Previous research concerning the relative strengths of women's achievement, affiliation, and nurterance needs is reviewed. eased on Bardwick's theories, it was predicted that the need to achieve would be significantly higher for married than for single women and significantly higher, the older the age group. It was also Predicted that the need to affiliate would be significantly higher for single than for married women and significantly higher, the younger the age group. Based on Benedek's theories, it was predicted that the need to nurture would not differ significantly between married and single women and that it would not differ significantly among age groups. In order to measure these needs the Personality Research Form-E was given to 120 married and single women. As predicted, results showed that achievement needs increased as a function of increasing age, and affiliation needs decreased as a function of increasing age. In addition, it was found that affiliation needs are significantly lower for married than for single women. It was concluded that affiliation is of central importance in the adolescent period and that adolescent females are preoccupied with meeting this need. Achievement becomes the focus of attention as women grow older. Contrary to prediction, the nurturance need does not appear to have consistent strength in women and seems to decrease with age.

In Experiment I, contingency management was employed with five non-institutionalized trainable retardates (mean MA=4.l, CA=9.9, and language age=2.6) in a classroom situation. Empirically determined high probability behaviors were displayed as colored cartoon figures in a reinforcement menu. Tasks from the Peabody Language Development Kit defined the behavior strengthened during 15 one-hour sessions. A quantity of low probability task behavior had to occur in order for subjects to emit 4 minutes of high probability reinforcing activity. Through contingency management, amount of task per reinforcement was shaped from a low ratio to a high ratio. Significant gains in language age (p In Experiment II, the five children of Experiment I and another trainable retardate served as subjects. Dependent upon the behavioral change desired of the subject in the classroom situation, each subject had to meet the criterion of increasing or decreasing the specified behavior to receive the reinforcement menu and engage in 4 minutes of high probability reinforcing activity. Contingency management over 15 one-hour sessions was successful in reducing and possibly extinguishing the rate of aggressive acts, delays in starting work, shouting, leaving the desk during lessons, and refusing to obey teacher instructions. Frequency of task relevant vocalizations was also increased by this technique. During an unsystematic observation of the subjects 6 months after termination of the experiment, the undesirable behaviors occurred once an hour on the average, a rate far below the baseline frequency. Task relevant vocalizations which had been shaped to a high frequency during the experiment were emitted at a rate higher than the rate obtained during the baseline period.

Research on components of habit reversal suggests that awareness training alone may be an effective and efficient intervention for reducing nervous habits. This study evaluated the effectiveness of awareness training for the reduction of three nervous habits that manifest in public speaking: filled pauses, tongue clicks, and inappropriate use of the word "like." Four university students delivered short speeches during baseline and assessment sessions. Awareness training consisted of response description and response detection. Awareness training resulted in meaningful reductions in target behaviors for all participants. Booster awareness training sessions were necessary for all participants to achieve further reductions in target behaviors. Generalization probes conducted in front of a small audience indicated that treatment effects generally maintained at low levels. Social validity scores indicated that the treatment was acceptable, and participants indicated not only decreased use of verbal fillers, but also improved overall public speaking ability post-treatment. Although awareness training was effective, it was not more efficient than simplified habit reversal.

This study evaluated the speed of acquisition and level of generalization of tacts across three different stimulus modes: picture-flashcard, video clip, and 3D object. Three young children diagnosed with autism participated in this study. The acquisition of tacts was evaluated during Discrete Trial Training sessions (DTT). Two of the three participants learned the tacts more rapidly in the video clip condition in contrast with the picture condition. All three participants generalized the three tacts learned through a specific stimulus mode to the remaining stimulus modes. One week after the generalization test, all participants generalized to all novel 3D objects.

Research on the functional independence of tacts and mands is mixed. The conditions under which tact training transfers to mands are unclear. The current study evaluated whether multiple exemplars of tact training followed by mand training would result in the independent transfer from tacts to mands. It was shown that all three participants started manding for the item independently during tact training after one sequence of tact training followed by mand training.

