RSS 1.0Psychology Graduate Theses
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The Effects of Verbal Stimuli on Behavior Regulation during Response Deficit: An Exploration into AugmentingLanguage plays a pivotal role in governing human behavior through rules, influencing both adaptive and maladaptive behaviors. Research has shown that rule-governed behavior often becomes rigid, leading to insensitivity to changing contingencies and contributing to psychological distress. While traditional models of rule-governance provide valuable insights, they fail to explain how verbal stimuli specify contingencies. Relational Frame Theory (RFT) addresses this limitation by explaining rule-governance through contextual cues and derived stimulus relations. Within this framework, augmentals are said to modify the value of events and are categorized as either formative or motivative. While formative augmentals establish given consequences as reinforcers or punishers through trained stimulus relations, motivative augmentals temporarily alter the extent to which previously established consequences function as reinforcers or punishers. Limited research has explored the effects of motivative augmentals within the RFT framework. The study investigated the effects of motivative augmentals on behavior during response deficit condition, employing the disequilibrium model to assess changes in instrumental (advertisement watching) and contingent (video watching) activities. Results showed that the presentation of candidate augmentative verbal stimuli—during a response deficit contingency—lead to reductions in both instrumental and contingent activities compared to that of deficit alone conditions for 7/8 particiapnts. The findings of the study could suggest that motivative augmentals temporarily alter the perceived value of events, and therefore, the regulation of behavior during deficit.
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An Analysis of Rules that Mimic the Effects of Response Disequilibrium ContingenciesThis study investigated the impact of rules operating as contingency-specifying stimuli (CSS). The primary focus was on whether rules could specify a contingency that alters the functions of advertisements and videos. Integrating Relational Frame Theory (RFT) and Response Disequilibrium Theory (RDT), it was examined whether rules with comparative contextual cues mimicked the effects of response deficit contingencies. Ten Salem State University undergraduate students participated in a counterbalanced study with three baselines that preceded or followed two experimental conditions: Deficit and Rules. During each baseline phase of the study, advertisements and videos were freely available for viewing. Similarly, advertisements and videos were freely available for viewing during the Rules condition. Rules were framed comparatively across the dimensions of "more" and "better" to increase the duration of time spent viewing advertisements (e.g., "Click more Ads to see better Vids"). In the Deficit condition, a response deficit contingency was arranged to increase the viewing duration of advertisements. The results indicated that Rules had an effect that increased participants" advertisement viewing duration, which resembled the effect of the response deficit contingency. This research advances our understanding of verbally-regulated behavior changes, as the effect of rules approximated the effect of disequilibrium contingencies.
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Browsing in Disequilibrium: How Media Behaviors are Influenced by Excess and DeficitThe widespread use of smartphones has made it easier to browse the internet and consume various forms of media, including videos and advertisements. This study aimed to investigate the effects of restricting video access while increasing exposure to advertisements. Specifically, we examined whether participants would watch fewer videos when exposed to more advertisements and whether they would tolerate more ads to gain additional video-watching time. We recruited four students from Salem State University to participate in an experiment designed to manipulate their video and advertisement viewing behavior. Baseline levels of advertisement and video viewing behaviors were measured to create two conditions of disequilibrium: Deficit and Excess. Deficit conditions restricted access to videos while Excess conditions bombarded participants with more advertisements than they viewed during baseline. The results demonstrated that disequilibrium could alter participants' media consumption habits by increasing or decreasing time spent watching advertisements and videos. The current study also examined the nature of “browsing” during disequilibrium. Noncontingent browsing was available to determine whether or not participants would engage in this alternative behavior during disequilibrium conditions. Lastly, the current study highlights the ethical implications of disequilibrium, as companies could potentially exploit it for profit.
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Practical Application of Behavior Analysis with Wild Animals in a Sanctuary SettingWhile applied behavior analysis (ABA) is associated with human services, there is a historical basis for applying behavior analytic principles and procedures to the behaviors of domestic and wild animals. Recent research indicates that there are already procedural similarities between the work of applied behavior analysts and animal behavior professionals. A pronounced difference, however, is the absence of behavioral data collected in zoological settings. Caretakers report that they understand the importance of data collection but cite a lack of time and financial resources as barriers. This study explored alternative data collection methods at an educational wolf sanctuary using visitor collected data. Visitors were asked to collect data on either one or two animal behaviors during a 50-minute presentation. Interobserver agreement was calculated to determine whether visitors could collect data in agreement with an independent observer. Results indicated that visitor collected data was within the acceptable range of agreement. Additionally, Q methodology was used to measure visitor beliefs about captive wildlife before and after attending an educational presentation with captive gray wolves present. Results indicated that while visitor beliefs varied from pre- to post-sort, these changes were not statistically significant.
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Is the Lewis (LEW) Rat an Appropriate Control for the Spontaneously Hypertensive Rat (SHR)?The Spontaneously Hypertensive rat (SHR), the most widely accepted rodent-model of Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), is compared with its normotensive control the Wistar Kyoto (WKY) rat looking for between strains differences in impulsive choice. But the WKY is not a proper control for the SHR when the procedure requires locomotion to choose. The SHR has deficiencies in dopamine activity in nucleus accumbens causing lower tolerance to delayed outcomes than the WKY. Locomotion and anomalies in dopamine in the Lewis (LEW) rat are like those in the SHR, suggesting that the LEW is a good control for the SHR. This possibility was analyzed with SHRs and LEWs responding to concurrent-chains procedures. Choice was measured in the initial link where two random interval schedules arranged entries to two terminal links, one delivering 1-food pellet immediately and the other delaying 4-food pellets 0.1, 5, 10, 20, 40, or 80 s. Impulsive choice increased with training, but the SHRs showed faster changes in preference, making more impulsive choices than the LEWs. The hyperbolic-decay model and the generalized matching law fitted the data well. Positive correlations between discounting rate and sensitivity of choice to the immediacy of reinforcement suggests compatibility between the models of choice.
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Delay Discounting and Polydipsia in Spontaneously Hypertensive and Lewis RatsThe choices made by Spontaneously Hypertensive Rats (SHRs) were compared with those made by the Lewis rats (LEWs) responding to a concurrent-chains procedure varying the delay to the larger later reinforcement (LLR). Impulsive choice was measured in conditions where a bottle of water was or was not available in the choice situation. Both strains produced discounting functions with proportions of choice decreasing with increasing delay to the LLR. At the beginning of training the LEWs made more impulsive choices than the SHR, but late in training both strains produced similar discounting rates suggesting same levels of impulsivity. Sensitivity of choice to the magnitude of the LLR also increased with extended training in the choice situation. Adding the bottle of water to the choice situation did not affect the impulsive choices made by the SHRs and the LEWs, but both strains developed polydipsia indicating that it was induced by food, with the SHRs drinking substantially more water than the LEWs. Licking mostly occurred in blackouts and before starting the choice cycles, showing a tendency to decrease in the initial and terminal links of the concurrent-chains procedure. Licking persisted when the water was removed from the choice situation, but the spout of the bottle was available for the rats to lick, indicating that water was not necessary to maintain licking. Overall, these findings support the laws of allocation, induction, and covariance (Baum, 2018a, 2018b).
