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Behavioral Management Of Multiple Food Aversions Of A Multiply Handicapped Child, Steven A. Stang

Masters Theses

Several behavioral treatments utilizing the delivery of preferred food with praise contingent upon consumption of nonpreferred foods were evaluated with a multiply handicapped child who exhibited multiple food aversions. Behavioral assessments of food preferences were used to identify preferred and nonpreferred foods and to monitor changes in the subject's preferences for nonpreferred target foods relative to other foods.

Following the implementation of treatment contingencies, a modest increase in the consumption of one nonpreferred target food, and substantial increases in consumption of a second nonpreferred target food, milk, other foods appearing on the lunch menu, and essential nutrients were observed. In …

Coaching Children In Social Skills For Gains In Self-Concept, C. Wayne Yocky

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of a four-week social skills training program upon the self-concepts of low self-concept children. The 22 third, fourth, fifth, and sixth grade children who participated in the study were identified by low scores on the Piers-Harris Children's Self Concept Scale (PH). The coaching condition included: (a) small group instruction from an adult in social skills; (b) behavior rehearsal during game play with a peer; and (c) group post-play review with the coach. The control condition included: (a) small group interaction with the same adult on topics unrelated to social skills; …

An Application Of Performance Analysis In A Food Cooperative, Lone Milani

Dissertations

A performance systems analysis was applied in a small business to diagnose problems and direct decisions in order to solve performance deficiencies of that organization. A "performance audit," as the approach is called, consists of analyzing an operating system from the most general to the most specific levels of vantage (i.e., levels at which a system operates). The levels of vantage for any system are: philosophical, cultural, policy, strategic, tactical, and logistic. At each level the actual performance was compared to predetermined standards called "exemplary performance." This comparison facilitated the diagnosis of the organization's deficiencies.

The study attempted to design …

The Relationship Between Systems Theory And Behavior Analysis, Michael B. Oberlin

Dissertations

This paper provides a conceptual framework which clarifies the relationship between General Systems Theory and Behavior Analysis. This framework is supplied by a theoretical notion borrowed from Simon (1962), the notion of "dynamics of interaction." "Interaction" refers to interaction between the units of analysis of science, e.g., in the analysis of behavior, stimuli, responses, and consequences in economics, units of supply and demand. The paradigm of Behavior Analysis is seen to accommodate a "higher-frequency dynamics" found in subsystems; and General Systems Theory, along with disciplines like Economics and Organizational Analysis, accommodates a "lower-frequency dynamics" found in systems. Argument is based …

The Effects Of Music Upon Job Attitudes And Performance In An Industrial Inspection Task, Christopher D. Freiburger

Masters Theses

An experiment was designed to study the effects of music on the quality of inspection performance, job attitudes, and observed frequency of non-work related conversations of workers engaged in a complex, repetitive industrial inspection task in a pharmaceutical company. Three middle-aged inspectors volunteered to participate in the ABAB designed experiment. Musical selections by Muzak and Mantovani were played via portable stereo cassette players with headphones. Quality was measured by testing subjects on two sets of 1,000 test vials with 10% planted defects and recording the number of false rejects and the percent of false acceptances. Certain job attitudes were measured …

The Repeated Acquisition Procedure As A Means Of Analyzing Instructional Stimulus Control And Rule-Directed Behavior, Jeffrey S. Danforth

Masters Theses

Pre-school children were taught to emit four-response chains using the repeated acquisition design. Experiment 1 examined the effect of instructional stimuli. Many errors were made in Control Learning, followed by few errors in Control Relearning. Instructional cues resulted in few errors in the morning learning session, but many relearning errors were made. Experiment 2A determined if two-trial cuing with instructional stimuli would improve relearning performance. The result was fewer relearning errors, but the criterion required more learning trials. In Experiment 2B a rule was taught relevant to two-trial cuing. In Experiment 3 a child was told that the morning and …

The Effects Of An Instructional Package On Study Question Completion Skills Of High School Students, Jeffery David Montgomery

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to empirically evaluate the effects of an instructional package on study question behaviors. The instructional package, incorporating contingent reinforcement, modeling, feedback, contingency contracting and a programmed instruction format was implemented to train four study question answering behaviors identified through task analysis. Each subject demonstrated ability to perform the four behaviors with increased accuracy on experimental measures following training. Results indicated that the instructional package was effective in training increased accuracy in each instructional behavior for each subject. Generalized performance of these behaviors in the classroom environment, assessed through comparison of classroom grades and study …

Derivation And Test Of Predictions Of A Discrete Latent State Model For Signed Number Addition Test Performance, Kentaro Yamamoto