Commercial vehicle movement within an urban area is an integral part of a region’s economic growth and has significant impact on the quality of life. Commercial traffic grows with economic activity and population growth. However, in regional models commercial traffic is not described as well as person travel. Modeling commercial vehicles is complex because of the involvement of multiple decision agents including shippers, carriers, and receivers and their interactions. The proprietary nature of truck data often limits development of behavioral econometric models that have superior predictive and policy analysis abilities. The efficient movement of goods is a very important component to urban civilization and economic development and therefore, understanding truck movement behavior is an important area of interest for transportation policy planning. The objective of this dissertation is to contribute to apply advanced choice modeling methods to analyze commercial vehicle travel behavior within an urban area. This research collects disaggregate level truck generation data from the business establishments located in a sample urban region and uses the collected data to evaluate factors that affect truck trip generation patterns using linear regression and ordered logit model structures. The results of the study show that employment size, business industrial class, truck ownership, land-use class, and land-value affect trip generation behavior. This research also analyzed three different multiple discrete-continuous (MDC) choice situations encountered by commercial vehicles on a daily basis. These choices are 1) the choice of tour chain(s) and the number of trips in each tour chain, 2) the time (s) of day choice to perform daily activities and the corresponding vehicle-miles traveled; and 3) the choice of destination location(s) among alternative destination zones and the number of stops at each destination zone. The study find that commercial vehicle characteristics, shipment characteristics, transportation network attributes, base location and intermediate stop location features affect the first two choice situations while the level of service and zonal attributes affect the destination choice behavior of commercial vehicle daily travel.

The present study examined the effectiveness of a self-instructional package for teaching discrete-trials teaching (DTT) to Applied Behaviour Analysis tutors at the St.Amant Applied Behaviour Analysis Program for Children with Autism. A modified multiple- baseline design across participants was used, and replicated six times. An AB design was used for one participant. The training package include a self-instructional manual, video demonstrations, and self-practice. Participants required an average of 3 hours and 56 minutes to master the manual. Eleven of the 13 participants achieved the mastery criterion during the post-training assessment. Mean DTT accuracy increased from 46.2% to 85.5% (a statistically significant increase). One tutor participated in a generalization phase with a child with autism, and their DTT accuracy averaged 80.1%. The results suggest that the self-instructional package appears to be an effective tool for teaching newly-hired tutors to conduct DTT.

A persistent difficulty in the field of psychology is identifying which individuals are at the greatest risk for suicide. Veterans of the US Military are at elevated risk for suicide as compared to the general population. One approach for designating tiers of risk is applying the “Suicide Index Score” to discriminate individuals based upon their reported wish to live (WTL) and wish to die (WTD; Kovacs & Beck, 1977). Brown, Steer, Henriques, and Beck (2005) demonstrated those who indicated a complete WTD and no WTL were at greatest risk to die. The current study expanded on previous research by using this approach with a highly elevated at-risk population of suicidal veterans. Participants for this study included 93 suicidal veterans hospitalized at the Robley Rex Veteran Affairs Medical Center in Louisville, Kentucky. The WTL and WTD items from the Scale for Suicidal Ideation-Current were used to create two quasi-independent groups: WTL/Ambivalent and WTD. The following outcome measures were included as dependent variables: Acquired Capability for Suicide Scale, Interpersonal Needs Questionnaire, Outcome Questionnaire-45.2, Suicide Attempt and Self-Injury Count, Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test, Drug Abuse Screening Test, and the Stages of Change Questionnaire, as well as the Suicidal Ideation, Posttraumatic Stress Disorder and Insomnia items on the Common Data Elements. T-tests were used to examine patient characteristics for continuous outcomes and chi-square analyses were used for nominal outcomes; however, no group differences were found. T-tests were then used to measure between-group differences on the dependent variables. Individuals classified in the WTD group reported significantly higher levels of thwarted belongingness t(91) = 2.89, p = .00, acquired capability t(91) = 2.64, p = .01, suicidal ideation, t(91) = 3.51, p < .001, and posttraumatic stress t(91) = 2.53, p = .01. Furthermore, a negative binomial regression was used for count outcomes and results revealed that those in the WTD group also reported significantly greater accounts of suicide attempts (incidence rate ratio [IRR] = 2.08; standard error [SE] = 0.63; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.14-3.77; p = .02) and non-suicidal self-injury (IRR = 3.49; SE = 0.69; 95% CI 2.36-5.16; p < .001).

