Punishment as a discriminative stimulus and conditioned reinforcer with humans

Mental hospital patients were reinforced for responding in a two-response operant situation. When a noise was used to punish one of the responses, all subjects shifted to the unpunished one. When the noise was then paired with positive reinforcement, the subjects responded to produce the noise. Also, a novel response was reinforced by noise in the absence of other reinforcers. This study with humans extends the findings of previous studies with animals in revealing how a punishing stimulus can acquire discriminative or conditioned reinforcing properties.     

The effects of contingent music and differential reinforcement on infantile colic

Infantile Colic is a behavioral syndrome characterized by paroxysms of excessive crying and increased motor activity, hypertonicity of the musculature, excessive flatus and erratic sleeping and feeding patterns. Ten to 40% of all infants are diagnosed as having Colic. The medical evidence to date does not justify any conclusions regarding the etiology or treatment of Colic. Typically, parents are advised to simply wait until Colic has run its course which is often 3-4 months. The behavioral program reported here was designed to increase behavior that competed with crying by reinforcing quiet alertness with music and parental attention. Concurrently, it attempted to inhibit excessive crying by a brief time-out procedure. A group of 8 infants diagnosed as Infant Colic were included in this study. The dependent variable, crying, was measured through direct observations based on hourly samples involving 30 observations of 2-min intervals. The independent variable consisted of a behavioral treatment package. A within-S reversal design was used to assess the functional properties of the treatment. The results show that across all 8 infants the introduction of the treatment package led to a substantial decrease in excessive crying of about 75% of the initial baseline. Further, a functional relationship was identified between the treatment and excessive crying behavior: crying decreased when the treatment was initially introduced, it resumed when the treatment was withdrawn and decreased again when the treatment was reinstated.     

Behavioral coaching in the development of skills in football, gymnastics, and tennis

A review of the literature indicates that methods of skill acquisition based on the operant paradigm have been scientifically validated with many motor behaviors. However, these procedures have been limited to the use of positive reinforcement for correct performance when applied to the acquisition of complex sports skills in natural settings. To find complementary procedures to enhance skill acquisition, a coaching method involving several behavioral techniques was developed that focused on remediation of errors. This coaching method combined the following components: (1) systematic use of verbal instructions and feedback, (2) positive and negative reinforcement, (3) positive practice, and (4) time out. Three sports, football, gymnastics, and tennis, were selected to determine the effectiveness and generality of this behavioral coaching method. A total of 23 male and female subjects, ranging in age from 11 to 35, was included in this study. Baseline data were first collected for each sport under standard coaching conditions. Next, the behavioral coaching method was evaluated depending on the sport in either a multiple baseline or a reversal design. The behavioral dimensions selected were blocking in football; backward walkovers, front hand springs, and reverse kips in gymnastics; and the forehand, backhand, and serve in tennis. Behavioral coaching was immediately effective in increasing the correct execution of complex skills in all three sports. Gains of up to 10 times the baseline performance were achieved in each sport. In football, behavioral coaching resulted in an increase in correct blocking performance from a baseline average of 5% to 51.3%. Gymnasts' performances increased from baseline averages of 2.7% to 52.6% across the three skills. In tennis, standard coaching produced an average of 6% correct performance which increased dramatically under behavioral coaching to 57% across the three strokes. The success of the behavioral coaching package used here suggests that a technology of behavior may offer additional and complementary strategies to the acquisition of motor skills in the natural environment.     

Rapid educational rehabilitation for prison inmates

One of the major goals of prisons has been the educational rehabilitation of inmates. Studies have shown that predelinquents as well as delinquents could be motivated to achieve in academic areas through the use of an incentive system. The present study attempted to extend the behavioral yield of such a system with prison inmates. The academic performance of two inmates in math and English were compared when two levels of incentives were made contingent on that performance. The results showed that the two inmates passed academic tests as much as nine times faster under an enriched schedule of incentives than under a standard one. This increase in rate of performance was translated into actual academic achievement as one of the inmates passed 9th through 12th grade algebra in only 14 days. A standardized test confirmed this academic advancement for both inmates. These high rates of performance and academic achievement are even more dramatic in view of the fact that five months prior to this procedure, both inmates had been tested as being below average in intelligence.     

