A hypothesized need to form and maintain strong, stable interpersonal relationships is evaluated in light of the empirical literature. The need is for frequent, nonaversive interactions within an ongoing relational bond. Consistent with the belongingness hypothesis, people form social attachments readily under most conditions and resist the dissolution of existing bonds. Belongingness appears to have multiple and strong effects on emotional patterns and on cognitive processes. Lack of attachments is linked to a variety of ill effects on health, adjustment, and well-being. Other evidence, such as that concerning satiation, substitution, and behavioral consequences, is likewise consistent with the hypothesized motivation. Several seeming counterexamples turned out not to disconfirm the hypothesis. Existing evidence supports the hypothesis that the need to belong is a powerful, fundamental, and extremely pervasive motivation.

The need to belong: Desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation.

Evidence is reviewed which suggests that there may be little or no direct introspective access to higher order cognitive processes. Subjects are sometimes (a) unaware of the existence of a stimulus that importantly influenced a response, (b) unaware of the existence of the response, and (c) unaware that the stimulus has affected the response. It is proposed that when people attempt to report on their cognitive processes, that is, on the processes mediating the effects of a stimulus on a response, they do not do so on the basis of any true introspection. Instead, their reports are based on a priori, implicit causal theories, or judgments about the extent to which a particular stimulus is a plausible cause of a given response. This suggests that though people may not be able to observe directly their cognitive processes, they will sometimes be able to report accurately about them. Accurate reports will occur when influential stimuli are salient and are plausible causes of the responses they produce, and will not occur when stimuli are not salient or are not plausible causes.

/pdf/telling-more-than-we-can-know-verbal-reports-on-mental-57xv5dwuck.pdf

Telling more than we can know: Verbal reports on mental processes.

According to W. Edwards Deming, American companies require nothing less than a transformation of management style and of governmental relations with industry. In Out of the Crisis, originally published in 1982, Deming offers a theory of management based on his famous 14 Points for Management. Management's failure to plan for the future, he claims, brings about loss of market, which brings about loss of jobs. Management must be judged not only by the quarterly dividend, but by innovative plans to stay in business, protect investment, ensure future dividends, and provide more jobs through improved product and service. In simple, direct language, he explains the principles of management transformation and how to apply them.

Out of the Crisis

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) comprises a deficit in behavioral inhibition. A theoretical model is constructed that links inhibition to 4 executive neuropsychological functions that appear to depend on it for their effective execution: (a) working memory, (b) self-regulation of affect-motivation-arousal, (c) internalization of speech, and (d) reconstitution (behavioral analysis and synthesis). Extended to ADHD, the model predicts that ADHD should be associated with secondary impairments in these 4 executive abilities and the motor control they afford. The author reviews evidence for each of these domains of functioning and finds it to be strongest for deficits in behavioral inhibition, working memory, regulation of motivation, and motor control in those with ADHD. Although the model is promising as a potential theory of self-control and ADHD, far more research is required to evaluate its merits and the many predictions it makes about ADHD.

/pdf/behavioral-inhibition-sustained-attention-and-executive-3s4ta68l66.pdf

Behavioral inhibition, sustained attention, and executive functions: Constructing a unifying theory of ADHD.

Two instructional studies directed at the comprehension-fostering and comprehension-monitoring activities of seventh grade poor comprehenders are reported. The four study activities were summarizing (self-review), questioning, clarifying, and predicting. The training method was that of reciprocal teaching, where the tutor and students took turns leading a dialogue centered on pertinent features of the text. In Study 1, a comparison between the reciprocal teaching method and a second intervention modeled on typical classroom practice resulted in greater gains and maintenance over time for the reciprocal procedure. Reciprocal teaching, with an adult model guiding the student to interact with the text in more sophisticated ways, led to a significant improvement in the quality of the summaries and questions. It also led to sizable gains on criterion tests of comprehension, reliable maintenance over time, generalization to classroom comprehension tests, transfer to novel tasks that tapped the trained skills of...

https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/3233567.pdf

Reciprocal Teaching of Comprehension-Fostering and Comprehension-Monitoring Activities

NOTICE: Optical character-recognition software was used in preparing this document. Please consult the original article before making reference to the material herein.

/pdf/some-current-dimensions-of-applied-behavior-analysis-pctr807syc.pdf

Some current dimensions of applied behavior analysis

Traditionally, discrimination has been understood as an active process, and a technology of its procedures has been developed and practiced extensively. Generalization, by contrast, has been considered the natural result of failing to practice a discrimination technology adequately, and thus has remained a passive concept almost devoid of a technology. But, generalization is equally deserving of an active conceptualization and technology. This review summarizes the structure of the generalization literature and its implicit embryonic technology, categorizing studies designed to assess or program generalization according to nine general headings: Train and Hope; Sequential Modification; Introduce to Natural Maintaining Contingencies; Train Sufficient Exemplars; Train Loosely; Use Indiscriminable Contingencies; Program Common Stimuli; Mediate Generalization; and Train “To Generalize”.

/pdf/an-implicit-technology-of-generalization-3nz0rd5z7v.pdf

An implicit technology of generalization.

Multiple-baseline and probe procedures are combined into a “multiple-probe” technique The technique is designed to provide a thorough analysis of the relationship between an independent variable and the acquisition of a successive-approximation or chain sequence It provides answers to the following questions: (1) What is the initial level of performance on each step in the training sequence? (2) What happens if sequential opportunities to perform each next step in the sequence are provided before training on that step? (3) What happens when training is applied? (4) What happens to the performance of remaining steps in the sequence as criterion is reached in the course of training each prior step? The technique features: (1) one initial probe of each step in the training sequence, (2) an additional probe of every step after criterion is reached on any training step, and (3) a series of “true” baseline sessions conducted just before the introduction of the independent variable to each training step Intermittent probes also provide an alternative to continuous baseline measurement, when such measurement during extended multiple baselines (1) may prove reactive, (2) is impractical, and/or (3) a strong a priori assumption of stability can be made

Multiple-probe technique: a variation on the multiple baseline.

The use of evaluative feedback from consumers to guide program planning and evaluation is often referred to as the assessment of social validity. Differing views of its role and value in applied behavior analysis have emerged, and increasingly stereotyped assessments of social validity are becoming commonplace. This paper argues that current applications of social validity assessments are straying from the point originally proposed for them. Thus, several suggestions for improving current social validity assessment are proposed, including (a) expanding the definition of consumers to acknowledge the variety of community members able and likely to affect a program's survival, (b) increasing the psychometric rigor of social validity assessments, (c) extending assessment to heretofore underrepresented populations, (d) implementing widespread application of well-designed social validity assessments, (e) increasing meaningful consumer involvement in the planning and evaluation of behavioral programs, and (f) educating consumers to make better informed programming decisions.

Social validity assessments: is current practice state of the art?

Twenty years ago, an anthropological note described the current dimensions of applied behavior analysis as it was prescribed and practiced in 1968: It was, or ought to become, applied, behavioral, analytic, technological, conceptual, effective, and capable of appropriately generalized outcomes. A similar anthropological note today finds the same dimensions still prescriptive, and to an increasing extent, descriptive. Several new tactics have become evident, however, some in the realm of conceptual analysis, some in the sociological status of the discipline, and some in its understanding of the necessary systemic nature of any applied discipline that is to operate in the domain of important human behaviors.

Donald M. Baer

Papers

Some current dimensions of applied behavior analysis

An implicit technology of generalization.

Multiple-probe technique: a variation on the multiple baseline.

Social validity assessments: is current practice state of the art?

Some still-current dimensions of applied behavior analysis