Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Using Anthropological Approaches In A Human Service Setting, Steven Alan Erickson

Masters Theses

Public criticism of human service organizations has underlined the fact that there are essential differences between organizations which provide services and organizations which produce goods. As service providers, human service organizations represent an organized response to human needs and problems, but this response is affected by different assumptions about people's ability or inability to meet their own needs. The process of providing services entails a number of interactions at various levels between the organization and the community. These relationships are as complex as the people and social systems of which our pluralistic society is comprised, but there are special manifestations …

Preference Under Concurrent Mixed Fixed-Ratio Fixed-Ratio Schedules Of Reinforcement: Control By Intracomponent Ratio Length, Earl Hall-Johnson

Masters Theses

Previous studies using concurrent variable-interval variable interval schedules have suggested that molar, not molecular variables primarily control choice responding. These studies examined pigeons performance under discrete-trial concurrent mixed fixed-ratio fixed-ratio schedules of reinforcement. When each alternative provided two reinforcements per 100 responses, pigeons preferred the alternative containing the shorter initial fixed-ratio. Subsequent studies attempted to shift preference through manipulations of ratio requirement and reinforcement duration in either alternative. Preference was shifted from the mixed fixed-ratio fixed-ratio only when the reinforcement associated with the first component was eliminated. Under all other conditions, pigeons preferred the mixed fixed-ratio fixed-ratio schedules with the …

The Cultural Roots Of Behaviorism, Juan Mario Herakovic

Masters Theses

This thesis traces some of the economic, social, religious and political events that played an important role in the development of behaviorism in the United States. The effects of the Enlightenment, the dislocation of moral and social values, the decline of religion, political upheavals and increased immigration, are seen as destabilizing elements in American society. Emphasis is placed upon the specific values of the American society, and the way in which these values remained constant throughout the social history of the United States. As such, behaviorism represents a scientific approach to the historical continuity of ideas within the nation.

The Effects Of Caffeine Alone, And In Combination With Nicotine, On Several Behaviors In Rats, Judith S. Devoe

Masters Theses

Several doses of caffeine-sodium benzoate (0.0, 2.5, 5.0, 10.0 & 20.0 mg/kg, stated as salt) were administered daily by intraperitoneal injections (IP) for an initial twelve consecutive days which constituted Phase I. A probe-dose of nicotine (2.0 mg/kg) was administered in combination with each caffeine dose for the following seven days comprising Phase II. Removal of nicotine subsequent to the last day of Phase II initiated a second caffeine-only (nicotine withdrawal) condition, Phase III. Tests of locomotion and aggression ensued at various points of the study and water intakes and body weights were recorded daily, prior to injections. Overall, locomotion …

The Socio-Cultural Transformation Of Japanese Medical Systems, Takako Matsunaga

Masters Theses

Medical systems, just as other social institutions, are not stable and, thus, are subject to change. This essay is an analysis of the socio-cultural transformation of Japanese medical systems in general, and of the "health care system" of the cosmopolitan medical system in particular. No medical system is able to provide problem free medical care to any given population. Thus, the current health issues and changes in health seeking/enhancing behavior in contemporary Japan is examined as the reflection of the maladaptive nature of cosmopolitan medicine to its environment.

Distribution Analysis Of The Cultural Materials From The Mushroom Site (20 Ae 88), Allegan County, Michigan, Charles B. Stout

Masters Theses

An analysis of the features, lithics, and spatial distributions of all material culture recovered at the Mushroom site is presented. Based on this analysis and the ceramic analysis done by Mangold (1981:39-67), it is suggested that the major component at the Mushroom site was a warm season encampment, occupied during the late Middle Woodland period. The site appears to have been occupied by a few groups at a time. Comparison between the Mushroom site and the late Middle Woodland component at the Schultz site suggests that fishing may have been an important economic focus at the Mushroom site. Unlike the …

Effects Of Perceived Power Of Those Assigning Goals On Goal Attainment, Larry L. Langeland

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to present and test with a field experiment the hypothesis that the perceived power of those assigning goals has a significant effect on goal attainment. A survey was used to determine three levels of the independent variable perceived power of three individuals who assigned tasks to subjects. The dependent variables were the number of responses on the tasks of listing 15 specific responses each for increasing cost-effectiveness, improving morale, and improving communication. Forty-three office and management personnel were randomly assigned to three groups, with each group receiving a all levels of power type and …

Reducing Severe Diurnal Bruxism In A Severely Retarded Person, A. Daniel Gomez Fuentes

