Remarriage as a coping response for widowhood

Consideration and use of remarriage as a response to cope with the death of a husband was examined in 39 women who had been widowed and had subsequently remarried, 192 widows who had considered remarriage but had not yet remarried, and 420 widows who had not considered remarriage. Controlling for age, we found that women who had remarried reported fewer current concerns than did the other two groups. Furthermore, we found that women who retrospectively recalled the most concerns immediately after the death of the spouse were the ones who eventually remarried. The remarried group believed that they were experiencing significantly fewer concerns now than they had after the spouse's death; the women who had not considered remarriage believed that they were experiencing the same number of concerns now as before; and those women who had considered remarriage believed that they were experiencing significantly more concerns. Implications for remarriage as a coping mechanism for widowhood and the relation of age to remarriage decisions are discussed.     

Choice and reinforcement delay

Previous studies of choice between two delayed reinforcers have indicated that the relative immediacy of the reinforcer is a major determinant of the relative frequency of responding. Parallel studies of choice between two interresponse times have found exceptions to this generality. The present study looked at the choice by pigeons between two delays, one of which was always four times longer than the other, but whose absolute durations were varied across conditions. The results indicated that choice is not uniquely determined by the relative immediacy of reinforcement, but that absolute delays are also involved. Models for concurrent chained schedules appear to be more applicable to the present data than the matching relation; however, these too failed to predict choice for long delays.     

The microanalysis of fixed-interval responding

The fixed-interval schedule of reinforcement is one of the more widely studied schedules in the experimental analysis of behavior and is also a common baseline for behavior pharmacology. Despite many intensive studies, the controlling variables and the pattern of behavior engendered are not well understood. The present study examined the microstructure and superstructure of the behavior engendered by a fixed-interval 5- and a fixed-interval 15-minute schedule of food reinforcement in the pigeon. Analysis of performance typical of fixed-interval responding indicated that the scalloped pattern does not result from smooth acceleration in responding, but, rather, from renewed pausing early in the interval. Individual interresponse-time (IRT) analyses provided no evidence of acceleration. There was a strong indication of alternation in shorter-longer IRTs, but these shorter-longer IRTs did not occur at random, reflecting instead a sequential dependency in successive IRTs. Furthermore, early in the interval there was a high relative frequency of short IRTs. Such a pattern of early pauses and short IRTs does not suggest behavior typical of reinforced responding as exemplified by the pattern found near the end of the interval. Thus, behavior from clearly scalloped performance can be classified into three states: postreinforcement pause, interim behavior, and terminal behavior.     

Slut Shaming in a School Bullying Case: Evaluators Ignore Level of Harm When the Victim Self-Presents as Sexually Available

To investigate slut shaming (condemnation aimed at presumably sexually active females) as a form of bullying, we asked 142 U.S. college students acting as disciplinary committee members to decide a case involving two female high school students. We manipulated the victim’s self-presentation (sexually available, control) and the level of harm she suffered (mild anxiety, PTSD). Although evaluators typically make more pro-victim judgments when the level of harm is higher rather than lower, we expected participants to ignore harm when the victim self-presented as sexually available. As predicted, participants in the control condition made higher probability of guilt estimates and harsher sentence recommendations when the victim experienced PTSD versus mild anxiety. In contrast, harm level did not influence participants’ judgments in the sexually available condition. Additional analyses demonstrated that participants attributed relatively more responsibility to the sexually available than to the control victim, and the effect of the victim’s self-presentation on guilt estimates was mediated by attributions about the cause of the harm. The results correspond with previous findings that evaluators blame bullying victims whom they believe made themselves targets. We suggest that school districts revise their policies as necessary to avoid encouraging slut shaming and that evaluators receive training to help them apply the legal definition of bullying to specific situations.     

Box Scores and Bottom Lines: Sports Data Can Inform Research and Practice in Organizations

In this introduction to the Special Issue on the use of sports data to inform research and practice in organizations, we first outline the state of research in this flourishing area to provide the need for this Special Issue. We note a similarity in the study of organizations and the study of sports and, in turn, how studies of sports can readily be compared to and applied to the study and practice of work in organizations. Next, we describe each of the six articles in this Special Issue, particularly noting that the articles sampled data from a variety of sporting domains, ranging from the National Football League to Olympic ice hockey. Topics of the studies included travel stress on team performance; pay standing and task performance; job hopping, organizational change, and performance of new employees; team work experience and performance; the effect of leadership transitions and changes to performance and human capital quality; and the effects of star performers and core team members. We then outline how these studies fit with the call for this Special Issue and provide common themes, such as methodological sophistication and novel analyses and the opportunity for sports data to provide both academic and practitioner audiences an awareness of evidence-based approaches to studies of work. We end this introductory article by providing some challenges in using sports data to enhance the study of organizations and possible areas for future research.     

Family sessions as part of child psychological assessment: goals, techniques, clinical utility, and therapeutic value

Including a family session in a child assessment can significantly advance the assessor's and parents' understanding of the child's problems and enhance the likelihood that parents will follow through on recommendations after the assessment. A family session allows the assessor to observe the child in the family context, test systemic hypotheses, better understand the meaning of individual test results, and try out possible interventions. A family session may also help parents see systemic aspects of their child's problems, help the child feel less blamed, foster positive experiences among family members, and offer the family a glimpse of family therapy. We describe methods and techniques for structuring family sessions and offer guidance on preparing for and conducting such sessions depending on one's case conceptualization. Detailed case examples illustrate each technique and demonstrate the immediate and subsequent impact of family sessions as well as their therapeutic value. We also address common clinical and pragmatic issues.