Applied Behavior Analysis Commons^™

Evaluating Computerized Math Performance Using Progressive Ratio Schedules In Children With Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Lauren Stroker

Theses and Dissertations

One method of assessing reinforcer strength is to use a progressive ratio (PR) schedule of reinforcement, whereby response requirements to access reinforcers gradually increase. PR schedules have been used to assess reinforcer potency in numerous applications with nonhumans in basic research, children and adults with disabilities, and individuals with histories of substance abuse problems. However, the utility of PR schedules to determine robust reinforcers has not been assessed with children with attention deficit – hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) regarding academic tasks, such as mathematics. The inability to remain on task presents a challenge for teachers in schools, and poses detrimental effects …

Assessing The Effects Of Interactive Video Modeling On The Fidelity Of Implementation Of Skill-Acquisition Procedures, Steven Sparks

Dissertations

Behavior-analytic study has led to many advances in staff training over the last several decades. The effectiveness of modeling, role-play, and video modeling are well demonstrated in scientific literature but these techniques are often time consuming for those conducting the training which often leads to their being quite costly. Interactive video modeling is an alternative that is potentially more cost and time efficient. This type of modeling consists of embedding response opportunities in traditional video models that require the trainee to answer questions in order to complete the video. Being required to answer the embedded questions causes the trainee to …

The Use Of The Performance Diagnostic Checklist-Human Services To Assess And Improve The Job Performance Of Individuals With Disabilities, Madison Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Employers often do not have the means to identify the specific variables that influence poor work performance, particularly for employees with disabilities. The Performance Diagnostic Checklist-Human Services (PDC-HS) is a tool designed to identify these variables and potential solutions to employee performance problems. Although the PDC-HS has been used with a variety of employees, it has not been examined for use with individuals with disabilities. This study evaluated the effectiveness of the PDC-HS with adults with disabilities in an integrated workforce, to increase the productivity of two employees when required to perform a pricing task. Results showed that the PDC-HS …

Violation Of Short-Term Mate Preferences, Jose C. Yong, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Violations of short-term mate preferences refer to instances in which a person in a short-term, casual sexual relationship has mate preferences that were in place when the relationship commenced but subsequently are not being met.

Violation Of Long-Term Mate Preferences, M. L. W. Long, Norman P. Li

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Violations of short-term mate preferences refer to instances in which a person in a short-term, casual sexual relationship has mate preferences that were in place when the relationship commenced but subsequently are not being met.

The Effects Of Punishment On Resistance To Change And Reinstatement, Tomesha A. Manora

Dissertations

Resistance to change (RTC) refers to the persistence of behavior when environmental changes disrupt responding. Studies have shown that RTC varies as a function of the reinforcement associated with the context, with higher rates and magnitudes of reinforcement generating greater response persistence. Resistance to change has been shown to be related to reinstatement, or the increase in responding during extinction when responses are followed by noncontingent reinforcement. Little research has investigated whether punishers have equivalent yet opposite effects as reinforcers on response persistence and reinstatement. The present study investigated the effects of electric shock punishment on resistance to change and …

Acting Is Repetition, Job Barnett

The Transdisciplinary STEAM+ Journal

A short discussion of repetition in acting.

Country Roads, Take Me Home ... To My Friends: How Intelligence, Population Density, And Friendship Affect Modern Happiness, Norman P. Li, Satoshi Kanazawa

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

We propose the savanna theory of happiness, which suggests that it is not only the current consequences of a given situation but also its ancestral consequences that affect individuals’ life satisfaction and explains why such influences of ancestral consequences might interact with intelligence. We choose two varied factors that characterize basic differences between ancestral and modern life – population density and frequency of socialization with friends – as empirical test cases. As predicted by the theory, population density is negatively, and frequency of socialization with friends is positively, associated with life satisfaction. More importantly, the main associations of life satisfaction …

Blame The Shepherd Not The Sheep: Imitating Higher-Ranking Transgressors Mitigates Punishment For Unethical Behavior, Christopher W. Bauman, Leigh Plunkett Tost, Ong, Madeline

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

Do bad role models exonerate others’ unethical behavior? Based on social learning theory and psychologicaltheories of blame, we predicted that unethical behavior by higher-ranking individuals changes howpeople respond to lower-ranking individuals who subsequently commit the same transgression. Fivestudies explored when and why this rank-dependent imitation effect occurs. Across all five studies, wefound that people were less punitive when low-ranking transgressors imitated high-ranking membersof their organization. However, imitation only reduced punishment when the two transgressors werefrom the same organization (Study 2), when the transgressions were highly similar (Study 3), and whenit was unclear whether the initial transgressor was punished (Study 5). …