Masters Theses

Bruxism, the nonfunctional grinding, clenching or clicking of the teeth, has been viewed as a psychophysiological disorder. The literature on the incidence and effects of bruxism indicates that bruxism may affect a significant portion of both normal and retarded population. In the current study a multiple baseline, combining with an ABA design within sessions was conducted. During the generalization step, an ABAB design was used. The present study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of an operant weakening (ice) and operant strengthening (tokens and praises) procedures to reduce the rate and duration of an audible teeth grinding sound in a …

Input Frequency And Perceived Impact Of An Interactive Newsletter In A Small Organization, Patricia Calle

Masters Theses

A newsletter, based on the results of two tailor-made self-report questionnaires, was implemented in a vegetable by-product manufacturing company with 83 employees. Need for improvement was detected in the formal communication of organizational policies, projects, goals and events for downward and upward communication relative to performance feedback, non-monetary performance incentives, and response to job-related and personal requests. The newsletter was aimed at facilitating the supply of verbal incentives, performance feedback, formal and informal organizational information and participation in different areas. Prompting procedures were designed to encourage employees' participation in the newsletter. Newsletter impact was analyzed in terms of pre- and …

Self-Actualization And Well-Being Of Baccalaureate Degree Nurses, Lori L. Butkovich

Masters Theses

A study of self-actualization and well-being was carried out using a sample of 80 baccalaureate degree nurses working in two medium size city hospitals. Shostrom's Personal Orientation Inventory was used to measure self-actualizing levels. Campbell, Converse and Rodgers' Quality of Life Questionnaire was used to assess global well-being and well-being within different life domains, specifically job satisfaction. The nurses in this study were generally found, using a t-test analysis over all well-being scores but lower job satisfaction scores than the normative populations. A significant positive correlation between self-actualization levels and global well-being scores was not evidences. Further more, a chi-square …

The Need For Compensating Victims Of Violent Crime, Alan Roger Phelps

Masters Theses

This paper identifies how the victim of violent crime in the United States receives little attention from his or her government. A review of the historical developments which highlight how civilized society has taken the right to punish, negotiate, and receive direct compensation away from the methods of compensating crime victims are examined. Finally, this paper demonstrates how, by utilizing victim compensation programs, the criminal justice system will be improved and the amount of crime and number of victimizations in our society will be reduced.

The Effects Of Contingency-Management On Probationary Students' Academic Behavior, Brian Delano Yancey

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of procedures designed to reduce student attrition. The contingency-management approach was presented as an alternative to other approaches which assume student attrition to be a function of personality differences, study-skills deficiencies, and ecological deficits. Forty undergraduate students on academic probation were referred to the Self-Management Course offered by the Psychology Department at western Michigan University. The Self- Management Course was designed to deliver behavioral consequences for study behavior more immediately than is normally the case. Students taking the Self-Management Course completed several worksheets, participated in group discussions, and attended a …

The Role Of Automatic Conditioned Reinforcement And Automatic Conditioned Punishment In Infant Vocal Behavior, Rick A. Smith

Masters Theses

Two female children, aged 11 and 14 months, were exposed to a procedure in which an experimenter-emitted vocal response was paired with a reinforcing stimulus (positive condition), a neutral stimulus (neutral condition), or a mild aversive stimulus (negative condition). An AB design was utilized to examine the effects of the pairing procedure on the subjects* vocal responding. Sessions were conducted in each subject’s home. Only one subject was exposed to the pairing with a neutral (control) stimulus, and with the mild aversive verbal stimulus. Responding during the post-pairing period remained constant in the neutral condition, but was markedly reduced in …

A Comparison Of Sexual And Non-Sexual Assault Prosecution, Susan Caringella-Macdonald

Dissertations

In 1974 the state of Michigan enacted what has come to be referred to as model rape legislation. A salient objective of the Criminal Sexual Conduct (CSC) Code in this state was to facilitate the comparable rather than unique handling of sexual assaults in the criminal justice system. The primary purpose of this study was to discern whether or not this objective of equitable case treatment was realized through implementation. The focus of this research was therefore directed towards the discovery of differences in sexual and non-sexual assault case prosecutions. Specific aspects of legal change involving corroboration requirements, consent and …

Journal Of Sociology & Social Welfare Vol. 10, No. 4 (November 1983)

