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The Integration Of Metabolic Measurement And The Behavioral Management Of Nutrition And Exercise For Treating Obesity, Cheryl Rae Maphies

Dissertations

Four female subjects participated in an eight-week, behavioral weight control treatment program that emphasized changing the behavior of food choice and aerobic exercise. This study also tested the hypothesis that by utilizing measurements of an individual's resting metabolic rate to determine caloric level, an individual could lose weight without a disproportional drop in metabolic rate. During the initial eight weeks, subjects' resting metabolic rates were determined through the measure of oxygen consumption. Caloric intakes were based on a reduction of 500-1000 calories per day from the estimated number of calories expended daily. Using a multiple-baseline design, the effects of diet …

The Effectiveness Of Relaxation-Visualization Training On The Natural Killer (Nk) Cells Of Breast Cancer Patients, Morry Edwards

Dissertations

A large number of studies have found that stress qualitatively and quantitatively reduces a variety of immune components. Several recent studies have examined relaxation skills and their ability to increase immune measures. The primary hypothesis of this project was that relaxation-visualization training (RVT) would enhance Natural Killer (NK) Cell Activity. Two other major hypotheses were generated: (a) RVT would produce beneficial psychological effects and, (b) increased psychopathology would be inversely correlated with NK levels. Six volunteer breast cancer patients who were at least 3 months post treatment were taught a passive form of relaxation that included visualizing an increase in …

The Predictive Validity Of The Millon Adolescent Personality Inventory To Assess Borderline Conditions In Adolescents, Juan Mario Herakovic

Dissertations

This study examined the predictive validity of the Millon Adolescent Personality Inventory (MAPI) (Millon, Green & Meagher, 1982) to evaluate Borderline Personality Disorder in adolescents. The hypothesis is that the MAPI tends to overdiagnose Borderline Personality Disorders. The origin of the term is placed first within the framework of psychoanalysis and its evolution through other theoretical constructs is then discussed. The concept of Borderline is surrounded by imprecise terminology which contributes to the confusion of a clinical diagnosis. While there is a movement in mental health to provide a more precise and behaviorally oriented description of this disorder, current explanations …

The Effectiveness Of Three Study Aids As Measured By Immediate Examinations And Delayed Examinations, Yousef Abdulwahab Abuhmaidan

Dissertations

Two experiments were performed to examine the effectiveness of three study aids: (1) information maps, (2) behavioral objectives, and (3) the students' own strategies in reorganizing written material. A training workshop was given prior to the first experiment to teach the students appropriate skills to use to read research articles (e.g., generating and answering questions, filling out and generating information maps). Eighteen undergraduate students participated in the study. In the first experiment, students were randomly assigned to three groups. The researcher provided students with a research article every week for three weeks, together with either an information map, a set …

Design Of A Program Of Instruction To Teach State Notation, Esther Hannah Shafer

Dissertations

The process of programming instruction involves a series of steps which include determining the need for programming instruction on a particular topic, choosing the appropriate programming method, and a series of approximations toward the final program through testing and revision. State notation (Michael, 1986), a notation system which is used to visually represent procedures such as those used in an operant laboratory setting, was deemed an appropriate topic for programmed instruction since the complex decisions that learners must make when diagramming are difficult to teach using conventional methods. Mathetics (Gilbert, 1962) was chosen as an appropriate programming method for state …

A Comparison Of Minimal-Therapist-Contact Programs In The Treatment Of Chronic Headaches, John Kesselring

Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to compare the relative efficacy and cost-efficiency of two reduced-therapist-contact formats for delivery of a behavioral package to treat chronic headaches. The 8-week treatment was delivered in a group-administered format to one treatment group and in a self-administered format to a second. A waiting-list control group was also included. Treatment components included education about headaches and their precipitants, relaxation training, and cognitive-behavioral stress management techniques. The participants in the study suffered from migraine, mixed, or tension headaches. Eleven subjects were assigned to each of the 3 treatment conditions. At posttreatment subjects in the group-administered …

