A person's actions are caused by the interaction of external environmental forces and internal personal forces. Attributing actions to one or the other set of forces is a distorted view of cause. In therapy, attributing actions to external forces, particularly past events, relieves the client of guilt and makes sense out of his actions.…

Until recently, the use of contingency contracting has been largely an issue of theory and discussion with little experimental research evidence gathered to support efficacy. Two major reasons for this problem are suggested and discussed: (1) the concept of contingency contracting has not been adequately defined nor its minimal requirements…

This document contains the reports of research at a symposium on "Altered States of Consciousness and Alcohol." The participants primarily agreed that alcohol induces an altered state of consciousness similar to other drugs, but that this phenomenon has not been explicitly stated due to the current interest in newer and more novel drugs. The…

One hundred and two first-time fathers responded to a questionnaire regarding their preparation for and adaptation to fatherhood. Most fathers had little preparation for their role and participated minimally in the day-to-day care of their new baby. Wanting to return to the pre-baby days was significantly related to the wife's complaining about…

This study analyzed the mental distractions of students while reading a text. Ss were asked to press a switch to record mental distractions as they occurred, and a treatment was designed to attempt to reduce the number of distractions. The hypothesis related to the treatment effect was that students given explicit training to reduce distractions…

The use of reciprocal behavior contracts with families of behavior-problem adolescents was investigated. Most family contracting to date has involved one-way contracts; that is, the child agrees to certain responsibilities for which he will be reinforced by the parents. A reciprocal contract requires the parents, in addition to the child, to agree…

This publication introduces and describes new efforts based on the concept of alternatives to drug abuse. The pamphlet is designed for educators, community groups, drug abuse professionals, treatment personnel, parents and young people. According to those who espouse the alternatives approach, motives for drug-taking inevitably include the need to…

This report provides a technical-level analysis, discussion, and summary of five experiments in applied behavior analysis. Experiment 1 examined the token economy as a basis for motivating inmate behavior; Experiment 2 examined the relationship between magnitude of token reinforcement and level of inmate performance; Experiment 3 introduced a…

Behaviorists define the purpose of educational psychology as that of teaching teachers to predict, control, and modify classroom behavior. This conceptualization is contrasted with the approach which views educational psychology as a comprehensive content area emphasizing information rather than skills. A basic distinction between behaviorists and…

This study evaluates the effectiveness of continued remedial problem counseling for those students in a large high school who were disciplined for serious breeches of school conduct and for those showing deteriorating behavior. After being disciplined, the offender was referred to the project counselor for intensive project counseling, lasting for…

The main topic of this paper is how the behavioral approach to counseling fulfills the requirements of an effective helping relationship. The role of the counselor is first considered, should the counselor exert influence over clients? In any interpersonal relationship, people influence and control one another, counseling relationships are no…

Test anxiety was surveyed among Maryland ninth graders in six schools in the spring of 1968. The schools differed in racial composition, social class of student body, and in rural-urban location. Test anxiety does not show differences by social class or racial groups when schools have comparable IQ distributions. The level of test anxiety seems…

Behavior modification as an attack upon the problem of mutism in mongoloid children establishes the basis of the text. Case histories of four children in a state institution present the specific strategy of speech therapy using verbal conditioning. Imitation and attending behavior, verbal chaining, phonetic theory, social reinforcement,…

Earlier research has demonstrated that verbal teaching behaviors can be modified through the Teaching Laboratory (TL), which consists of peer group microteaching experiences. This study investigated whether or not these behaviors would persist into later student teaching. Each of 50 secondary student teachers, who were divided into control and…

This study sought to determine whether student teachers' questioning strategy can be modified to increase their use of higher level cognitive questions and also whether student achievement was higher in classes where the teacher asked more high level questions. Subjects of the study were 20 student teachers assigned to fifth-grade classes in…