Dissertations and Theses

This study is an investigation of the performance of a discrete latent state model devised by Paulson (1982) to account for signed-number arithmetic test data gathered by Birenbaum and Tatsuoka (1980). One hundred twenty nine students took a test which consists of sixteen item types with four parallel arithmetic items of each type. The present study utilizes the five addition item types of four items each; hence, there are four parallel subtests. Responses to the addition items can be analyzed in terms of two components: the sign component (is the sign correct?), and the absolute value component (is the size …

The Use Of Feuerstein’S Instrumental Enrichment With Underprepared College Students: A Pilot Study, Michael Kieta

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This pilot study investigated the usage of Feuerstein’s (1980) Instrumental Enrichment with underprepared college students. Open admissions policies in colleges and universities have resulted in the enrollment of many students who are underprepared to meet the academic task demands. Courses have been developed by the colleges and universities to remediate the academic deficits of underprepared students. Remedial courses using traditional educational methods have been largely ineffective. Cognitive process instruction (CPI) is an area of educational research that recently began to receive increased attention in the field of remedial education. The goal of CPI has been to develop the cognitive/thought processes …

Locus Of Control In Voluntary And Involuntary Psychiatric Patients, Christopher B. Karegeannes

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

Psychiatric inpatients, consisting of 32 males and 33 females between the ages of 15 and 58 completed Rotter's (1966) Internal-External Locus of Control (I-E) Scale. The scale was administered individually to the patients at both admission and discharge, at the Crisis Stabilization Unit (CSU) in Orlando, Florida. Analysis of variance was used to determine whether there were significant differences due to commitment status (voluntary and involuntary), diagnosis (thought and affective and other disorders), and change scores (admission versus discharge). The hypothesis that involuntary patients would produce significantly higher scores was not confirmed. Further, no significant difference was found due to …

The Adult Client's Conception Of Confidentiality In The Therapeutic Relationship, Philip O. Toal

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

The adult client's conception of confidentiality in the therapeutic relationship and the valuing of this confidentiality was examined and defined in this paper. The importance of confidentiality and its effect on the therapeutic process was explored. Many professionals in the field of mental health believe that confidentiality is a critical factor in the successful outcome of therapy (Hayt, 1977; Lowenthal, 1968; Reynolds, 1976; Tancredi & Slady, 1975). It is viewed that confidentiality is expected by clients when entering into a therapeutic relationship, and is essential in the therapeutic process. The variables that may affect the client's conception of, attitudes toward, …

Work And Leisure Attitudes Among Health Services Personnel, Robert C. Frink

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the relationship between work and leisure satisfaction using Shepard's Status Recognition Model. The sample was made up of two groups of health services personnel each of which contained three work levels or groups: a support group, a clinical group, and an administrative group. Assuming that status recognition would be different for the low status jobs (support) and high status jobs (clinical and administrative), it was hypothesized that the high status group would display low work related alienation and thus show a positive correlation between work and leisure satisfaction (evidence of a spillover mechanism). The lower status group …

Modification Of Affective State - Dependent Learning, Lois E. Griffin

Electronic Theses & Dissertations

Two experiments using male and female college students tested the hypotheses that state-dependent learning (SDL) would be demonstrated by manipulating affective states and that presentation of a discriminative stimulus (SD) would modify SDL so as to significantly increase the amount of transfer between affective states. Subjects were instructed to imagine feeling "angry" and "relaxed". Anger was defined as an increase in heart rate of 10 beats per minute above baseline and relaxation was defined as a decrease in heart rate of 10 beats per minute below baseline. Subjects learned word lists in both anger and relaxation conditions and were tested …

Social Sensitivity In Adolescents And Adults With Learning Disabilities, Patricia Anne Jarvis

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of the present study was to investigate social sensitivity and self-concept in students with learning disabilities and their non-disabled peers. Thirty students each from Junior and Senior public high schools and a community college in Tidewater, Virginia participated in the study with 15 learning disabled and 15 non-disabled students from each of the three grade levels (N-90). Students were individually assessed in 50 minute interviews for their accuracy in interpreting the thoughts and feelings of actors in tape-recorded stories depicting two adults in happy, angry, anxious, and sad interactions. A questionnaire measuring self-concept in learning situations as a …

The Development Of Learned Helplessness In Retarded And Non-Retarded Children, Jennifer Miller Schwartz

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Studies have suggested that, when mental ages are equal, mentally retarded children exhibit more symptoms of learned helplessness following experience with failure than do non-retarded children, i.e., low IQ, leads to helplessness. The present study hypothesized that IQ alone did not lead to helplessness, but that chronological age played an important role in its development. It was thought that perhaps the different levels of helplessness present in the two populations was due to the age difference necessary to make their mental ages equivalent. To test this possibility, l05 retarded, average and bright children (MA= 5.25 - 17.33 years; CA= 6.25 …

