In our everyday life, we often need to anticipate the potential occurrence of events and their consequences. In this context, the way we represent contingencies can determine our ability to adapt to the environment. However, it is not clear how agents encode and organize available knowledge about the future to react to possible states of the…

Contingency management is an incentive-based intervention strategy that has been demonstrated to be effective for inducing behavior change among a variety of populations and for a variety of behaviors. The current study examined whether contingency management techniques can help students change behaviors in an effort to raise their grade point…

Reports a study conducted to determine whether individuals who observed others experiencing noncontingency would develop learned helplessness vicariously. Subjects were 75 college female undergraduates. (MP)

In two studies undergraduates with low self-esteem followed reinforcement paradigms. Found overt events to be preferable as reinforcers, although no differences existed between reinforcement groups and both did better than controls. Also found desirable behaviors that occurred infrequently, and very frequent but neutral behaviors, to be the most…

This study assessed the effectiveness of posting signs for reducing graffiti in three men's restrooms on a college campus. Immediately following the intervention, no marks were made, and results were maintained at three-month follow-up. A possible explanation for the results is that the signs specified an altruistic contingency. (Author/DB)

This paper provides students with a brief outline of behavioral principles and behavior change techniques, and describes various means of behavior change including operant conditioning. Methods discussed include reinforcement, extinction, punishment, response cost, time-out, overcorrection, training, and data collection for taking a baseline.…

Research investigating the performance of students enrolled in courses taught by a Personalized System of Instruction (PSI) has tended to support the claim that PSI is a superior teaching method. The present research study isolated the self-pacing aspect of PSI courses and attempted to teach 13 academically deficient first year college students…