Parasite Stress And Pathogen Avoidance Relate To Distinct Dimensions Of Political Ideology Across 30 Nations, J.M. Tybur, Y. Inbar, L. Aaroe, P. Barclay, F.K. Barlow, M. De Barra, D.V. Becker, L. Borovoi, I. Choi, J.A. Choi, N.S. Consedine, A. Conway, J.R. Conway, Li, Norman P., Jose C. Yong, D.E. Demirci, A.M. Fernandez, D.C.S. Ferreira, K. Ishii, I. Jaksic

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

People who are more avoidant of pathogens are more politically conservative, as are nations with greater parasite stress. In the current research, we test two prominent hypotheses that have been proposed as explanations for these relationships. The first, which is an intragroup account, holds that these relationships between pathogens and politics are based on motivations to adhere to local norms, which are sometimes shaped by cultural evolution to have pathogenneutralizing properties. The second, which is an intergroup account, holds that these same relationships are based on motivations to avoid contact with outgroups, who might pose greater infectious disease threats than …

Angels And Demons: Using Behavioral Types In A Real-Effort Moral Dilemma To Identify Expert Traits, Hernan Bejarano, Ellen P. Green, Stephen Rassenti

ESI Publications

In this article, we explore how independently reported measures of subjects' cognitive capabilities, preferences, and sociodemographic characteristics relate to their behavior in a real-effort moral dilemma experiment. To do this, we use a unique dataset, the Chapman Preferences and Characteristics Instrument Set (CPCIS), which contains over 30 standardized measures of preferences and characteristics. We find that simple correlation analysis provides an incomplete picture of how individual measures relate to behavior. In contrast, clustering subjects into groups based on observed behavior in the real-effort task reveals important systematic differences in individual characteristics across groups. However, while we find more differences, these …

New Measures To Capture End Of Life Concerns In Huntington Disease: Meaning And Purpose And Concern With Death And Dying From Hdqlife (A Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement System)., N E Carlozzi, N R Downing, M K Mccormack, S G Schilling, J S Perlmutter, E A Hahn, J S Lai, S Frank, K A Quaid, J S Paulsen, D Cella, S M Goodnight, J A Miner, M A Nance

Rowan-Virtua School of Osteopathic Medicine Departmental Research

PURPOSE: Huntington disease (HD) is an incurable terminal disease. Thus, end of life (EOL) concerns are common in these individuals. A quantitative measure of EOL concerns in HD would enable a better understanding of how these concerns impact health-related quality of life. Therefore, we developed new measures of EOL for use in HD.

METHODS: An EOL item pool of 45 items was field tested in 507 individuals with prodromal or manifest HD. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses (EFA and CFA, respectively) were conducted to establish unidimensional item pools. Item response theory (IRT) and differential item functioning analyses were applied to …

The Interaction Between Perfectionism And Rumination Predicting State Self-Compassion, Caitlin A. Sharp

Student Publications

Recent research has revealed self-compassion to be associated with many aspects of mental wellness. The present study investigates the relationship between perfectionism and rumination in predicting state self-compassion separately for both conscientious and self-evaluative forms of perfectionism. We hypothesized that perfectionism would interact with rumination in predicting state self-compassion such that there would be a negative association between occurrence of rumination and state-self compassion that would be more prominent in those with lower levels of perfectionism in regards to self-evaluative, but not conscientious perfectionism. To test these predictions, participants filled out a perfectionism inventory and completed a four minute ruminative …

A Closer Look At The Hedonics Of Everyday Meaning And Satisfaction, William Tov, Huey Woon Lee

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Contrasts between eudaimonic well-being and hedonic well-being often compare meaning and happiness. Less work has examined the extent to which meaning and satisfaction can be distinguished. Across five diary studies (N = 923) and a large cross-sectional survey (N = 1471), we examined the affective profile of meaning and satisfaction in everyday life. Using response surface methodology, both judgments were modeled as a joint function of positive (PA) and negative (NA) affect. Affective discrepancy (preponderance of PA over NA) was more strongly associated with satisfaction than meaning. In general, meaning correlated less with affect than satisfaction, but the …