A replication of the Carter and Craig (1975) investigation comparing the “conceptual peg” and “relational connective” explanations as to the effectiveness of an interaction imagery strategy in paired-associate learning was performed with the suggested changes in methodology. These changes included training the subjects and presenting the stimulus and response nouns on separate screens rather than visually side-by-side. In addition, two separation imagery strategies were investigated so that the nouns were visualized on opposite sides of the imaginary visual field or on opposite walls of an imaginary room. An interaction imagery strategy, a separation imagery—space strategy, a separation imagery—wall strategy, and an overt repetition strategy were compared in terms of performance on a stimulus recognition-response recall task within a paired-associate stimulus interference situation. Pairs of synonyms were employed as stimulus components in the learning trial to produce stimulus interference. In the recognition-recall trial, subjects were presented a list of stimulus and control nouns, and were asked to indicate which nouns had appeared during the learning trial (stimulus recognition) and hwat had been paired with each one (response recall). The results were similar to those found in the Carter and Craig (1975) investigation in that the interaction imagery strategy was found to result in significantly greater response recall than the separation imagery strategies and the overt repetition strategy. Also, the imagery strategies resulted in greater stimulus recognition than the overt repetition strategy. Again, the conceptual peg hypothesis was supported. In contrast with Carter and Craig (1975), the separation imagery strategy was found to be the least effective strategy in response recall and the most effective strategy in stimulus recognition. It appeared that the trained subjects were more successful in employing the instructed strategies and that the conflicting separation imagery data could be attributed to this. There was no significant effect for mode of presentation in either response recall or stimulus recognition. A ceiling effect was indicated from the stimulus recognition data.

Given the recent theoretical emphasis on the process of performance rating (e.g., Landy & Farr, 1980), a test of the suggestion that better raters may use different rating processes than poorer raters was implemented. Specifically, this study was designed to determine if more accurate raters use a systematically different rating strategy than less accurate raters. Accuracy, the proximity of a rating to the ratee’s true score, was operationalized by differential accuracy (Cronbach, 1955), while rating strategies were determined through a policy capturing method (e.g., Zedeck & Kafry, 1977). Seventh-three subjects rated a series of videotapes, developed by Borman (e.g. Borman, 1977), of performances with known true scores. A subject’s ratings on a particular dimension were correlated with the true scores for that dimension (across ratees) to provide each subject’s differential accuracy score for that particular dimension. Then, dimensional differential accuracy ratings were converted z scores (using Fisher’s r to z conversion) and the mean of each subject’s dimensional accuracy ratings was calculated and used as his/her summary accuracy indices. The policy capturing segment of the study required subjects to provide an overall performance rating for 100 hypothetical performance profiles. The subject’s overall ratings were then regressed on the hypothetical performance profiles, providing for each subject a regression equation reflecting his/her particular rating strategy. The variables from each subject’s regression equation used to reflect his/her rating strategy were then correlated with that subject’s accuracy ratings. The results indicated more accurate raters were no more consistent in using their individual rating strategies than less accurate raters, nor did they use information from more performance dimensions than less accurate raters. Also, there was no correlation between the accuracy with which a dimension was rated and the relative weight given that dimension when providing an overall rating. Given the lack of significant relationships between the accuracy of rating and measures of rating strategy, it was suggested that the effect of other rating process variables (e.g. observation and memory processes) on accuracy be examined.