Infant Contingency/Extinction Performance After Observing Partial Reinforcement

Social information gathering by infants 6 and 12 months old was examined as a foundation for later social learning that may be uniquely human. Infant performance on a contingency/extinction task was studied following a caregiver demonstration of the contingency on varied reinforcement schedules. Infants who observed caregivers receive any reinforcing stimulation in pretraining decreased responding over their own acquisition period, possibly because they began to habituate to the reinforcer. In extinction, infants who observed caregivers receive partial reinforcement in pretraining were more persistent in responding than others. This suggested that direct experience with partial reinforcement is not needed for greater persistence in extinction. These studies revealed details of social learning in the 1st year.     

Language Generativity,Response Generalization,and Derived Relational Responding

Language generativity can be described as the ability to produce sentences never before said, and to understand sentences never before heard. One process often cited as underlying language generativity is response generalization. However, though the latter seems to promise a technical understanding of the former at a process level, an investigation of definitions and approaches to the term “response generalization” that appear in the literature suggests that it does not do so. We argue that a more promising candidate for the role of key process underlying language generativity is derived relational responding. We introduce the latter concept and describe empirical research showing its connection with language. We subsequently present a relational frame theory (RFT) conceptualization of derived relations as contextually controlled generalized relational responding. We then review a series of recent studies on derived manding in developmentally delayed children and adults that arguably demonstrate the applied utility of a derived relations-based approach with respect to the phenomenon of generative language.     

Is the Source of Reinforcement for Naming Multiple Conditioned Reinforcers for Observing Responses?

Naming refers to the incidental acquisition of word-object relations as listener and speaker without explicit reinforcement. To investigate possible sources of reinforcement for naming, we examined the effects of a procedure for conditioning reinforcement for observing responses on the emergence of naming in children who previously lacked it. The participants were three 5- to 7-year-old children with and without diagnoses of autism spectrum disorder. During the intervention, either visual or auditory stimuli were first conditioned as reinforcers for observing responses. Then, neutral visual or auditory stimuli were paired with the conditioned visual or auditory stimuli until both visual and auditory stimuli acquired reinforcing properties for observing. Following this intervention, the participants demonstrated naming of stimuli that had been used in pretests for naming, as well as on a novel set of stimuli. We observed increases in echoic responding in conjunction with the emergence of naming and conditioned reinforcement for both observing responses. We interpret the data as suggesting that listener and speaker repertoires are joined for naming only when both visual and auditory stimuli reinforce the observing responses of looking and listening simultaneously.     

Using a Lag Schedule of Reinforcement to Increase Response Variability in Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Lag reinforcement schedules have been shown in previous research to be an effective intervention for teaching verbal and nonverbal response variability to individuals with developmental disabilities. In more recent research, variability itself has been considered a reinforceable behavior in its own right (Susa & Schlinger, The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 18, 125–130, 2012). Lag x schedules of reinforcement can be used to teach variability by using contingencies that require responses to differ from previous responses. The present study extended Susa and Schlinger’s, The Analysis of Verbal Behavior, 18, 125–130, (2012) research by using 3 social questions instead of 1 in a random rotation and included probes to test for generality. A changing-criterion design was used to evaluate the results with one 11-year-old female participant diagnosed with autism. During baseline, the participant provided little variability, with rote responses. During the Lag 1 and Lag 2 phases, appropriate variable verbal responding increased with the use of echoic prompts, visual aids, and an error correction procedure. Further, the results also showed that the participant learned to vary her responses by demonstrating the ability to emit 11 novel prompted responses and 13 spontaneous responses.In addition, the participant was able to retain the skills learned in a maintenance probe conducted 4 weeks postintervention.     

Turning irritation into teaching: professional responses to disputes amongst adolescents in Dutch family homes

ABSTRACT

In this article, we have focused on irritation as a discourse marker for professional foster parents to intervene in adolescents’ disputes. We were interested in how irritation leads to responses from people who are not the object of irritation themselves, but who intervene in the dispute, thus entering and changing the social situation. Four types of responses could be distinguished: 1) responding to the content of the dispute, 2) responding to the process of the dispute, 3) responding to the emotion of the adolescent or 4) ignoring the dispute. Although most cases in our sample seem to exhibit a main strategy that fits this categorisation, in 10 cases different strategies are combined. We showed that in these combined responses professional foster parents do not intervene merely for disciplinary reasons, although they do so when things threaten to get out of hand. They also use these occasions as teachable moments.     