Does Partisan Bias Modulate Neural Processing of Political Information? An Analysis of the Neural Correlates of Corruption and Positive Messages

Daily worldwide newspapers print articles exposing government corruption. Yet these messages do not lead to a loss of votes for the corrupt parties. Sympathizers’ partisan bias, which respectively minimizes and maximizes corruption and positive messages of their own parties respectively, is widely considered the main cause of the loss of effectiveness of political communications. Despite the well-established existence of such bias when processing political information, little is known as to its psychological origin. Through the use of neuroscience (fMRI), this study explores the underlying brain mechanisms of negative (corruption) and positive political messages related to a conservative and a socialist Spanish political party, as well as the differences between their sympathizers. The findings reveal that negative (vs. positive) political messages exert the greatest neuroimaging impact on the electorate, as shown in aversive, risk, and disappointment-related brain regions. Interestingly, we show that there exists a main partisan bias against opposite parties (and not a positive bias toward one’s own party) that stems from a higher risk, ambiguity, and disbelief provoked by both positive and negative information about rival parties. Furthermore, this bias was more pronounced among conservative supporters. The current findings provide valuable insights for political parties to improve their communication campaigns.     

Genetic testing and human subjectivity

This article offers a brief overview of how methods of DNA testing are reframing what it means to be a living being in a living world. It is no longer the case that genetic technologies objectify life in such a way as to deny something essential to human subjectivity. The style of reasoning of the life sciences today is characterised by complexity, dynamism and emergence. This requires rethinking the relationship between technology, society and subjectivity. Genetic testing is a social and symbolic practice through which notions of identity and relatedness are reconfigured in terms of being genetically at risk. Far from reducing subjectivity to one's biological destiny, genetic technologies have consequences in terms of not only governing others to govern their risk wisely, but also aligning conduct with Western liberal values of autonomy, responsibility and choice. New pastors and gatekeepers of genetic information have assembled around these technologies where psychology plays a key role in facilitating autonomy and instilling a sense of genetic responsibility. Nevertheless, the increasing capitalization of genomics is moving genetic testing beyond these clinical enclosures of control into the domain of consumer choice, creating new forms of subjectification, citizenship and community.     

ELIMINATING DISCIPLINE PROBLEMS BY STRENGTHENING ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE1

Behavior modification procedures have typically been used to eliminate discipline problems in the classroom through reinforcement of nondisruptive behavior. This report demonstrates an alternative approach whereby discipline problems are eliminated by reinforcing relevant academic skills. Five fifth-grade boys, identified by their teacher as discipline problems, were observed. The teacher conducted 15-min performance sessions in her reading class during which written academic performance and disruptive behavior were recorded. These measures indicated that the boys' average level of disruption was 34%, while their reading performance was below 50%. When systematic token reinforcement was applied to reading performance only, the rate of disruption fell drastically, and reading performance increased. When the reinforcement procedure was withdrawn, disruption again rose, and reading performance declined. The reinstatement of reinforcement doubled reading performance and eliminated disruption.     

Reinforcement and instructions with mental patients

An attempt was made to modify a socially desirable response of mental patients. It was found that instructions to the patients had no enduring effect unless accompanied by reinforcement. Also, it was found that reinforcement was not effective unless the reinforcement procedure was accompanied by instructions that specified the basis for the reinforcement. Maximum change in behavior was obtained when the reinforcement procedure took advantage of the existing verbal repertoire of the patients. A significant methodological finding was that substantial modification of the behavior of psychotics could be achieved by briefly delaying, rather than withholding, food reinforcement.     

REDUCING TIME LIMITS: A MEANS TO INCREASE BEHAVIOR OF RETARDATES1

A common assumption in special education is that temporal limits for a task should be expanded so that ample time is provided for completing the work. This study describes the opposite strategy of restricting temporal limits to augment academic performance. Three educable retarded children received token reinforcement contingent on the number of correct math problems answered during daily sessions. A reversal design was used to assess the effects of an abrupt reduction in time limits (20-5-20 min) and a graduated sequence of reductions (20-15-10-5-20 min). The graduated sequence resulted in rate increases of correct responding ranging from 125% to 266% and these gains endured when temporal limits were again expanded. In contrast, the abrupt shift produced interfering emotional behaviors and rate decreases in academic performance of 25% to 80%. The findings indicate that systematically restricting temporal limits for an academic task can further enhance the performance of slow learners already maintained by a token system.