Reinforcers were selected according to one of two procedures with six developmentally disabled students who displayed a variety of stereotypic behaviors. One selection procedure involved presenting a wide variety of stimuli to students and quantitatively measuring the impact of stimulus presentation upon behavior. The other procedure involved selecting reinforcers according to the best judgement of professionals familiar with individual students. It was hypothesized that reinforcers which were empirically-derived would result in more significant behavior changes than nonsystematically selected reinforcers. These hypotheses were subsequently tested in two experiments by using each group of reinforcers in a reinforcement-based paradigm, measuring subsequent behavior changes, and analyzing the degree to which differing amounts of behavior change occurred. An additional probe condition was included where novel stimuli were presented to students. Within-subject experimental designs were used to compare differences in observed amounts of targeted appropriate and inappropriate behaviors when different groups of reinforcers were used during class time. Results from Experiment 1 indicated that the use of empirically-derived reinforcers resulted in higher observed rates of appropriate behavior and correspondingly lower rates of inappropriate behavior than those selected according to professionals' best judgement or those which were novel to students. These findings are discussed in terms of the advantages of using objects as opposed to food as reinforcers. Experiment 2 was an attempt to replicate the findings in Experiment 1 using only objects which were selected according to one of the two procedures described in Experiment 1. Results indicated that more stable and lower overall rates of self-stimulation were observed when empirically-derived reinforcers were used. / These findings are discussed in terms of the relationship between the use of different types of object reinforcers and their effect upon the self-stimulatory behaviors. The advantages of empirically-based reinforcer assessment procedures are discussed and guidelines for their development are suggested. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-01, Section: B, page: 0373. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1985.

Undergraduate female subjects interacted in a dyadic setting with male and female confederates displaying combinations of behaviors hypothesized to mediate others' responses to depressed individuals. Confederates revealed personal problems while enacting either depressed, anxious or normal roles. Self-blaming, non-blaming, and other-blaming statements regarding the confederates' problems were added to the portrayals of psychologically disturbed and normal behavior. Advice was requested by the confederates in one-half of the conditions. Results indicated that depressed confederates had more aversive interpersonal impact and were rejected more on measures of subject preference for further interaction but received more advice and support than the equally disturbed anxious confederates. There was no evidence of a negative mood induction in subjects. The sex of the confederate or the addition of blaming and advice-seeking behavior did not appear to have important interpersonal consequences. These findings are discussed in terms of current interpersonal theories of depression. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 46-11, Section: B, page: 4030. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1985.

Literally hundreds of behavioral self-help manuals have been marketed to the public aimed at resolving a wide array of problems. The potential savings of therapist time and client dollars is formidable. Noncompliance is, however, a continuing problem. Noncompliance rates from 30 - 50% are typically reported. Application of Marlatt's relapse prevention strategies (described to our patients as the Goal Violation Effect--GVE) presents one possible way of conceptualizing and potentially decreasing noncompliance. / Thirty-nine dental patients were given a self-administered desensitization treatment designed to be completed in 15 half-hour sessions. Half of the patients received treatment manuals which contained an explanation of the GVE model and instructions on how to counter behaviors and thoughts often associated with noncompliance. A verbal presentation of the GVE material was also given. The remainder of the patients received manuals which contained only the fear reduction treatment text and an admonition to completely read the manual. After 15 days the dental patients were recontacted and assessments of compliance (by self-report and unobtrusive measures) and self-efficacy were undertaken. / There were no group differences in overall compliance. Those patients receiving the GVE manipulation completed the text in less time and required fewer days to collect post-treatment data. There was strong agreement between self-report of compliance and an unobtrusive compliance measure. Females were more compliant with the therapy text requiring written responses and had significantly higher self-efficacy ratings at pre-treatment. There were no post-treatment group differences in self-efficacy. The discussion focuses on the cost-effectiveness of the GVE compliance enhancement technique and the fear reduction treatment. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-07, Section: B, page: 3108. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.

