Social scientists often rely on economic experiments such as ultimatum and dictator games to understand human cooperation. Systematic deviations from economic predictions have inspired broader conceptions of self-interest that incorporate concerns for fairness. Yet no framework can describe all of the major results. We take a different approach by…

Comments on the original article "Do people's self-views matter? Self-concept and self-esteem in everyday life," by W. B. Swann, Jr., C. Chang-Schneider, and K. L. McClarty (2007). Swann et al argued that people's self-views, and their global self-esteem in particular, yield a suite of behavioral effects that are beneficial to the individual and…

Purpose: Many education for sustainable development (ESD) programs are designed to change attitudes and values toward the natural environment. However, psychological research indicates that several factors in addition to attitude influence behavior, including contextual support, social norms, action difficulty, and habitual behavior. Thus, if…

Two fundamental behavior functions are associated with single-subject experimental research: the subject's orderly behavior actually occurring in the experiment of interest and the subject's average orderly behavior across all possible theoretical replications of the experiment of interest. General approaches in investigating both behavior…

Evidence about memory for order information comes from a number of different methodologies: human cognition, patient studies, neuroimaging studies, and animal lesion and behavioral studies. The present article discusses (a) evidence that order and item memory are separable; (b) proposed mechanisms for order memory (interitem associations, direct…

This rejoinder discusses some common points raised in the commentaries of this special issue of JOBM, including (1) different definitions of positive and negative, (2) use of the terms reinforcement and establishing operation, and (3) concerns over the abandonment of behavior analysis for mentalistic research. In addition, a people-based approach…

Discusses behaviors which culminate in suicide attempts and relates these to the biological concept of conservation-withdrawal. Clinical advantages to this conceptualization are presented. (Author/JMF)

Examines the pattern of eye movements of skilled adult readers when encountering a surprise ending to a story. Suggests that processing at the discourse level must be considered as an influence on the eye movement control system. (NKA)

Investigated the effects of experimenter status and sex and instructional set on the size of "sexy" and "average" human figure drawings by students. Results showed no effects for experimenter status or sex. "Sexy" drawings were consistently drawn larger than "average" drawings and male figures were drawn…

This reflection on major developments in the past, present, and future of the wider field of violence and trauma is a personal (and probably biased) sampling of what the authors hold to be important. The authors reviewed advances for victims and perpetrators of violence separately. For victims, the authors note that empirical research has…

This article reviews empirical literature on psychological vulnerability to completed suicide. Five constructs have been consistently associated with completed suicide: impulsivity/aggression; depression; anxiety; hopelessness; and self-consciousness/social disengagement. Current knowledge of psychological vulnerability could inform social…

Investigates the developmental and ecological determinants of children's use of privacy markers and rules in the home. Children's chronological age is consistently related to increases in privacy, though physical maturity accounts for a large portion of the age trends. Both age and sex effects are modified by situational factors. (Author/MA)

Discusses why agentic and idiographic approaches (in combination with more typical nomothetic, nonagentic studies) may enhance the predictive accuracy of psychological experiments. Presents study on exercise behavior of 42 college student subjects and analyzes it from 3 perspectives: nonagentic-nomothetic, nonagentic-idiographic, and…

The medial temporal lobe (MTL) has been studied extensively at all levels of analysis, yet its function remains unclear. Theory regarding the cognitive function of the MTL has centered along 3 themes. Different authors have emphasized the role of the MTL in episodic recall, spatial navigation, or relational memory. Starting with the temporal…

Critiques recent research on the social evaluation of assertive speech. Proposes an alternative theoretical framework, based on speech act theory. Assertiveness is viewed as a style of conversation occurring in complex interpersonal contexts. (Author/BJV)