The Effects Of Amphetamine And Ethanol On Habituation Of Exploratory Responses Of Rats In Novel And Familiar Environments, Kuen-Teng Kao

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

To study the relationship between level of arousal and rate of habituation in rats, the current research manipulated arousal level using sedatives (ethanol 200 and 600 mg/kg) and stimulants(d-amphetamine 0.6 and 2.4 mg/kg). Furthermore, in order to investigate the possible contributions of differences in familiarity of the subjects with the test environment in producing discrepant reports about arousal-habituation relationships, half of the rats were tested in a completely novel cage without saline- pre-injection, while the other half were repeatedly given salinepreinjections and exposures to the test cage. Habituation was measured mainly as rate of change of responding level; i.e. slope …

Locus Of Control As A Function Membership In Alcoholics Anonymous, Christine B. Philput

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

This study was undertaken to examine locus of control in recovering members of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). Variables that might affect locus of control, such as sex, age, job, previous psychiatric treatment, and length of membership in AA were examined. One hundred and fifty-three members of AA took the 24-item Levenson IPC (L-IPC) Scale, and a one-page questionnaire covering the variables of interest. A control group of 212 also took the L-IPC along with the Rotter, Nowicki-Strickland, and Marlowe-Crowne scales. Results reveal that AA members were more external than controls on the I subscale, more internal on the P subscale, and …

Stress Appraisals And Performance In An Academic Setting, Michele Terranova

Psychology Theses & Dissertations

Stressful appraisals and performance were measured in an achievement-oriented setting. The coping disposition of sensitization, locus of control, and specific attribution for control were expected to influence both the stress appraisal process and the outcome of performance. Assessment of students' subjective stress levels, personality variables, and attributions for control were obtained at the beginning of a difficult class required for a major in psychology. Those students perceiving that the outcome of the course would depend on their ability and effort displayed significantly less subjective stress. Performance measures, as indicated by a grade on a paper with the students' grade point …

Shadowing Interference In A Dichotic Listening Task With Categorized And Uncategorized Word Lists, David Coleman

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The purpose of this thesis was twofold: to investigate the effects of categorized versus uncategorized material on selective attention and to test predictions derived from Filter Theory (Broadbent, 1958), Response Selection Theory (Deutsch and Deutsch, 1963), and Attenuation Theory (Treisman, 1969). Subjects performed a dichotic-listening task in which they shadowed a list of words presented to one ear (i.e., relevant message) while trying to ignore a simultaneously presented list of words on the other ear (i.e., irrelevant message). Lists were 16 words in length and consisted of either categorized words (C) or uncategorized words (U) presented at a rate of …

Development Of An Mmpi Scale To Predict Therapeutic Response To Lithium Carbonate, Neal Allen Hayden

Dissertations and Theses

Common medications utilized in the treatment of psychosis include lithium carbonate and the major tranquilizers. The efficacy of lithium is well established in the treatment of manic-depressive patients exhibiting symptoms of mania. The major tranquilizers treat a broader range of psychotic disorders including schizophrenia.

In the treatment of manic-depressive illness, lithium produces normalization of affect with few side effects. However, since the interval between therapeutic and toxic dosages is narrow, lithium treatment must be closely monitored to avoid severe physical problems and even death. When a schizophrenic is incorrectly diagnosed as manic-depressive, and is treated with lithium, the patient does …

Dynamic In-Patient Therapy: A Team Approach, Le Van Cao

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

The paper reports on the philosophy and clinical results of an individualized but concentrated team approach to hospitalized patients undergoing a psychological crisis. The team focuses on the patient’s key vital coping technique as the source of his vulnerability and assists the patient toward constructive self-understanding. The approach favors maximum therapeutic benefit from a short hospital stay. Follow-up of the first fifteen cases managed by this method discloses a significantly low percentage of relapse and rehospitalization, and demonstrates that even such relapses can be turned to therapeutic benefit.

The Effect Of Therapeutic Touch On Anxiety And Physiological Measures, Marie Nicholas Bremner

Ellmer School of Nursing Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship of therapeutic touch to anxiety, blood pressure, heart rate, and respiratory rate of 30 hospitalized women between the ages of 30 and 65 with the medical diagnosis of cancer. Subjects were matched into three intervention groups; three consecutive days subjects received a five minute intervention by therapeutic touch, casual touch, or no touch. A-trait and A-state anxiety were measured by the Self-Evaluation Questionnaires developed by Spielberger, Gorsuch, and Lushene. A factorial two-way analysis of variance revealed that subjects who received intervention by therapeutio touch experienced a significant reduction in A-state …

Career Supports And Career Mentors: An Analysis Of Their Prevalence And Their Relation To Career Success And Satisfaction Among A Group Of Women Lawyers, Sandra Lee Riley