Substantive Meanings of Missing Data in Family Research: Does “Don't Know” Matter?

In this article we analyze “don't know” responses from three sources of longitudinal data: the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (n = 14,528), the National Survey of Families and Households (n = 5,488), and the National Health Interview Survey Second Longitudinal Study of Aging (n = 1,131). We asked whether these responses are meaningful in family research, and, if so, how evaluating these responses can contribute to the development of theory, the discovery of novel findings, and identification of sensible methods for analyzing these nebulous responses. We found that “don't know” responses to questions about family members predicted less educational attainment, poor marital quality, and earlier mortality. Results suggest that this response category may have substantive meanings rather than indicating neutral responses or being missing data.     

Erratum to: Token Reinforcement of Verbal Responses Controlled by Temporally Removed Verbal Stimuli

In the present study we examined the effects of token reinforcement on the convergent control of immediate and temporally removed verbal stimuli over the verbal behavior of three school-age children with autism who showed specific deficits in intraverbal responding. Throughout the study, participants were systematically introduced to a series of visitors to a university-based autism center, and subsequently probed for information about the visitor they had most recently met. Results show that contingent token reinforcement was effective at establishing control by temporally removed verbal stimuli.     

The Role of Modeling and Automatic Reinforcement in the Construction of the Passive Voice

Language acquisition has been a contentious topic among linguists, psycholinguists, and behaviorists for decades. Although numerous theories of language acquisition have surfaced, none have sufficiently accounted for the subtleties of the language that children acquire. The present study attempts to explain the role of modeling and automatic reinforcement in the acquisition of the passive voice. Six children, ages 3 to 5, participated in this study. The results indicated that the children began using the passive voice only after the experimenter modeled passive sentences. Furthermore, the usage of the passive voice increased with repeated exposure to the experimenter''s verbal behavior. Given that the children were not explicitly reinforced, it is proposed that their behavior was automatically reinforced for using the passive voice.     

Edmund Husserl's Impact on Max Weber*

In correcting Rickert, Weber was influenced by Dilthey when he accepted the central place of interpretive understanding in the Geisteswissenschaften. But it was partly the influence of Husserl that led Weber to correct Dilthey's psychological reductionism in two respects, both of which are important in Weber's concept of ideal types: (1) categorial understanding, such as we have not only in mathematical analysis but also in the analysis of rational action, does not depend on psychological peculiarities, and (2) perceptual understanding, such as the investigator may have of irrational and nonrational action, is not given by immediate intuition alone but is partly constructed, and the validity of the construction must be tested by causal analysis. The author argues, further, that there is a phenomenological aspect to Weber's well-known types of authority, for example.     

Expanding Horizons of Risk in Criminology

Few topics in the social sciences have witnessed as dramatic an increase in scholarly attention over the past two decades as the topic of risk. In this essay we examine sociological approaches to risk in criminological research and theory. After briefly describing the concept of risk in classical and neoclassical criminology, we turn our attention to three emerging social science perspectives on risk, those associated with the scholarship on risk society, edgework, and governmentality. We examine the new directions that these emerging ``risk paradigms'' open for criminological theory and research, including new perspectives on the motivation for criminal risk-taking, the organization of policing and criminal justice systems, and public and political responses to crime. We conclude by reviewing critiques of the scholarship associated with the new risk paradigms and by suggesting promising future directions for criminological research seeking to advance these perspectives.     

Journey of Resilience and Adaptation: Counselling Vietnamese People

Despite the substantial number of Vietnamese residing in Australia, many Australians' knowledge and attitudes are still shaped by the Vietnam War and the resulting exodus of refugees. This superficial impression contributes little to a meaningful understanding of the rich heritage of the Vietnamese people. The purpose of this article is to broaden the understanding of helping professionals who come into contact with Vietnamese Australians, so as to evoke responses that are more sensitive, appropriate and helpful. A brief history of Vietnam is followed by an exploration of historical insights and cultural variables that aid our understanding of the people, and by an examination of the applicability of these factors for counselling.     