Choice In The Classroom: Human Impulsivity And Self-Control, John W. Esch

Dissertations

Eight high school students' choice behavior was studied in an applied educational setting. Students were divided into two groups based on choice patterns for immediate grade points and academic on-task performance. Students were classified as dependent-impulsive when they chose immediate points and their on-task performance was good. Students were classified as avoidance-impulsive when they chose delayed points (avoidance) and their on-task performance was poor. Dependent-impulsive choice patterns were considered maladaptive because constant information on good performance promotes dependence on support from others. Avoidance-impulsive choice patterns were considered maladaptive because they allowed students to avoid immediate aversive information on performance that …

The Effectiveness Of Correspondence Training In Controlling Aggressive Behavior Between Children In Play Settings, Naiel Albkower

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of say/do correspondence training in controlling aggressive behavior between children in play settings. Two experiments assessed the effects of children's verbal statements, to play in a friendly manner with others, on the incidence of aggressive behavior during actual play. The results of the first experiment indicated that, in most instances, the number of aggressive incidents decreased as a result of the correspondence training in all subjects except one where the effects of treatment are not clear.

In the second experiment, the incidents of aggressive behavior decreased during the intervention to …

The Development Of A Personalized Computer Assisted School Psychology (Casp) System, Patricia Lou Steinert

Dissertations

The purpose of this project was to develop a model computer system to assist school psychologists in managing and manipulating data accumulated in the course of accomplishing their professional responsibilities. School psychologists have traditionally generated large amounts of data, but rarely have they looked across these data to obtain information and/or feedback about their own functioning relative to their professional role. The system described is intended as a model from which an individual psychologist might construct a system to meet individual needs. Data across students were accumulated in four broad areas: (1) personal effectiveness/accountability, (2) diagnosis, (3) local test norms, …

An Analogue Of Science, Michael Albert Minervini

Dissertations

There is no science of human behavior, not even an incipient one. The popular conception of applied behavior analysis as a genuine principle-driven technology is mostly an illusion. Two sorts of evidence support this conclusion. The first is an ever widening split between the field's basic and applied realms. The second, thus far unacknowledged, is that when the concepts of operant and respondent conditioning are extended to human behavior, they are often rendered as no more than metaphors. These metaphors are not confined to casual discourse or even to interpretation. In fact, they are the prevailing form of extension in …

The Psychological Needs Of Sex Offenders Of Children As Measured By The Personality Research Form, Shirley Anne Miller

Dissertations

Major contributors in the field of child sexual abuse have agreed that sex offenders who sexually abuse children are not primarily motivated by sexual desire and have proposed that the simultaneous satisfaction of a number of psychological needs is the prominent motivation of sex offenders of children. Few attempts have been made to empirically validate the clinical and theoretical impressions regarding the psychological needs of this group using psychological measures designed to assess needs or motives.

The purpose of this study was to investigate to what extent the assumptions about the psychological needs of sex offenders of children would be …

Self-Control In Mentally Retarded Adolescents: Choice As A Function Of Amount And Delay Of Reinforcement, Steven P. Ragotzy

Dissertations

Three severely mentally retarded adolescents were studied under discrete-trial procedures in which a choice was arranged between edible reinforcers that differed in magnitude and, in some conditions, delay. In the absence of delays, the larger reinforcer was consistently chosen. All subjects directed the majority of choice responses to the smaller reinforcer when the larger reinforcer was sufficiently delayed, although the value at which this occurred differed across subjects. Under conditions where the larger reinforcer initially was sufficiently delayed to result in preference for the smaller one, progressively increasing in 5-s increments the delay to both reinforcers increased percent trials with …

Effects Of Task Difficulty, Performance Consequence, And Social Interaction On Physiological Reactivity In Post-Coronary Patients, A. Janelle Maldonado

