A reanalysis of recent clinical research suggests that three different neural processes or brain mechanisms may underlie the regulation of emotion: (1) contralateral disinhibition of cortical centers; (2) ipsilateral disinhibition of subcortical centers; and (3) excitation of specific subcortical or neocortical centers. (MDM)

Examines ways in which individual differences in emotion regulation may be influenced by children's attachment experiences. It argues that individuals characterized by the flexible ability to accept and integrate both positive and negative emotions are generally securely attached, whereas individuals characterized by either limited or heightened…

Discusses new research directions in the study of emotions, including postulations that emotion is relational rather than intrapsychic; emotion and an individual's goals are closely related; emotion "expressions" are social signals, not merely outward signs of internal states; and the physiology of emotion can regulate and be regulated.…

This paper identifies critical components of recent organizational quality improvement programs and specifies how applied behavior analysis can contribute to quality technology. Statistical Process Control and Total Quality Management approaches are compared, and behavior analysts are urged to build their research base and market behavior change…

Behavioral analysis of reinforcers, adversities, and responses to adversities in videotapes of 14 college basketball games found that a team's favorable response to an adversity increased as the rate of reinforcement increased 3 minutes preceding the adversity and that calling time-outs was an effective intervention for reducing the opponent's…

The effects of a variable-ratio schedule of reinforcement on pedaling a stationary exercise bicycle were examined with 3 obese and 3 nonobese 11-year-old boys over a 12-week period. The intervention resulted in systematic increases in rate of exercise for all subjects. (Author/DB)

Teachers of 2 children (ages 7 and 13) with autism were trained to conduct a descriptive analysis and a classroom experimental analysis of aberrant behavior. Each procedure identified negative reinforcement as a maintaining variable for aberrant behavior. Intervention based on the assessment was successfully implemented with one child and had…

This commentary on EC 605 189 discusses assumptions of gentle teaching, its use of supportive behavioral techniques, and criticisms of gentle teaching. The paper concludes that gentle teaching is distinct from applied behavior analysis (ABA) in its unconditional valuing and focus on mutual change and is congruent with ABA in use of several…

Examines a study of the effects of sociocultural change on an individual's beliefs concerning control over personal and political events. Explains that Polish students' political control beliefs significantly shifted from external sources (the government) to internal sources (the individual) after democratization of their country. Reports that…

Experimentally examines reorganization, a fundamental component of William T. Powers' theory of mind based on the control theory of behavior. Attempts to model reorganization, focusing on improvements in performance with practice and how practice influences attention. Speculates how outputs from higher levels of the control hierarchy are involved…

Discusses the nature of control, examining how organisms as control systems sense or monitor the variable being controlled when responding to environmental changes. Argues that learning is the development of control in an attempt to fit the two phenomena central to traditional learning theory--conditioning and reinforcement--into the broader…

This article reviews applications of the applied behavior analysis ideas of B. F. Skinner and others to persons with both mental retardation and emotional disturbance. The review examines implications of behavior analysis for operant conditioning and radical behaviorism, schedules of reinforcement, and emotion and mental illness. (DB)

This paper describes a project of Communidad Los Horcones (Mexico), dealing with alternatives to contrived or artificial reinforcement. The paper proposes the use of natural reinforcement, which can be individualized and received without the mediation of another person and which contributes to making the natural consequences of behavior…

This commentary on EC 603 646, a paper describing a natural reinforcement project of Communidad Los Horcones (Mexico), argues that natural reinforcement is best when the learning objective produces a natural reinforcer and when the natural reinforcer is more powerful than any competing punishers inherent in the task or reinforcers for competing…

A meta-analysis including 96 experimental studies considers the effects of reinforcement/reward on intrinsic motivation. Results indicate that reward does not decrease intrinsic motivation, although interaction effects must be examined. An analysis with five studies also indicates that reinforcement does not harm intrinsic motivation. (SLD)