The hostile environment,Brexit, and ‘reactive‐’ or ‘protective transnationalism’

The ‘reactive transnationalism hypothesis’ posits a relationship between discrimination and transnational practice. The concept has generally been studied using quantitative methods, but a qualitative approach augments our understanding of two context‐specific dimensions: the nature of the discrimination involved, and the types of transnational behaviour that might be affected. Drawing on in‐depth interviews with Bangladesh‐origin Muslims in London, Luton and Birmingham, in the UK, we demonstrate how anti‐Asian and anti‐Muslim racism have been conflated with intensified anti‐migrant racism in the context of ‘hostile environment’ immigration policies and the EU referendum (Brexit), producing an amplification of racist discourses associated with purging the body politic of its non‐white bodies. The insecurity generated is altering some people's relationships to Bangladesh, incentivizing investment in land and property ‘back home'. While this represents an example of ‘reactive transnationalism', we argue that ‘protective transnationalism’ might be a more appropriate way of describing the processes at work.     

A Pseudofolliculitis Barbae Clinic for the Black Male who Has to Shave

Abstract

We conducted focus group interviews with students who were current peer health educators at a mid-sized university to determine what factors motivate individuals to volunteer for a peer health education program. Specifically, we asked the participants questions designed to explore their life experiences, their expectations of the peer education program, and their motivations. Constructs from social learning theory were used to categorize and contribute to our understanding of the responses. Many participants specified experiences with family members or friends, such as alcoholism or other illnesses, that had influenced their decisions. Participants' expectation of the program varied greatly and did not indicate a strong link to the decision to volunteer. The peer health educators' motivations for volunteering were altruistic, such as wanting to help others; egoistic, such as wanting job training; or related to self-efficacy beliefs, such as satisfying a personal need for health education. This study indicated that life experiences, a belief in the effectiveness of peer health education programs, and positive reinforcement to join influence the decision to volunteer. Implications for coordinating peer education programs are discussed.     

Alternative approaches to researching social capital: A comment on van Deth's measuring social capital

This paper responds to van Deth's overview of empirical research on social capital and the difficulties of measuring the concept. We entirely agree with many of the problems that he identifies with the dominant mode of enquiry to date: namely survey and polling methods of attitudinal data. We are sure there are ways of improving on such quantitative methods although we are of the view that qualitative research is especially helpful for exploring the processes of social capital formation and the relationship between networks and norms so crucial to Putnam's use of the concept. Briefly, we discuss our own qualititive work involving intensive interviews with 120 activists drawn from a Citizens Audit of Britain. We address the importance of pre-existing trust and informal processes of mobilization, the significance of experiences of group involvement for generating norms of trust as well as distrust and the extent to which evaluations of such experiences influence wider views of participation and democracy in Britain. In sum, we totally endorse van Deth's call for the greater use of 'multi-methods and multi-level srategies' in empirical research by extending his plea to consider the valuable role of qualitative methods in the study of social capital.     

Using a lag schedule to increase variability of verbal responding in an individual with autism

Research has shown that reinforcing novel behaviors can increase the number of different ways that an individual behaves (Goetz & Baer, 1973; Pryor, Haag, & O'Reilly, 1969). However, it was not until more recently that researchers began to consider variability to be a reinforceable operant in and of itself (Neuringer, 2002). More specifically, Neuringer suggested that variability can be taught using a Lag x schedule of reinforcement, in which x refers to the number of previous responses from which the current response must differ in order for reinforcement to occur (Page & Neuringer, 1985). The purpose of the present study was to extend one of the first studies of a Lag x schedule on verbal responses with human subjects (Lee, McComas, & Jawor, 2002), by increasing the lag criteria while attempting to address some of methodological limitations of the study. The participant was a 7-year-old male with autism. A changing criterion design was used and results showed that 3 novel responses were acquired and varied according to the lag schedule of reinforcement.     

