A SEMINAR WAS HELD DURING THE SUMMER OF 1961 TO EXPLORE THE RESEARCH NEEDS IN THE BEHAVIORAL ASPECTS OF MENTAL RETARDATION. THIRTEEN SPECIALISTS DISCUSSED AND STUDIED THESE NEEDS AND ESTABLISHED GUIDELINES FOR SUCH AREAS OF STUDY AS (1) NATURE AND DETERMINANTS OF INTELLIGENCE AND ITS DEVIATIONS, (2) PSYCHOLOGICAL DETERMINANTS OF MENTAL…

Time sampled observations of the cooperative behavior of two samples of 31 preschool children were analyzed for stability (that is, short term reliability of behavior) over a 2-month period using Cronbach's generalizability coefficient. Observations were made during free play periods on nursery school settings. The observation schedule required…

The relationship between treatment levels and errors of estimate for a dependent variable in a behavioral science research experiment is typically evaluated by an analysis of covariance. The same relation can be expressed by part correlation. In non-experimental research with individual-difference variables, an assumption regarding independence,…

Postdoctoral training programs at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences utilize the ongoing activities of the Center for broadening and deepening the educational research competence both of scholars in the field of education and behavioral scientists whose work can contribute significantly to more adequate understanding of…

Third stream evaluation, the fusing of the ecological perspective with experimental or quasi-experimental evaluation design, is described. The ecological perspective necessitates that the conceptualization and analysis of a setting and the design of the study emphasize the interdependent relations among organisms, behavior and environment in…

This task group report is one of a series prepared by eminent psychologists who have served as consultants in the U.S.O.E.-sponsored grant study to conduct a Critical Appraisal of the Personality-Emotions-Motivation Domain. In order to achieve the goal of identifying important problems and areas for new research and methodological issues related…

The experiment was designed to see whether children differ from adults in the ability to understand nonverbal responses of other children. Ten third-grade children were secretly filmed while watching a very easy and a very hard math lesson. Third graders, sixth graders, and adults (college students) were asked to judge, based on a film of each…

Current research in 23 areas of behavioral science conducted by Swedish investigators and institutions is reported and summarized. Each report includes the project's author or institution, title, reference, key words, and abstract, along with the date of publication, number of pages, language used, and whether the report is final or interim.…

This study was designed to answer two major questions: (1) whether or not operant conditioning procedures supplemented by treatments drawn from other areas of experimental psychology could produce changes in counselor interviewing behavior, and (2) how much change resulted from response specific reinforcement and how much from other factors. Three…

A study was made of three disadvantaged youth training projects to determine the degree to which guidelines from behavioral technology and educational studies were being used in the programs. From a review of behavioral science and learning research evolved a model which explicated the functions which should be implemented in an operational…

The author conceives of the human emotional system as being composed of three functions of motivational stimuli: (a) the attitudinal or emotional, (b) the reinforcing, and (c) the discriminative controlling function which the stimuli acquire. He defines and describes each of these functions and their effect on integrated learning principles. He…

The Kvaraceus Delinquency Proneness Scale (KD Scale) was developed as an instrument designed to aid in prediction of future juvenile delinquents. The purpose of this research was to evaluate the predictive validity of the instrument over a 5-year period. Indexes of delinquency adjustment and academic achievement served as the validational…

The authors describe a program of research in the application of scalogram analysis to the validation of learning hierarchies, together with the development of an alternative method for assessing hierarchical relationships among tests of instructional objectives. The relationship between scalability of tests and positive transfer between…

This series of papers was presented in a symposium on behavior therapy. Each paper represents a separate study focusing on one aspect of behavior modification. The issue of reinforcement is prominant with regard to its type and source. Methods of self-reinforcement and older-peer modeling are studied. The suggestion that subjects who reinforce…

The author proposes a framework for the study of behavior and personality that takes into account phylogeny (development of genetically related groups of organisms) as well as ontogeny (course of development of an individual organism). The adaptive function of behavior is stressed. The author states that individual personality is a unique…