Nontraditional occupational choices were examined within the context of aspirations, or ideal choices, and expectations, or realistic choices. As background for the study, the literature on occupational stereotyping was reviewed. A major purpose of the study was to determine if altering subjects' perceptions of base rates, or the proportions of males and females in a given occupation, would affect subjects' reactions to that occupation. The relationship between nontraditional occupational choices and several subject and parental characteristics was also explored. Subjects consisted of 107 female and 82 male seventh grade students, who were each given a description of one occupation. Control subjects were told that the base rate of that occupation would remain stable. Experimental subjects were told that the percentage of the non-dominant sex would increase to 50% in the future. Subjects rated the occupation as both an ideal and a realistic choice for them. Measures of subjects' open-ended occupational choices, sex role attribution, and parents' occupation and education were also obtained. Contrary to expectations, the experimental manipulation did not affect subjects' ratings of the occupations. On the open-ended responses, significant sex differences were found, with males making job selections which were more traditional than the choices made by females. The majority of females named a nontraditional job for both their ideal and realistic choices. Weak relationships were obtained between background variables and subjects' job choices, with father's education emerging as the best predictor of a male-dominated occupation. Androgynous individuals were no more likely than other types to choose a nontraditional occupation. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-07, Section: B, page: 3118. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.

The present study was an attempt to replicate and extend Loewenstein and Hokanson's (in press) work on social information processing of depressed individuals. Specifically, it was designed to examine whether depressed subjects would demonstrate decreased recall for positive and negative social information about themselves relative to nondepressed controls. Of particular interest was whether depressives' recall of positive and negative self-information would be differently affected by presenting this conflicting information together as opposed to separately (positive self-information presented with neutral self-information, or negative self-information presented with neutral self-information). / The results of the present investigation yielded results that were inconsistent with predictions generated by Coyne's (1976) and Loewenstein and Hokanson's (in press) formulations. There were no differences between depressed, nondepressed high-anxious and nondepressed low-anxious subjects in recall of positive or negative social information about the self whether this information was presented separately or together. The results of other analyses were also at odds with past research/theory. / The discrepancy between results obtained in the present study and in Loewenstein and Hokanson's two previous investigations were examined by making quantitative comparisons across the three studies using post-hoc analyses. It is argued that paradigmatic differences may have accounted for the failure to replicate Loewenstein and Hokanson's previous work. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-10, Section: B, page: 4305. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.

The importance of cognitive development in children's understanding of health-related concepts (e.g., illness, medical personnel) has been demonstrated. Such a developmental progression, however, has not been investigated with regard to children's conceptualization of pain, despite implications found in both the research literature and clinical lore concerning the importance of developmental issues in the experience of pain for children. / Seventy-nine healthy children attending pre-school through eighth grade, and 36 children from a medical pain population participated in an interview to determine their Piagetian stage of cognitive development, conceptualization of the definition, cause, and treatment of pain, and locus of control orientation. Pain understanding was assessed with a questionnaire developed for this study which demonstrated high interrater reliability and internal consistency. / Cognitive developmental groups differed in level of pain understanding, with a significant progression in children's understanding of the concept of pain as they proceed through each stage of cognitive development. No significant effect on pain understanding was found for either diagnosis or gender. Although previous pain experience contributed to the prediction of pain understanding, neither previous experience nor locus of control significantly impacted on children's understanding of pain. The role of cognitive development, locus of control, and prior pain experience on pain understanding is discussed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-10, Section: B, page: 4293. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.