Dissertations

Three experiments were performed to determine the effects of three task variables and Type A behavior pattern on physiological reactivity to time-limited math and anagram tasks. In the first experiment, ten post-coronary patients performed time-limited computer tasks under two performance consequence conditions: Point Reward or presentation of an Auditory Blast combined with two task difficulty conditions (40% and 60% difficult). The findings of Experiment 1 indicated that while the tasks did produce levels of physiological reactivity comparable to those observed in the literature, there were no significant main effects for either variable for any of the five measures. A significant …

The Effectiveness Of Feedback Procedures On Machine Set-Up Time In A Manufacturing Setting, Connie J. Wittkopp

Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a treatment package designed to improve and maintain set-up time in the extrusion department of a rubber manufacturing company. Subjects were exposed to various behavioral techniques including training and a feedback system in the form of both written and verbal supervisory comments with an emphasis placed on improving performance through use of videotaping. An attempt was made to maintain treatment gains by teaching supervisors how to give information concerning set-up performance to their employees. Results indicate that average weekly set-up times for each machine were significantly below baseline …

Effects Of Terminal-Link Response Topography On Choice Behavior Under Concurrent-Chains Schedules, Stephen P. Starin

Dissertations

Previous research has indicated that both absolute response rate and choice behavior differs under concurrent chains requiring different terminal-link responses, even when the reinforcement schedules are nominally identical. To date, no studies have investigated responding under concurrent chains with unequal schedules and different topographies arranged in the terminal links. Moreover, although the delay-reduction hypothesis has been widely tested using concurrent chains in which the same response topography is required in all links, the generality of the delay-reduction hypothesis in describing performance when different terminal-link topographies are required has yet to be examined. The present study was designed to address both …

Stimulus Overselectivity: An Investigation Of Determinants, Margaret T. Mcglinchey

Dissertations

Stimulus overselectivity refers to a phenomenon in which, after discrimination training with a multiple component stimulus, behavior fails to come under the control of all of the components of the stimulus. After a screening process based on past research, a group of children with specific learning disabilities was categorized into one of two groups: overselective and non-overselective. Both groups were exposed to training and testing for generalization. All children in both groups evidenced "stimulus overselectivity" during these tests for generalization. Generalization training subsequently reduced stimulus overselectivity for all students. There were few differences between the two groups. The results suggest …

The Effects Of Spouse-Based Cognitive-Behavior Therapy On The Treatment Of Agoraphobia, Joan Woods

Dissertations

The purpose of this clinical research was to determine whether spouse-supported treatment of agoraphobia would result in greater improvement on measures of exposure and avoidance than would individual treatment or no treatment. It was hypothesized that Couples Treatment subjects would demonstrate a significantly greater change from pretest to posttest than would Individual Treatment subjects or No-Treatment Control subjects. The study further predicted that significant improvements would be demonstrated for both treated groups on the same outcome measures, pretest to posttest and from pretest to follow-up.

Total N was 10 subjects, all were agoraphobic, married, and female, with 4 in Couples …

Self-Control: Effects Of Ratio Size, Intra-Delay Reinforcers, And Response Requirement, Elbert Q. Blakely Jr.

Dissertations

This study tested the following hypotheses: (a) The preference reversal phenomenon will be found when the delays to reinforcement are defined by fixed-ratio schedules, (b) The preference reversal phenomenon will be observed when intra-delay reinforcers are programmed, and (c) Imposing response requirements during the delay to reinforcement will affect preference for a larger delayed reinforcer over a smaller more immediate reinforcer. In Experiment 1, pigeons chose between two schedules, each a sequence of two fixed-ratio schedules. The second schedule of one sequence offered a small reinforcer and the second schedule of the alternative offered a larger reinforcer. The latter sequence …

The Effects Of A Wilderness/Adventure Program On The Self-Concept, Locus Of Control Orientation, And Interpersonal Behavior Of Delinquent Adolescents, Timothy J. Zwart

Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a 26-day therapeutic wilderness program for delinquent adolescent males on three conceptually distinct but closely related constructs: self-concept, locus of control orientation, and interpersonal behavior. Justification for the study was derived from the limitations of past wilderness/adventure research which suggested that there was a need for additional research on the effects of this type of alternative program for delinquent adolescents.

