN THE SOUND!”

Two studies examined effects of interventions to reduce noise levels from portable stereo headphones. Study 1 examined the effectiveness of warning signs posted in and nearby public elevators with 567 passengers possessing a portable headphone (total N = 7,811). During a 9-day baseline, the mean percentage of headphones played at an observer-audible level was 85%. During a subsequent 6-day warning sign phase, the mean percentage of audible headphones declined to 59%, which increased to a mean of 76% during a second baseline phase (5 days). Study 2 assessed the impact of a student confederate who lowered his or her observer-audible headphone volume at the polite request of a second student confederate. Of the 4,069 elevator passengers, 433 possessed a portable headset. The mean percentage of observer-audible headphones during a 4-day baseline was 85%. Subsequently, a 5-day modeling intervention reduced audible volumes to a mean of 46%. During a second baseline phase of 4 days, the mean level was 77%, and during reintroduction of the modeling phase (9 days) the mean level was 42%. The modeling intervention was significantly more effective with women (53% compliance) than men (29% compliance).     

Alcohol problems and relapse: Can the clinic combat the community?

Despite over a decade of research and debate into the issue of relapse the majority of people in treatment for alcohol-related problems still relapse. In this paper the results of an innovative relapse prevention and management programme are reported. It was found that a cognitive-behavioural package of strategies reduced the likelihood of relapse. On average, clients receiving this experimental package took four times longer to return to any alcohol use and seven times longer to return to ‘heavy drinking’ than did a conventional treatment control group. However, notwithstanding these results, 60 per cent of the experimental group did return to harmful drinking. The authors question whether further refinement of these procedures is possible, and suggest that if relapse rates are to be further reduced then greater attention needs to be given by counsellors to clients' social environment.     

Police communication programmes aimed at burglary victims: A review of studies and an experimental evaluation

The effects and side-effects of a victim assistance project aimed at victims of burglary are experimentally evaluated. Key features of the programme included the provision of burglary prevention information by police officers during a personal interaction with the victim through a positive and limitative communication strategy. Results suggest that important programme goals (for example, stronger satisfaction with police performance, a more internal risk orientation concerning victimization, stronger preventive intentions) were met. One of the positive effects for which experimental support was found was an improvement in police-victim relations. As regards side-effects the programme led neither to response generalization, nor to increased fear of crime outside the home. However, the side-effects of increased fear in the home did occur in female victims and victims with an external risk-orientation. The implications for future victim assistance projects in this domain are finally discussed.     

The settler colonial roots and neoliberal afterlife of Problem Behavior Theory

Problem Behavior Theory (PBT) is an influential psychosocial theory that has shaped—and continues to shape—much research on adolescent development in the United States and abroad. It is the product of over a half-century of research conducted by psychologists-cum-behavioral scientists Lee and Richard Jessor. This article engages two striking features of the history of PBT. First, it tracks how, and to what effect, a theory elaborated to explain the so-called “deviant behavior” of a group of Native Americans was extended to explain the “problem behavior” of white, middle-class, settler youth, before coming to circulate as a universal theory of adolescent behavior. Second, it explores how a theory that was meant to explain individual behaviors by connecting them to their larger social contexts came to be embraced by researchers who have been criticized for doing precisely the opposite. To do so, this article draws from Indigenous and Settler Colonial Studies scholarship and sheds light on how the logics of settler colonialism and neoliberalism have participated in the coproduction of PBT and its reception.