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Introduction - MICHAEL REISCH, STANLEY WENOCUR
• The Social Work Service Commodity in the Inflationary 80's - HAROLD LEWIS
• Reaganomics and the Welfare State - MIMI ABRAMVITZ, TOM HOPKINS
• Reagan, Pickle and Pepper: The Benefit Reduction Versus Voluntary Approach to Encouraging later Retirement - ERIC R. KINGSON
• The Politics of Mental Health After Care - STEVE ROSE
• Seven Voices From One Organization: What Does It Mean? - JANICE PERIMAN
• A Note On Voethogenic Harm: The Politics of Science and the Professions - WARREN C. HAGGSTROM
• Alienation Among Social Service Workers and Integration Into the Social Services - JOHN …

Reaganomics And The Welfare State, Mimi Abramovitz, Tom Hopkins

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Supply-side tax and spending policies have intensified poverty, unemployment and inequality, especially for women, minorities and organized labor. At the same time Reaganomics is shrinking and weakening the welfare state. To better understand and resist this conservative assault it is necessary to demystify the "economics" and "politics" of supply-side doctrine. This paper (a) defines the basic assumptions of supply-side economics; (b) identifies some of its problems and contradictions; (c) discusses its impact on the welfare state; and (d) analyzes it as part of a broader plan for coping with the current economic crisis. It argues that the supply-side tax cut …

Reagan, Pickle And Pepper: The Benefit Reduction Versus Voluntary Approach To Encouraging Later Retirement, Eric R. Kingson

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The degree to which benefit reduction and voluntary approaches to encouraging later retirement maximize four different and often conflicting policy objectives is assessed as are costs and benefits of these approaches to healthy and unhealthy older workers, minorities and women. While both approaches encourage later retirement, there are clear differences in the approaches in terms of meeting the goal of financing Social Security versus adequacy and social equity

Introduction, Michael Reisch, Stanley Wenocur

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The field of political-economy dates back at least as far as Adam Smith over 200 years ago. The early political-economists made the first systematic attempts to examine the interconnections between the emergence of the new industrial system -- which changed the way in which resources were produced and consumed -- and the advent of bourgeois democratic states -- which made critical decisions as to how those resources were to be distributed. Although the study of political-economy throughout the 19th century implied no particular political ideology, by the 20th century it came to be associated with radical critiques of society, especially …

The Social Work Service Commodity In The Inflationary 80'S, Harold Lewis

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The decade ahead is going to be dominated by economic issues. All signs point to continued Inflation, continued high levels of unemployment, cyclical troughs and declining peaks in the overall economy, energy shortages and Increasing financial pressures, particularly on those families living on minimal or below-poverty level budgets. Stresses In management of basic requirements for maintenance of health, housing, education and transportation %III burden middle income, blue collar and the working poor family. In this context, funding of social services will be tight, relative to need. It seems useful, for these reasons, to place our discussion within an economic framework, …

The Politics Of Mental Health After Care, Steve Rose

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

Essential to the development of a positive practice in mental health after-care is a precise formulation of clients' needs. Clarity about a statement of needs provides added information about anticipated obstacles to meeting those needs, both at the client and systemic levels. To accomplish this preliminary task, it becomes necessary to create what we refer to as a "problem definitional" level of theory. Problem defining theory mediates between more global theory, which establishes a larger context for understanding the broad policy issues and direct implications,* and the articulation of practice theory.

A Note On Voethogenic Harm: The Politics Of Science And The Professions, Warren C. Haggstrom

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This study had 27 psychiatrists watch a half hour film of a third year medical student talking with a patient. They were all psychiatric faculty in the UCLA School of Medicine and were trying to create a criterion for use in examinations within the School. The film was such that they could see the patient from the perspective of the interviewer.

Alienation Among Social Service Workers And Integration Into The Social Services, John F. Longres

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This study is concerned with objective alienation experienced by social service workers. To help understand this phenomenon, a Marxian sociological perspective will be used.

The Social Work Profession And The Ideoloqy Of Professionalization, Stanley Wenocur, Michael Reisch

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The phenomenon of professionalization has been an exceptionally powerful force in Western industrialized countries for more than a century. "The professions are as characteristic of the modern world as the crafts were of the ancient," said Stephen R. Graubard in the preface to The Professions in America (1963). Talcott Parsons (1968) declared that "The development and increasing strategic importance of the professions probably constitute the most important change that has occurred in the occupational system of modern countries." Dry statistics alone bear out these views. In the United States "professionals" increased in the population from 859 per 100,000 in 1870 …

Seven Voices From One Organization: What Does It Mean?, Janice Perlman

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

It would be trite to say that citizen action means different things for different people; a cliche to say that it means different things simultaneously for the same person: yet both are overwhelmingly true. Listening carefully to the members of citizen action groups -- not the organizers, staff, or wellknown leaders -- but simply the members, reveals the entire gamut of understanding and confusions; gratifications and frustrations; of hopes and fears.