It was hypothesized that following participation in this program the youths would exhibit increased self-concept, more internal locus of control orientation, would express higher needs for inclusion and affection …

Ratio Pausing And The Determination Of Discriminative Operant Latencies, Thomas M. Bell

Dissertations

The latency between discriminative stimulus onset and initiation of a corresponding ratio requirement (RR) was studied in pigeons using a two-key discrete-trial procedure with three-component multiple schedules. The two-key procedure allowed measurement of response-reinforcer relations on a "constant" key, and stimulus-reinforcer relations on a "stimulus" key. The first experiment showed regular between-session effects as equivalent fixed-ratio (FR) components were raised over several phases and then lowered. A direct relation was observed between latency and RR for each of ten subjects. Initial stimulus-key pecking showed several trends, the most prevalent being an inverse relation to RR.

Experiment 2 demonstrated within-session separations …

An Analysis Of The Effects Of A Low Glycemic Diet On The Antisocial Behavior Of Juvenile Offenders, James Edward Longhurst

Dissertations

The objective of this study was to determine if a low glycemic diet contributes to a reduction in the incidence of antisocial behavior among male juvenile offenders.

One hundred forty juvenile offenders at a residential treatment center were randomly divided into treatment and nontreatment groups. The treatment group ate from a diet which contained foods low in glycemic characteristics. There was no dietary alteration for the control group.

Three instruments were used to measure differences between groups in antisocial behavior following a 5-week experimental period. These instruments include: (1) the Unusual Incident Report--a systematic and objective observer report form, (2) …

Treatment Of Spasticity Via Transcranial Electrical Stimulation In Persons With Cerebral Palsy And Severe Mental Retardation, George A. Thompson Jr.

Dissertations

Although the clinical manifestations of cerebral palsy are many and varied, spasticity is a common aspect of the disorder, observed in as many as 75% of all cases (Paneth & Kiely, 1984). A double-blind and placebo-controlled and counter balanced reversal design was employed to evaluate the effectiveness of transcranial electrical stimulation (TCS) in the treatment of spastic cerebral palsy in six severely mentally impaired individuals. Although there appeared to be some improvement from pre to post measures, a comparison of the placebo and treatment conditions yielded results indicating that transcranial electrical stimulation did not increase the passive range of motion …

Preventing The "All But Thesis" Phenomenon, Maria Emma Garcia

Dissertations

Twenty-three to 54% of the students who enter graduate programs never obtain their degrees. A high percentage of those students drop out after the completion of all the academic requirements except their master's theses or doctoral dissertations. The literature makes reference to the "all but thesis" (ABT) and the "all but dissertation" (ABD) phenomenon.

The present study involved the implementation of a research supervisory system designed to help students complete their theses and dissertations, therefore preventing the ABT and ABD problems. Twenty-nine graduate students in psychology formed the research supervisory group and 53 graduate students from several departments formed a …

Differential Response Latencies Using Auditory Stimuli, Albert Edward Neal

Dissertations

Previous research has identified and isolated the elicited (autoshaped) control of pigeons' response latencies. The present research, using auditory frequencies as discriminative stimuli, was designed to eliminate the intrusion of this elicited control.

Two experiments are presented, both using a discrete-trial, two-component multiple schedule. In Experiment 1, in which a two-key arrangement was used, pigeons were required to peck a continuously-illuminated left key when one of two different frequencies, each correlated with a different amount of reinforcement, was presented behind the illuminated right key. In Experiment 2, in which a three-key arrangement was used, pigeons were required to peck either …

The Deaccelerator: A Behavioral Application Of A Differentially Imposed Force Schedule To The Accelerator Pedal Of A Motor Vehicle To Control Unlawful Highway Vehicle Speed, Richard Schulman