Dissertations and Theses

This study investigated three issues problematic to the state of knowledge on mentoring. These issues were: (a) lack of scientifically derived operational definitions in use in research on mentoring; (b) lack of agreement about how common mentoring is; and (c) lack of agreement about whether or not alternate forms of career support are more efficient than mentoring. The information collected to address each of these issues was acquired in two phases: a literature survey followed by a sample survey. The literature survey addressed the first issue. It resulted in the formulation of an operational definition of mentoring which was based …

The Correlation Between Expressive Language Delay In Children And Their Motor Abilities, Gail G. Cunningham

Dissertations and Theses

The purpose of the present study was to determine the correlation between expressive language delay in children and their gross and fine motor skills. Twenty children five years through six years, eleven months with a diagnosed expressive language delay, were selected to participate in the study. Each was screened on the basis of normal hearing, receptive vocabulary skills, motor functioning, and an expressive language delay of one year or more. After screening procedures, each child was administered the Preschool Language Scale-PLS (Zimmerman, et al., 1969) and the short form of the Bruininks-Oseretsky Test of Motor Proficiency-BOMP (Bruininks, 1978). …

A Descriptive Analysis Of Morally Mature Individuals, Deborah Rich

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The present research is an idiographic study of the moral development of six individuals at the highest stage of morality, Kohlberg's (1958, 1976) stage six. The subjects range in age from an 83 year old retired geography professor to a 21 year old bright college senior. The life of each individual was examined through a three to four hour semi-structured interview. Questions were designed to cover a wide spectrum of the individual's life, such as early family influences, religion, critical life events, and influential people and writers, while affording each subject the opportunity to tell his or her own story. …

The Effects Of Age & Education On Personality Consistency, Craig Sparks

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study attempts to determine the influence of age and education on the consistency of one's responses to items on various personality inventories. It was hypothesized that with increased age and education, people develop more stable and coherent personality structures. This results in more internally consistent responses to the personality measures used in this study (e.g., the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, the Dogmatism Scale, and the Private Self-Consciousness Scale). Alpha reliabilities showed that only three of the eight scales gave a positive relationship between age and internal consistency, while only two of the eight scales were supportive of a positive …

Leader Behavior Factor Structures: A Function Of Leader Behavior, Implicit Leadership Theories Or Both?, Jeffrey Prewitt

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This study attempted to resolve the controversy in implicit leadership research concerning whether factor structures commonly found in leadership questionnaires are a function of the actual factor structures of leader behaviors, of the preconceived structures of leader behavior imposed by raters, or both. This study replicated and extended the Weiss and Adler (1981) study on implicit leadership theory. 250 subjects were asked to describe an imaginary supervisor using the Survey of Organizations and the Leader Behavior Description Questionnaire Form XII leadership scales. The subjects also completed a measure of the differentiation aspect of cognitive complexity. High- and low-differentiation subgroups, formed …

The Relationship Between Ego Identity Status, Conformity Behavior, And Personality In College Students, John Harold Ryan

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The relationship between conformity behavior and the four identity statuses as operationalized by Marcia was studied in 80 college students. Also, various personality characteristics were studied relative to their discernability by identity status and their relationship to conformity behavior. As sex difference was a major consideration in the study, the sample was divided into 40 males and 40 females ranging in age from 18 to 25 years. Statistical analysis indicated there were no significant differences between identity statuses relative to conformity for either males or females. In addition, very few personality characteristics were indicative of conformity for either sex. However, …

The Effects Of Neutral And Sex-Specific Terminology On Sex Stereotyping, Natalie J. Malovich

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

A study was conducted to examine the effects of neutral and sex-specific terminology on sex stereotyping in regard to two primary questions: 1) whether or not the use of sex-neutral terminology alters subjects ' associations to particular words, and 2) whether, in the absence of gender identification, subjects make traditional sex-role assumptions about neutral terms. A third questions examined potential differences in male and female subjects' responses to neutral and sex-specific terminology.

Using a semantic differential technique, 40 male and 40 female volunteer subjects described a number of occupations and roles identified by sex-specific or sex-unspecified labels. Descriptions of those …

The Relationship Between Ego Identity Status, Conformity Behavior, And Personality In College Students, John Harold Ryan

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The relationship between conformity behavior and the four identity statuses as operationalized by Marcia was studied in 80 college students. Also, various personality characteristics were studied relative to their discernability by identity status and their relationship to conformity behavior. As sex difference was a major consideration in the study, the sample was divided into 40 males and 40 females ranging in age from 18 to 25 years. Statistical analysis indicated there were no significant differences between identity statuses relative to conformity for either males or female s. In addition, very few personality characteristics were indicative of conformity for either sex. …