Divorce is estimated by 1990 to affect one third of all children under 18. In 90 percent of divorces involving children, the mother has primary child custody. While some divorces may have a positive impact, a survey of research literature suggests that divorce usually has a negative impact on the development of children and that an important variable mediating that impact may be the quality of parenting by recently-divorced, single-parent mothers, who may be in crisis over new demands upon their skills and energy. Researchers hypothesized that both mother and child would be better off if the mother gained more skill in structured, rational and nurturing parenting, an authoritative parenting style. / To test this hypothesis, an experiment was conducted with ten volunteer, recently-divorced, single-parent mothers with sons in elementary school. To optimize insight into individual mother's experience, a single-subject design was employed, which used both multiple-baseline/between subject and experimental/control group comparisons. Seven mothers were assigned, by order of arrival, to a nine-week, low-cost, behavioral parenting treatment believed to develop authoritative parenting skills. The three control mothers were given a parallel experience in which they discussed popular magazine articles on divorce. Data were collected on indices of crisis (depression, anxiety, and helplessness), child behavior problems and social competence, and maternal parenting behavior, using both self-report and structured home observations. / The data support the claim that the parent training had a positive impact on child behavior problems and social competence but did not have a consistent impact on maternal parenting styles. Nor was it possible to attribute the general improvement of the mothers on the indices of crisis to the treatment. It appears that, despite the fairly restrictive criteria for inclusion, the recently-divorced, single-parent mothers differed widely in their circumstances and needs. Each experimental mother seems to have chosen from the parenting treatment according to her circumstances and needs in such a way as to benefit her son but not to affect a uniform change in parenting. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-10, Section: B, page: 4303. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.

The crisis of divorce affects up to forty percent of all marriages. Each year, two percent of all children are affected by divorce. The events of separation and divorce are characterized by multiple changes in family structure, parent-child relationships, living and visitation arrangements, and the family's social support system. / This study proposed that intervening with single-parent fathers and their elementary-aged children would lead to increased family functioning, decreased emotional upset, and increased positive father-child interactive behaviors. Twelve fathers requested treatment; eight completed the program. Of the eight fathers who completed the program, six received a nine-week program of behavioral parent training and communication training. Two fathers received a nine-week contact control condition, consisting of reading and discussing divorce-related articles from the popular literature. A single-subject AB design was used, with five replications of the experimental treatment and one replication of the control condition. In-home behavioral observations and objective reports of anxiety, depression, locus of control, child behavior and knowledge of child management principles allowed for demonstration of treatment effects. Implementers of treatment and behavioral observers were unaware of the study's hypotheses. / The four fathers who dropped out of treatment, and implications for future research with single-parent families are discussed. It was concluded that intervention with recently separated, single-parent fathers and their children at this time of crisis can result in valued improvement, less so in parental behavior change, and more so in father and child attitude and affect, and that a structured educational program of parent training and communication training allows for somewhat greater improvement of father-child functioning than does divorce education alone. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-08, Section: B, page: 3533. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the short-term effects on children of exposure to parental violence. Sixty-five children (ages 6-15), from a psychiatric inpatient facility were divided into three groups based on previous exposure to physical violence between the parents and their own experience of physical abuse by the parents. The groups were compared for aggression, somatic complaints, the presence of depression and peer problems. Mothers and teachers of children from each group were administered the Child Behavior Checklist. Mothers completed the Beck Depression Inventory. A 2 x 3 ANOVA showed a significant main effect for sex across groups, with boys having a higher number of incidents than girls in all groups. A sex x group interaction was found for somatic complaints with girls from violent homes being more likely to somatasize than their male counterparts. Chi square analysis failed to find significant group differences for depression or peer problems. Although younger children in Group 2 (Violent, No Abuse) were more likely than their older counterparts to have peer problems. Mothers from violent homes rated their children as more deviant than control mothers. However, when their BDI scores were used as a covariate, differences disappeared. Teacher ratings across groups were not significantly different. When mother and teacher ratings were compared, there were no differences except for Group 2 (Violent, No Abuse). The study points to the need for ratings of children from sources other than mothers and the importance of attempting to partial out the effects of a child experiencing and witnessing abuse. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-08, Section: B, page: 3540. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.

Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 31-09, Section: B, page: 5648. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1970.