The Effects Of Descriptions And Images Of Antecedent Stimuli And Outcomes To Correct Responses In Task Analysis Instruction, Bryan C. Tyner

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Task analysis (TA) instruction is commonly used for teaching behavior chains; however, little research informs best practices for TA instruction. Data regarding the effects of instructional variables on responding may enhance TA efficacy and learner performance. Linking TA instruction to the three-term contingency may facilitate the development of control by stimuli that are naturally present while completing complex tasks; therefore, this study employed a two-by-two factorial design to analyze the relative effects of supplementing TA instruction with descriptions and images of: (factor A) antecedent stimuli relevant to each instructed discrete response and (factor B) the outcomes of accurately completing instructed …

A Behavior Analytic Intervention To Teach Exploratory Motor Behavior To Infants With Down Syndrome, Sara M. Bauer

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Exploratory Motor (EM) behavior refers to manipulating a toy in the hand(s). Infants with Down syndrome demonstrate significant impairments in the duration and frequency of EM behavior compared to their typically developing counterparts. A behavior analytic intervention involving multiple opportunities, prompting, and social reinforcement was used to teach three infants with Down syndrome between 4-9 months of age to emit EM behavior. Results indicate that all three infants with Down syndrome emitted the three EM target behaviors to mastery and demonstrated generalized responding across stimuli and other EM behaviors. The importance of these findings in addressing impairments in infants with …

Ptsd From Childhood Trauma As A Precursor To Attachment Issues, Christy Owen

Fidei et Veritatis: The Liberty University Journal of Graduate Research

The past 20 years have been turbulent regarding Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD), with conflicting research about its causes, effects, treatment, and prognosis. The current diagnostic criteria in the DSM-5 fails to adequately address this disorder. A number of deviant and maladaptive behaviors common amongst children with RAD are not even mentioned in the diagnostic criteria. As such, the diagnostic definition is almost unidentifiable or incompatible with real-life conduct manifestations of the disorder. Rather, this author contends that RAD is foundationally a unique and extreme form of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) from Early Childhood Trauma. The child endured unspeakable neglect and/or …

A Collaborative Approach To Address Student Behavior And Academic Achievement Across Systems, Beverly Ngozi Okereke

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Academic achievement and in-classroom behaviors are two significant child outcomes that affect student success in school. According to Systems Theory, in order to truly understand the factors that affect these outcomes for children, one must look to the major systems that encapsulate the child (including their school and home environments). This project is a meta-analytic review that examined the effectiveness of measures representing each system in predicting child achievement and behavior: School-Wide Positive Behavior Supports (SWPBS) for the school as a system, level of parent involvement (high versus low) for the home system, and student motivation (intrinsic versus extrinsic) for …

Evaluation Of A Modified Incidental Teaching Procedure To Increase Child Compliance, Corey M. Cohrs

Theses & Dissertations

Teaching noncompliant children to engage in compliant behavior has long been a goal for many parents, teachers, and therapists (Patterson, Shaw, & Ebner, 1969). This goal has driven the development of behavioral technology, including entire manualized treatment programs, specifically intended for the treatment of noncompliance (Forehand & McMahon, 1981; Hembree-Kigin & McNeil, 1995). These programs have typically included time-out based interventions that are associated with resistance to instruction (Roberts, 1982;Roberts, 1984). Given children’s frequent resistance to traditional approaches (e.g., timeout; Ducharme & Popynick, 1993), alternative interventions for the treatment of noncompliance are warranted.

A modified version of incidental teaching (Hart …

Automating Scoring Of Delay Discounting For The 21- And 27-Item Monetary Choice Questionnaires, Brent A. Kaplan, Michael Amlung, Derek D. Reed, David P. Jarmolowicz, Todd L. Mckerchar, Shea M. Lemley

Research, Publications & Creative Work

Delay discounting describes the process wherein rewards lose value as a function of their delayed receipt; how quickly rewards lose value is termed the rate of delay discounting. Rates of delay discounting are robust predictors of much behavior of societal importance. One efficient approach to obtaining a human subject’s rate of delay discounting is via the 21- and 27-item Monetary Choice Questionnaires, brief dichotomous choice tasks that assess preference between small immediate and larger delayed monetary outcomes. Unfortunately, the scoring procedures for the Monetary Choice Questionnaires are rather complex, which may serve as a barrier to their use. This report …