Towards a performative understanding of deservingness: Merit,gender and the BBC pay dispute

Drawing largely on a high‐profile case of unequal pay at the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) as an illustrative example, this conceptual article considers differences and interrelationships between merit and deservingness, where the latter captures how, through appropriate performances, merit is given recognition and value. We propose a performative understanding of deservingness that highlights its gendered and embodied dimensions. Informed by Judith Butler's account of gender performativity, we show that, while merit is conventionally conceptualized as a relatively fixed set of attributes (qualifications, skill) 'attached' to the individual, deservingness captures how, in gendered terms, value and recognition are both claimed and conferred. As we argue, a gendered, deserving subject does not pre‐exist but is performatively constituted through embodied practices and performances of what is seen as worthy in a particular time and place.     

The puzzle of metaphor and voice in arts‐based social research

Research exploring the emotional responses to crime experienced by the citizens of several major European and North American countries has suggested that a significant proportion of the residents of these countries 'fear' or feel 'angry' about the possibility of criminal victimization. It has ceased to appear incredible to us that we are regularly finding that between a quarter and two thirds of our citizens are fearful or 'angry about crime' 'all of the time'. The argument put forward in this contribution to the work in this field is that the emotional responses to crime have been exaggerated by the inappropriate use of the survey as a measurement tool. Ethnographic and qualitative data suggest that experiences of 'fear' and 'anger' are less common. Suggestions for improving the ability of the questions used in surveys to accurately capture these emotional responses are advanced.     

The Value of Vocalizing: 10‐Month‐Olds' Vocal Usage Relates to Language Outcomes at 15 Months

The interaction between infant's communicative competence and responsiveness of caregivers facilitates the transition from prelinguistic to linguistic communication. It is thus important to know how infants' communicative behavior changes in relation to different caregiver responses; furthermore, how infants' modification of communicative behavior relates to language outcomes. We investigated 39 10‐month‐old infants' communication as a function of mothers' attention and responses and the relationship to language outcomes at 15 months. We elicited infants' communicative behavior in three conditions: (1) joint attention: Mothers were visually attending and responding to infants' attention and interest; (2) available: Mothers were visually attending to infants, but not responding contingently to infants' attention and interest; (3) unavailable: Mothers were not attending to infants nor responding to them. Infants vocalized more when mothers attended and responded to them (conditions 1 and 2) than when mothers did not (condition 3), but infants' gesture and gesture‐vocal production did not differ across conditions. Furthermore, infants' production of a higher proportion of vocalizations in the unavailable condition relative to the joint attention condition correlated with, and predicted, infants' language scores at 15 months. Thus, infants who appear to be aware of the social effects of vocalizations may learn words better.     

Gay guys using gay language: friendship,shared values and the intent‐context‐effect matrix

This article draws on in‐depth interviews with 35 openly gay male undergraduates from four universities in England to develop an understanding of the changing nature of language related to homosexuality. In addition to finding a diminution in the prevalence of homophobic language, we demonstrate that participants maintain complex and nuanced understandings of phrases that do not use homophobic pejoratives, such as ‘that's so gay’. The majority of participants rejected the notion that these phrases are inherently homophobic, instead arguing that the intent with which they are said and the context in which they are used are vital in understanding their meaning and effect. We conceptualize an intent‐context‐effect matrix to understand the interdependency of these variables. Highlighting the situated nature of this matrix, we also demonstrate the importance of the existence of shared norms between those saying and hearing the phrase when interpreting such language.     

Examining concepts of power and agency in research with young people

Concepts of power and agency have become increasingly prominent in the youth studies literatures and related research. A focus of the research to date has been an examination of how a better understanding of young people's lived experiences can reveal possibilities for young people's agency to emerge. Despite increased interest in the term agency, much less has been said about how the concept is defined and recognized in research with young people, including what the concept may entail but crucially, how the term is linked to and underpinned by the related concept of power. This paper seeks to contribute to our understanding of power and agency as utilized in research with young people. The discussion that follows identifies the possible ways in which different theoretical positions shape our understanding of how power and agency are investigated and how these understandings inform the ways we interpret young people's perspectives and actions as holding potential for ‘agency’. Drawing on recent empirical examples, we consider how varying interpretations of power and/or agency shape not only the ways in which young people's agentic experiences are theorized (and the related ontological and epistemological assumptions these positions imply) but also the presumed effects of that agency.