Handling time and choice in pigeons

According to optimal foraging theory, animals should prefer food items with the highest ratios of energy intake to handling time. When single items have negligible handling times, one large item should be preferred to a collection of small ones of equivalent total weight. However, when pigeons were offered such a choice on equal concurrent variable-interval schedules in a shuttlebox, they preferred the side offering many small items per reinforcement to that offering one or a few relatively large items. This preference was still evident on concurrent fixed-cumulative-duration schedules in which choosing the alternative with longer handling time substantially lowered the rate of food intake.     

Poison-drinking in obedience to the faith: a phenomenological study of the experience

In Appalachia, there are certain Christian sects who handle venomous serpents in their church services. Although their serpent handling has received some attention, another of their practices, poison-drinking, has all but escaped the concern of investigators. Addressing this issue, this study included phenomenological interviews with seven believers who ingested strychnine at church. A hermeneutic analysis of their transcribed interviews discovered four major themes that emerged across all protocols to describe the structure of meaning in the experience of poison-drinking: (1) Desire to Drink; (2) “God Moving on Me” (in terms of Anointing and “Insurance” against Harm); (3) Already “Snake Bit”; and (4) “Victory”/“Devil Troubling My Mind”. These interdependent themes are discussed in relation to the existential grounds of body, others, time, and world.     

超出预期策略的实验研究

在先前论文中提出与心理匹配策略相应的,又一用以调节学生学习新材料的学习心向的超出预期策略基础上,本文将该策略运用于数学教学之中,进行现场的教学实验研究。研究结果表明：在数学教学中可以运用超出预期策略对教材内容进行情感性处理,且对调节学生学习心向,提高认知学习的质量是有效的。     

认知匹配策略和形式匹配策略的实验研究

将用以调节学生学习心向的两条教材内容的情感性处理策略——认知匹配策略和形式匹配策略分别运用于语文和外语教学中,进行现场教学实验研究。研究结果表明：分别运用这两条策略对教材内容进行情感性处理,对调节学生的学习心向,促进学生的认知和情感学习、提高课堂教学质量是可行而有效的。     

Infant state in relation to its environmental context

Two neonatal intensive care units (NICU) were observed every 15 minutes for at least 72 consecutive hours. Although infants on both NICUs were exposed to considerable amounts of stimulation, there were differences between the units for each environmental measure in the amount of stimulation and/or the pattern of circadian periodicity. The two NICUs also differed in the amount of time infants spent in various states and in the pattern of state periodicity. In general, the diurnal rhythms of the infant states were associated with the diurnal rhythms of different environmental events; furthermore, the patterns of association were not the same on the two NICUs. The results point to potential problems in depicting a “typical” NICU. More importantly, they suggest that the environmental of NICUs has a recognizable influence on aspects of their inhabitants' behavior and that the nature of influence is different from NICU to NICU. The effects are potentially significant for physical, social, and cognitive development.     

教材内容的情感性分析及其处理策略

人们对教材的教学心理学分析研究相对较少,仅有的也多囿于认知维度。奥苏贝尔在其意义学习理论框架下研究了教材的意义性及其学习条件问题,并提出了著名的处理教材内容的先行组织者策略,然其研究仍属认知维度。其实,教材也是构成教学中情感现象的一个重要源点,对其进行情感性分析研究,将有助于从情感维度系统优化教学。故本文对教材内容进行较系统的情感分析,归纳为蕴涵显性、隐性、悟性和中性情感因素的四大类,并在教学实验     

发掘情感策略的实验研究

将对内含隐性情感因素的教材内容实施情感性处理的一种策略——发掘情感策略运用于语文教学,进行现场的教学实验研究。研究结果表明：在内含隐性情感因素的文科教材内容中,可以运用发掘情感策略来对其进行情感性处理;这对促进学生的认知学习和情感发展、提高课堂教学质量是有效的。     

Empowering public service workers to face bystander conflict: Enhancing resources through a training intervention

Public service employees work in occupations that are accompanied with high psychosocial risks. Police, firefighters, and paramedics are increasingly being confronted with argumentative, conflicting bystanders that frustrate them in executing their task. We developed a resource‐enhancement intervention and tested its usefulness for securing employees’ effective functioning and well‐being in bystander conflict. In a simulation‐based pre‐test post‐test control group design, paramedics in the intervention condition received training about how to increase their resources in terms of conflict management efficacy, perspective taking, task support, and emotional support. For those in the control condition, no such training was provided. Comparing pre‐ and post‐test measures (n = 81) of the participants in the intervention and control groups, we found evidence that the intervention successfully increased employees’ resources over time. Moreover, we found considerable support for a positive link between these resources and employees’ affective well‐being and job dedication. Thus, our study suggests that a resource‐enhancing intervention can serve as an important means to protect public service employees against the deleterious effects of bystander conflict.

Practitioner points

• A resource‐enhancing intervention can protect public service employees against the deleterious effects of bystander conflict.
• Resources related to dealing with a hindering bystander, as well as resources facilitating the continuation of the primary task, are positively associated with employees’ affective well‐being, job dedication, and job performance.

     

Handling Locally Stratified Inconsistent Knowledge Bases

This paper investigates the idea of reasoning, in a local (or contextual) way, under prioritized and possibly inconsistent knowledge bases. Priorities are not supposed to be given globally between all the beliefs in the knowledge base, but locally inside sets of pieces of information responsible for inconsistencies. This local stratification offers more flexibility for representing priorities between beliefs. Given this local ordering, we discuss five basic definitions of influence relations between conflicts. These elementary notions of influence between two conflicts A and B exhaustively explore the situations where solving A leads to solve B. Then we propose natural approaches to restore the coherence of a knowledge base on the basis of influence relations between locally-stratified conflicts.     

Coping with the Angry Patient

This patient is enacting two chronic maladaptive patterns. In one he alternates between the role of victim and abuser while inducing the therapist to play the counterrole. He tries to master the abuse he suffered passively as a child by becoming abusive with the therapist and having her experience what it feels like to be mistreated. My effort would be to interpret this pattern even while acknowledging and absorbing some degree of his anger. In a second pattern he acts like an angry, demanding child in an effort to extract nurturance and special treatment from the therapist. I would help him explore this posture in terms of his deprived background and its maladaptiveness in his current life. Finally, I present vignettes from my own practice to demonstrate how I work with patients' anger when it is expressed indirectly rather than in Mr. P's very direct manner.