Discusses the relevance of behavior analysis to higher education, including undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty, based on a three-contingency model of performance management. Natural contingencies, performance management contingencies, and theoretical contingencies are described, and applications of the model are discussed. (Contains 13…

Studies test validity of the instruments used to measure intrinsic motivation. Compares behavioral and self-report measures among undergraduates of intrinsic task interest to momentary mood, long-term motivational orientation, and interest in competing activities. Finds the behavioral measure depends on how treatments affect interest in…

Investigation expands upon the Erchul and Chewning (1990) study examining relational communication aspects of behavioral consultation. Study hypothesizes that the more a consultee follows the lead of a consultant, the more favorable the outcome for consultants. Results indicate participants were more controlling than those in previous study. One…

Discusses reasons for the limited behavior-analytic research about anxiety, describes recent developments in the experimental analysis of human behavior that make behavior-analytic study of anxiety more tenable, and examines some applied implications of these recent developments. Explores the term "anxiety" and recommends increased…

Assesses interpersonal aggression and aggression toward inanimate objects in a free-play setting where children played video games. Results indicated that subjects who played video games with aggressive content exhibited more object aggression during free-play and more interpersonal aggression during the frustrating situation than youngsters who…

Roger T. Kelleher, rightly known as one of the foremost contributors to behavioral pharmacology, also made many important contributions to the experimental analysis of behavior. He participated significantly in the development of the discipline, through both his research and his editorial contributions to this journal. This article summarizes his…

Daily administration of cocaine often results in the development of tolerance to its effects on responding maintained by fixed-ratio schedules. Such effects have been observed to be greater when the ratio value is small, whereas less or no tolerance has been observed at large ratio values. Similar schedule-parameter-dependent tolerance, however,…

The article discusses two important influences of B. F. Skinner, and later workers in the behavior-analytic tradition, on the study of animal timing. The first influence is methodological, and is traced from the invention of schedules imposing temporal constraints or periodicities on animals in "The Behavior of Organisms," through the rate…

The goal of the present study was to explore the emergence of verbal behavior resulting from the joint control of two antecedent stimuli that are presented together for the first time. Conditional discriminations were used for teaching and for probing. Four stimuli PI, P2, 0 1 , and 02 were samples and four stimuli Al, A2, BI, and B2 were the…

A linear combination of a set of measures is often sought as an overall score summarizing subject performance. The weights in this composite can be selected to maximize its reliability or to maximize its validity, and the optimal choice of weights is in general not the same for these two optimality criteria. We explore several relationships…

Behavioral contrast can be defined as an inverse relationship between the conditions of reinforcement in one setting and the rate of responding in another setting. Behavioral contrast is a phenomenon that is reliably demonstrated in pigeons and rats and in the context of multiple experimental preparations with these animals. However, little…

Comparative behavioral research is important for a number of reasons and can contribute to the understanding of human behavior and development in many different ways. Research with animal models of human behavior and development can be a source not only of general principles and testable hypotheses but also of empirical information that may be…

A need exists for a controlled examination of the variables that may affect the results of a behavior-based safety program. These include the rate of risky behaviors and how they relate to a contingent bonus payout (Experiment 1), and the relative amounts of honesty in injury reporting and rule following (Experiment 2). A simple task consisting of…

This paper presents an objective review, analysis, and comparison of empirical studies targeting the behavior of adults published in Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (JABA) and Journal of Organizational Behavior Management (JOBM) between 1997 and 2001. The purpose of the comparisons was to identify similarities and differences with respect to…

Recent reports using a classical behavior genetic research design in which twin data are combined with a measured characteristic of their shared family environment have made striking claims about estimating environmental influences on behavior with genetic effects controlled. Such claims are overstated for two related reasons. First, when a…