Dissertations

The Deaccelerator is a behaviorally designed speed control device that utilizes punishment and reinforcement by way of a differentially imposed force schedule to the accelerator pedal of a motor vehicle when vehicle speed exceeds the preset speed. Specifically, increasing and decreasing accelerator pedal resistance is a negatively accelerated function of respective increases and decreases in vehicle speed as speed moves in excess of 1 mph beyond the preset speed. A lesser force schedule generates linear increases and decreases in accelerator pedal resistance as a function of respective increases and decreases in accelerator pedal depression once vehicle speed moves in excess …

The Effects Of Vocal Instructions And Sequence Of Conditions On The Acquisition And Maintenance Of Behavioral Chains, Charles L. Lowe

Dissertations

Five children, ages 5 to 6 1/2 years, were trained to learn and relearn four-link behavioral chains using conditioned reinforcement. Subjects were presented with a horizontal array of 12 chips in four equal groups. During Control Learning (CL) sessions, a new sequence of responses was learned through contingency shaping. The same sequence was presented later that day during a Control Relearning (CRL) session. Instruction on correct responses was provided during Instruction Learning (IL) sessions. The same sequence was presented without instruction during an Instruction Relearning (IRL) session later that day. Thus, new behavioral chains were acquired during CL and IL …

Behavioral Toxicology Of A Glucocorticoid: Analysis Of Selected Behavioral And Physiological Effects Of Repeated Prednisolone Treatment, Robert G. Sewell

Dissertations

Glucocorticoids are used medicinally for numerous chronic ailments. While dramatically effective, glucocorticoid treatment is replete with psychiatric complications. The behavioral toxicology of glucocorticoids, however, remains relatively unexplored. Therefore, 13 laboratory studies were performed to analyze the influence of prednisolone, a representative glucocorticoid, upon varied behavioral and physiological endpoints in rats. Experiments 1-3 showed prednisolone to produce marked hypodipsia, body weight loss, selective adrenal gland atrophy, hyperactivity, hyperalgesia, altered grasping responses, hyperglycemia, enhanced predation, and conditioned taste aversion. Most of these findings were directly dependent upon dose, and where explored, number of treatments. The remaining ten studies examined both acute and …

Reinforcement Increases The Strength Of An Elicited Response, Michael D. Peters

Dissertations

A response initially produced by noncontigent fixed-time delivery of brief electric shock was strengthened by reinforcement. Following the fixed-time shock baseline condition, response contingent shock absence (avoidance) was programmed for the lower probability of two response options for one group of squirrel monkeys. For the other group the interposed history was variable-interval food reinforcement. When responding was reliably maintained reinforcement was discontinued and a return made to fixed-time shock conditions as programmed prior to reinforcement. Upon a return to original conditions, rates were substantially elevated over baseline with the elevation sustained for many sessions. The avoidance group showed the most …

The Effects Of Reward And Reinforcement On Intrinsic Interest, Alyce Muzette Dickinson

Dissertations

Under certain circumstances, rewarding individuals for performing a task that they enjoy may decrease their subsequent interest in that activity when rewards are no longer available. Decreased task interest is not, however, an inevitable outcome of reward and the subsequent termination of reward. This study investigated one variable that may influence whether task interest will increase or decrease following reward termination: the degree to which the reward is reinforcing. The study also examined how long post-reward performance changes persisted when they occurred.

A multiple-trial, within-subject comparison design was employed in which three reward phases were alternated with post-reward phases. Two …

The Use Of An Incentive System To Increase Worker Performance In A Financial Setting, Steven S. Armstrong

Dissertations

The use of merchandise as a consequence in a performance based incentive system was assessed in a financial setting. Points were earned by each subject based on individual daily performance. These points were collected by each subject and used toward the purchase of merchandise. A multiple baseline across two groups of bank tellers showed substantial increases in worker behavior after the onset of contingent points. Differences between groups existed and an analysis is provided. Follow-up data revealed sustained performance and a cost-benefit analysis demonstrated substantial savings.