Treatment Integrity Failures during Timeout from Play.

Timeout is an effective behavior-reduction strategy with considerable generality. However, little is known about how timeout is implemented under natural conditions, or how errors in implementation impact effectiveness. During Experiment 1, we observed teachers implementing timeout during play to evaluate how frequently the teachers implemented timeout following target behavior (omission errors) and other behaviors (commission errors) for four children. Teachers rarely implemented timeout; thus, omission errors were frequent, but commission errors rarely occurred. During Experiment 2, we used a reversal design to compare timeout implemented with 0% omission integrity, 100% integrity, and the level of omission integrity observed to occur during Experiment 1 for two of the participants. Timeout implemented with reduced-integrity decreased problem behavior relative to baseline, suggesting that infrequent teacher implementation of timeout may have been sufficient to reduce problem behavior.

Effects of Negative Punishment on Culturants in a Situation of Concurrence between Operant Contingencies and Metacontingencies.

Effects of negative punishment are analyzed either with an emphasis on undesirable behavioral byproducts or by reference to its possible role in an increase in group cohesion when punishment is contingent on behaviors undermining collective interests. The present study addresses negative punishment and its effects on social environments when operant contingencies and metacontingencies are concurrent and when the punitive event is contingent on culturant. Three microcultures with three participants each were exposed to a task in which each participant chose a row in a figure with four numbered rows shown on a computer screen. The experimental design was ABCABC. Operant contingencies were programmed such that in all conditions choosing an odd row produced three blue tokens and choosing an even row produced one red token. Programmed metacontingencies predicted consequences on Impulsive Culturant (Imp Cult, three odd rows or two odd rows and one even row) and Self-controlled Culturant (Self-contr Cult, three even rows or two even rows and one odd row). In Condition A, any culturant resulted in one school item being added to an item counter. In Condition B, Imp Cult resulted in the loss of one item, and Self-contr Cult produced the addition of one item. Finally, in Condition C, no culturant produced losses or additions of items. The results indicated that negative punishment reduced the percentage of Imp Cult, particularly in MC1 and MC3, maintaining high percentages of Self-contr Cult. The results suggest that at the cultural level, the effects of negative punishment are similar to those observed at the operant level.

Efeitos da Apresentação e Retirada de Reforçadores sobre a Correspondência Verbal / Effects of Presenting and Removing Reinforcers on Verbal Correspondence

Resumo A presente pesquisa teve por objetivo investigar o efeito da apresentação e da retirada de reforçadores sobre a correspondência verbal. Oito crianças brincaram individualmente e, em seguida, relataram com quais brinquedos haviam brincado. Após linha de base, os relatos de "não brincar", feitos ora individualmente, ora em grupo, foram punidos (perda de fichas permutáveis por brinquedos). Em seguida, os participantes foram divididos em dois grupos, que passaram por um de dois procedimentos: (1) punição negativa de relatos não correspondentes; ou (2) reforçamento positivo de relatos correspondentes. A punição negativa somente de relatos de "não brincar" produziu um aumento no número de relatos não correspondentes de brincar para quatro crianças e, posteriormente, dificultou o restabelecimento da correspondência, seja sob uma punição negativa, seja sob reforçamento positivo.

Abstract The present study aimed to investigate the effect of presentation and withdrawal of reinforcers on verbal correspondence. Eight children individually played with toys, and then reported with what toys they had played. After baseline, reports of "no play", sometimes made individually, sometimes in groups, were punished (loss of tokens exchangeable for toys). Next, the participants were divided into two groups, whose participants underwent one of two procedures: (1) negative punishment of not corresponding reports; or (2) positive reinforcement of corresponding reports. The negative punishment of reports of "no play" produced an increase in the number of non-correspondent "play" reports for four children, and subsequently hindered the recovery of correspondence, either by negative punishment or by positive reinforcement.

Mediating Effect of Children's Self-Concept on the Relationship Between Parents' Negative Punishments and Children's Social Behaviors / 中国临床心理学杂志

Objective;To explore the relationship among parents' negative punishment,children's self-concept,and children's social behaviors.Methods;Data were collected from questionnaires given to a sample of 612 children from primary and secondary schools and their parents.Results;The structural equation modeling results showed parents' negative punishments could influence children's social behaviors directly and indirectly.In the indirect approach,through the mediating role of children's self-concept,parents' negative punishments could make a negative role on children's pro-social and aggressive behaviors,and a positive role on children's withdrawn behavior.In the direct approach,parents' negative punishments could make a positive effect on children's pro-social,aggressive and withdrawn behavior directly.Conclusion;Children's self-concept plays a mediating role between the relationship of parents' negative punishments and children's social behaviors.