Within the context of behavioral economics, the ratio of response requirements to reinforcer magnitude is called "unit price." In this investigation, we yoked increases in reinforcer magnitude with increases in intervals of differential reinforcement of other behavior (DRO) to thin DRO intervals to a terminal value. (Contains 1 figure.)

This exploration of what feminism has to contribute to pragmatism, and vice versa, considers the idea of contextuality through an examination of the role of current pragmatists, such as Cornel West and Richard Rorty, and current feminists, including Charlene Haddock Siegfried, Maxine Greene, and Seyla Benhabib. To set the stage historically for…

In this study, preschoolers were observed in the naturalistic preschool context to determine the development of private speech over the preschool years and contextual influences on its occurrence among 3- to 5-year-olds. Thirty-nine preschoolers were observed in their preschool classroom 4 times in 10-minute segments during free choice play…

In contextualized instruction, the critical features of a context are considered important for the acquisition and transfer of a skill. Examples of contextualized instruction programs are Functional Context Education (FCE) and Anchored Instruction (AI). FCE involves the teaching of reading and mathematics skills in contexts that are relevant to…

Many studies measure developmental continuity in terms of an individual's maintenance of position on a given variable relative to the group studied. Such a measure is external to the individual and without reference to the function of the behavior for the individual. Research also tends to deal with variables rather than persons as the entities of…

This study investigated questions asked during two types of mother-child interaction and demonstrated ways in which mother-child dyads may structure their interactions differently in different settings. Participants were 16 first-born girls between 2.5 and 3.5 years of age who were videotaped on four occasions when they played in their home for 15…

The strength of the tendency of children (aged 4 1/2 to 7 1/2 years) to give phenomenist reading of neutral questions about object properties was investigated. Phenomenist answers decreased with age, and social dominance and conversational context affected answers. (SKC)

Measures of visual alertness, irritability, and activity based on repeated observations in equivalent situational contexts showed good intersession stabilities, which were consistently higher than measures based on lengthier over-all session observations, and substantially higher than stabilities typically reported for measures of newborn…

Preschoolers were accurate in identifying the situational determinants of others' real emotions. Their strategies for remediating negative affect in others were consistent with the type and attributional basis of the emotion to be altered. Further, they used contextual information in significantly different and meaningful ways across and within…

Involving children three and four years of age, studies examined the basis for the difficulty of discriminating between left-right orientations of a shape in standard two-choice task. It was concluded that difficulty of left-right judgments lies in the cognitive demands of the task and is to be understood in the same terms as other problems in…

In three experiments, the effect of additional "contextual" elements on the discrimination of the orientation of linear and curvilinear segments was investigated with four-month-old infants. Results suggest that, regarding certain stimuli and techniques of measurement, surrounding contextual segments can aid the discrimination of linear…

To examine the antecedents and consequences of social comparison exchanges of preschool children, this paper describes and analyzes several examples of such behavior. Data provide variegated descriptions of the social components of comparison behaviors in naturally occurring classroom contexts. (Author/RH)

Examines the issue of developmental consistencies between and within levels of moral reasoning, altruism, and perspective coordination. The relative contributions of perspective coordination and moral reasoning to altruistic behavior were examined in fifth grade. (Author/RH)

Examines various situations in which young children use social comparison to elicit understanding from a peer. Data are drawn from naturalistic observations of three- , four- , and five-year-olds. Children used social comparison to seek information, agreement, permission, compliance, verbal responsiveness, and attention. (Author/RH)

Examines the conditions under which children and adults use indexical words to refer to objects or to corefer with nouns in discourse. Subjects at three ages (6, 10, and adult) performed simple tasks and described their actions. (Author/AS)