A study was conducted on the relationships between information seeking and individual cognitive structures (both individual cognitive complexity and the constructs used to understand others). Specifically, the study sought to determine how people use questions to reduce the uncertainty of meeting new people in impression-formation interviews. The…

The relative efficacy of both group and individual cognitive behavior therapeutic approaches in treating anxiety and depression are evaluated and then compared to an interpersonal group therapy approach. The two major hypotheses are that group cognitive behavior therapy is at least as effective as individual cognitive behavior therapy, and that…

IN A SPECIALLY ORGANIZED NURSERY SCHOOL SETTING, DISADVANTAGED CHILDREN BETWEEN TWO AND ONE-HALF AND THREE AND ONE-HALF YEARS OF AGE, EXPERIENCED CONTINGENCY MANAGEMENT (CM) PROCEDURES TO MODIFY VERBAL BEHAVIOR. IN ONE ROOM OF A LARGE, PRIVATE DWELLING CONVERTED INTO A NURSERY SCHOOL, REQUISITE ANTECEDENT BEHAVIORS (RAB) WERE ESTABLISHED IN EACH…

A REINFORCEMENT TECHNIQUE IN COUNSELING WAS USED TO MODIFY A FIRST GRADER'S ATTENDING BEHAVIOR. PRE AND POST MEASUREMENTS WERE MADE AND CUMULATIVE RECORDS WERE KEPT OF THE ATTENDING TIME IN COUNSELING SESSIONS AND IN ARITHMETIC LESSONS, AND A RECORD WAS KEPT OF COMPLETION VERSUS NON-COMPLETION OF ARITHMETIC ASSIGNMENTS. THE ASSESSMENTS MADE IN…

The paper presents an overview of an ethological approach to the study of abnormal human behavior and a review of research using ethological approaches (with an emphasis on autism research). Ethology is defined as the study of behavior as it occurs in its natural habitat. The four types of questions ethologists ask about behavior, such as what is…

Tests were constructed to measure three dimensions of prejudice related to interracial communication: stereotyping, affective reactions, and communicative social distance. A test was also constructed to measure the type of attributional choices made about blacks. The attributional choices were either defensive (negative and stereotypical) or…

The interest in the research conducted on the level of understanding that jurors have of the instructions used in Florida criminal trials, the impact of time delay on juror comprehension, the value of reading a copy of the instructions as they were presented orally by the judge, and the relationship between comprehension of the law and attitude…

A study was conducted to segment the mass media audience on the basis of basic needs and media satisfactions. Two hundred undergraduate journalism students completed lengthy questionnaires rating their media use before and during the New York newspaper strike of 1978, along with their basic needs, media satisfactions, and a variety of other…

The differences between aggressiveness and assertiveness were examined using the Interpersonal Behavior Survey (IBS), a 136-item self-report questionnaire which was developed to distinguish between assertive and aggressive behaviors. Item level factor analysis was used in scale construction. Results indicated that: (1) the correlation between the…

This paper indicates underlying philosophic assumptions which are compatible with the behavior analysis approach to child development. Four issues taken into consideration are (a) biology and environment, (b) structure and function, (c) traits and situations, and (d) mechanistic and organismic approaches to development. The following ideas…

Counseling needs of women enrolled at a university after an interruption in their formal educational training are explored. The target population was women who were at least 24 years old and who had not attended an educational institution for two years prior to enrolling in the university. A stratefied sample (N=20) was chosen from a computer…

This paper links the sex stereotypic socialization of women towards passivity and insignificance theoretically and empirically with the greater incidence of learned helplessness and depression in contemporary American women as compared to men. The case is made for a more androgynous, self-directed and undepressed person, female or male, and both…

The advertising copy for a product was manipulated along two structural dimensions (inside/outside product attributes, and before/after consequences of using product) to refine the concept of exposure in advertising research and to test a method of observing cognitive behavior while people are attending (exposed) to the media. The 78 participants…

A REPORT ISSUED BY THE ISRAELI NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH IN THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES INDICATES THAT MANY OF THEIR CURRENT PROJECTS ARE INVESTIGATING CULTURALLY DEPRIVED ISRAELI CHILDREN. TOPICS INCLUDE THE GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT, LEARNING PSYCHOLOGY, AND FAMILY AND KINDERGARTEN BACKGROUNDS OF THESE CHILDREN AS WELL AS THE PREPARATION OF…

Research on learning and conditioning suggests that verbal response modification does not occur in the absence of the subject's ability to define verbally (1) the response-reinforcement relationships and (2) his intention to change his behavior in the direction of reinforcement. This seems to be true for operant conditioning of verbal behavior,…