The mini-portraits presented below represent a cross section, members of a single citizen action organization at a single point in time. Exploratory interviews with members of similar groups in …

Book Reviews, Mike Parker, Gary Freeman, Martin B. Tracy, Michael Reisch, Kathryn B. Ward, Steve Burghardt, Patricia Morgan

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

BOOK REVIEWS

• The Assembly Line by Robert Linhart - Reviewed by MIKE PARKER
• The Crisis In Social Security: Economic and Political Origins by Carolyn L. Weaver - Reviewed by GARY FREEMAN
• The Political Econany of Aging: The State, Private Power and Social Welfare by laura Katz Olson - Reviewed by MARTIN B. TRACY
• The Other Side of Organizing: Resolving the Personal Dilemmas and Political Demands of Daily Practice by Steve Burghardt - Reviewed by MICHAEL REISCH
• The Radical Future of Liberal Feminism by Zillah Eisenstein - Reviewed by KATHRYN B. WARD
• Setting National Priorities: The 1983 Budget edited by Joseph …

The Non-Orthodox Cancer Therapy Movement: Emergent Organization In Health Care Crisis, Joseph Behar

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

The ideology and organization of the non-orthodox cancer therapy movement are analyzed as social constructions in an area of professional ambiguity and failure. The movement articulates, integrates, and orders the personally and socially disabling consequences of health care failure in cancer. The protest activities of the movement are characterized by political opposition to medical "orthodoxy" and "monopoly." The challenges of the non-orthodox movement are generally ineffective, non-legitimated, or coopted. Yet, in providing conceptual and organizational frames for the disordering consequences of medical failure and in establishing a politically polarized deviant position in relation to conventional practice, this movement socially organizes …

Ideology In Social Welfare Policy Instruction: An Examination Of Required Readings, Paul Lyons

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

A national survey of required readings in social welfare policy courses indicates that a liberal, pro-welfare state ideology is predominant. Such an ideology rests on the concepts of modernization and industrialization within a structural-functionalist methodology. This predominant model of social welfare policy suggests the inevitability of the welfare state while effectively excluding serious consideration of both conservative and socialist alternatives.

The Use Of Telephone Surveys In Human Service Needs Assessment - An Idea Whose Time Has Come?, Lawrence L. Martin

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This article explores the potential use of telephone surveys for the conduct of human service needs assessments. After reviewing relevant literature bearing on the subject of telephone surveys, a theoretical telephone survey human service needs assessment of Maricopa County, Arizona is compared with an actual human service needs assessment using the traditional personal survey approach. The results suggest that the two approaches produce similar findings at the aggregate data, or community, level but that the underrepresentation of certain target groups of interest to human service administrators (e.g. low-income and ethnic minorities) may cause disaggregation problems. Methodological techniques to deal with …

Client Privacy And Social Work: A Comparison By Agency Function, Linda R. Hogan, Mary Ski Hunter, M. Coleen Shannon

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

This study examines the effect of agency function or purpose on the handling of client privacy issues in social work agencies. Practitioners working in public and private agencies were compared. The data revealed that, more than those in private agencies, social workers in public agencies: (1) thought that their work would be more affected if they could not rely on outside sources for information about clients; (2) were more often requested to supply information about clients to outside sources; and (3) were more likely to reveal information about clients as a form of ethical dilemma resolution. It is suggested that …

Journal Of Sociology & Social Welfare Vol. 10, No. 3 (September 1983)

The Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Social Action Organization Participation and Personal Change in the Poor: Part II - ROBERT D. HERMAN
• Ideology In Social Welfare Policy Instruction: An Examination of Required Readings - PAUL LYONS
• Client Privacy and Social Work: A Comparison by Agency Function
• LINDA R. HOGAN, MARY SKI HUNTER, M. COLEEN SHANNON
• Case Law and Social Welfare: A Framework for Analysis - JAN L. HAGEN
• The Coordination Dimensions Scale: A Tool to Assess Interorganizational Relationships - STANLEY BLOSTEIN
• The Non-Orthodox Cancer Therapy Movement: Emergent Organization in Health Care Crisis - JOSEPH BEHAR
• The Use of Telephone Surveys In Human Service …