Can Collateral Behavior Account for Transitions in the Stimulus Control of Speech?

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - The task of extending Skinner’s (1957) interpretation of verbal behavior includes accounting for the moment-to-moment changes in stimulus control as one...     

Jack Michael’s Musings on the 60th Anniversary of Skinner’s Verbal Behavior

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior - When the B. F. Skinner Foundation reprinted Skinner’s Verbal Behavior in 1992, Jack Michael wrote one of its two forewords, a detailed outline of the...     

The Multiple Control of Verbal Behavior

Amid the novel terms and original analyses in Skinner's Verbal Behavior, the importance of his discussion of multiple control is easily missed, but multiple control of verbal responses is the rule rather than the exception. In this paper we summarize and illustrate Skinner's analysis of multiple control and introduce the terms convergent multiple control and divergent multiple control. We point out some implications for applied work and discuss examples of the role of multiple control in humor, poetry, problem solving, and recall. Joint control and conditional discrimination are discussed as special cases of multiple control. We suggest that multiple control is a useful analytic tool for interpreting virtually all complex behavior, and we consider the concepts of derived relations and naming as cases in point.     

Differences in Perception of Risk Between People Who Have and Have Not Experienced Salmonella Food Poisoning

It is believed that food hygiene precautions in domestic kitchens are an important strategy in efforts to reduce the incidence of sporadic food poisoning, but recent research has shown that people who have suffered food poisoning handle the same types of foods and adopt similar food hygiene precautions in their kitchens to the rest of the population. This suggests the need to examine other factors. A case-control study of sporadic Salmonella food poisoning was conducted to investigate several domestic kitchen risk factors. Measures of perception of risk, knowledge, and control associated with food poisoning in case and control respondents are reported here. It was found that perceived personal risk from food poisoning in the home was less than perceived risk to other people. In contrast, ratings of personal knowledge about food poisoning and personal control over food poisoning in the home were seen to be greater than other people's knowledge and control. There were no differences between the cases and the controls in their ratings of knowledge about food poisoning or their control over food poisoning. However, cases perceived their personal risk from food poisoning to be higher than controls. Both case and control samples exhibited optimistic bias but this was reduced in the case sample, suggesting that experience with food poisoning may reduce optimistic bias.     

Chomsky’s Nativism Reconsidered

The Analysis of Verbal Behavior -     

Psychiatric Rehospitalization of Children and Adolescents: Implications for Social Work Intervention

This study explored factors associated with the psychiatric rehospitalization of children and adolescents. A retrospective archival review was conducted on 403 children and adolescents admitted into an inpatient psychiatric hospital. Results indicated that 16% were readmitted in the same year. Children and adolescents who had a prior history of psychiatric rehospitalization, lived in a residential treatment facility, and had a diagnosis of oppositional/defiant or conduct disorder were more likely to be rehospitalized. Psychosocial factors must be considered in predicting and preventing psychiatric rehospitalization. Clinical social workers should include therapeutic foster care as an option for aftercare placements of youth exhibiting externalizing behaviors and/or with a history of multiple restrictive care placements.     

Technology assessment and the 'ethical matrix'

This paper explores the usefulness of the 'ethical matrix', proposed by Ben Mepham, as a tool in technology assessment, specifically in food ethics. We consider what the matrix is, how it might be useful as a tool in ethical decision-making, and what drawbacks might be associated with it. We suggest that it is helpful for fact-finding in ethical debates relating to food ethics; but that it is much less helpful in terms of weighing the different ethical problems that it uncovers. Despite this drawback, we maintain that, with some modifications, the ethical matrix can be a useful tool in debates in food ethics. We argue that useful modifications might be to include future generations amongst the stakeholders in the matrix, and to substitute the principle of solidarity for the principle of justice. Electronic Publication     

The politics of Canadian social scientists: A comment on Baer and Lambert

À partir d'une analyse secondaire d'un sondage national mené en 1983, Baer et Lambert (1990) soutiennent que les études universitaires ont un effet idéologique unidirectionnel allant dans le sens d'un renforcement de l'idéologie dominante. Us affirment de plus avoir démontré de façon «convaincante» que les études en sciences sociales n'ont pas un effet opposé; que les spécialistes des sciences sociales au Canada, loin d'être radicaux, sont probablement plus conservateurs que la population en général, et que leurs résultats contredisent les conclusions de Guimond, Palmer et Bégin (1989). Nous présentons une brève analyse de l'étude de Baer et Lambert (1990) démontrant qu'en raison de certains problèmes dans I'interprétation de leurs résultats en plus de la négligence d'un ensemble de recherches sur le plan national et international, ces auteurs présentent une conclusion fallacieuse. Il existe des démonstrations solides de la libéralisation des attitudes des étudiants sous l'influence des sciences sociales, démonstrations qui ne sont aucunement remises en question par les résultats de Baer et Lambert. On the basis of their reanalysis of 1983 Canadian survey data, Baer and Lambert (1990) argue that the ideological effects of university education are unidirectional, serving to reinforce the dominant ideology. They further claim to have ‘convincingly demonstrated’ that university studies in the social sciences do not have the opposite effect; i.e. that Canadian social scientists, far from being radicals, are probably more conservative than the population at large, and that their findings contradict the conclusion of Guimond, Palmer and Bégin (1989). We present a brief analysis of the Baer and Lambert (1990) study, showing that through a combination of problems in the interpretation of their results, along with their neglecting a substantial body of national and international research evidence, those authors' conclusions are misleading. There is solid evidence that studying the social sciences is related to a liberalization of students' attitudes, evidence that is in no way contradicted by the Baer and Lambert (1990) results.