Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

Consequences’ function on the alteration of brands hierarchies (positioning) was examined from an operant perspective of symbolic behavior. Brands memory, preference, and purchase intention were compared between experimental and control groups. Experimental group received training, with informative consequences, of six functionally equivalent classes of stimuli.  Control group was exposed to a similar procedure, without informative consequences. It was found that informative consequences were positively associated with alteration in memory, preference, and purchase intention hierarchies, unlike from the absence of such consequences. It also discusses the consequences’ role in formation as well as in derived hierarchies alteration.

Given the limited attention to aversive control currently granted by contemporary behavior analysis, no consideration of this topic would be complete without a view to the future. If behavior analysis is ever to approximate Skinner’s vision of a comprehensive treatment of the psychological world, much remains to be done in the study of aversive control. This special issue closes with a “symposium” consisting of four essays that address intriguing future directions for research on aversive control. Investigators who are actively pursuing questions about aversive control were invited to introduce the general thrust of their work and to discuss its implications, including in revealing important unfinished business for an experimental analysis of aversive control.

Behavioral models of signal detection have focused almost exclusively on the effects of reinforcement for correct choices. In contrast, the effects of punishment for errors have been largely ignored. Two competing models of punishment can be derived from research using simple concurrent-schedule procedures. Subtractive models predict that punishers directly subtract from the effects of reinforcers for the same response alternative, and additive models predict that the effects of punishers add onto the effects of reinforcers obtained for the other response alternative. These two models were incorporated into Davison and Tustin’s (1978) model of signal-detection performance. Some preliminary research using human subjects in a signal-detection procedure provides support for an additive punishment version of the Davison and Tustin model.

The opinion put forward in this article is that verbal processes may play a crucial role in the establishment and maintenance of aversive control in humans, and can give rise to behaviors that are not predicted by traditional behavioranalytic theories. For example, behavior can be controlled by aversive consequences that have never been contacted. These verbal processes may play a key role in some psychopathologies, such as phobias and anxiety. The basic research on this topic – although limited – is supportive, but more studies are needed to fully explore this important area.

This study assessed the effects of signal duration and td duration on response acquisition of lever-pressing by rats. Thirty naïve male Wistar rats were exposed to one of ten different 32-s temporally defined schedules of delayed, signaled reinforcement. Reinforcement cycles were divided into two temporal time windows, td and t delta; responses emitted during td produced reinforcement at the end of the cycle; responses emitted during t delta had no programmed consequences. td was located at the beginning of the reinforcement cycle and was fixed at one of two different values (4-s or 8-s). The first response emitted during td produced an audible tone of different duration; tone duration was varied across groups Results showed variability, however evidence of response acquisition was more apparent with the long td duration and with the longer signals. This effect could probably be attributed to the interaction of Pavlovian, and mnemic variables with stimulus discrimination processes.

The effect of three conditions of variation of the second-order stimuli (SOSi) across trials in a conditional discrimination task was investigated in human adult participants. The conditions were: (a) no variation; (b) partial variation (only in shape and color); and (c) total variation (in shape, color, size and filling weft). Identity and difference relations were examined. Each group received only a single combination of type of relation and type of SOSi variation. For all groups there were four Phases: baseline (A); training with a new set of sample and comparison stimuli and feedback (B); intramodal transfer test with the same sample and comparison stimuli of the Phase A (C); and extramodal transfer test (D). The partial and total variation conditions generated the highest percentages of correct responses in Phases B and C, but only in some participants from the identity groups in these two conditions evidence of extramodal transfer was clearly attained. These results suggest that a greater variety of the SOSi facilitates the discrimination of the relation between these stimuli and, this way, the development of abstract performances in this kind of tasks.

Developmental perspective postulates that behavior organization is the result of the reciprocal and dynamic interaction with their social ecology, emphasizing situational factors which affect subsequent behavior. This paper examines the effect of behavioral, cognitive and group factors on behavioral patterns of coercive on-risk children. Ten elementary school on-risk children and ten matched controls from third grade were followed for two years with a multi-method strategy. Data analysis indicates that on-risk children differ from matched children in behavioral and cognitive aspects, and in their social networks. Some on-risk children are central in the social network, and teachers perceive them as more conflictive than matched children. For on-risk children, provocations are facilitating stimulus of coercive episodes, whereas for matched children these events were inhibitory stimulus. For on-risk children, school interaction may consolidate patterns of coercive behavior. Teachers’ perception, coercive and punitive environment and social relations with peers are central in the consolidation of differential patterns.

The objective of the present research was to apply intervention strategies to improve the interactions of the mother-child dyad, as a way to improve the academic performance and the behavior in first grade students of the low socio-cultural stratum. The effectiveness of two strategies was compared through the comparison of three homogenous groups composed of 15 dyads each. Group A received training to improve dyadic interactions; in Group B exclusively mothers were trained to improve their raising practices; Group C did not receive training at all. Each strategy was applied in 20 two-hour sessions per week. The effectiveness of the strategies was evaluated measuring its effects in three dependent variables: raising practices reported by mothers and children, academic performance (scholar average), and children’s behavior in the classroom before and after the intervention. The best results were observed in Group A, considering the three dependent variables. The implications, contributions, and limitations of the study are discussed.

Brief intervention, involving a single session, holds promise as a feasible and effective approach to school-based intervention with adolescent drinkers. In this paper, we report results from a randomized clinical trial evaluating the effectiveness of a single session of school-based brief counseling. We worked with a sample of 40 teenagers, who were randomly assigned into two groups: treatment (n = 23) or waiting-list control (n = 17). In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the program, longitudinal group analyses of consumption patterns and high-risk drinking behaviors were conducted. Brief counseling was effective in lowering alcohol consumption and alcohol among treatment participants. Significant differences between treatment and control groups were observed at both 3- and 6-months post-treatment. Results support the feasibility of conducting brief counseling for adolescent drinking in school environments.

Variability, previously treated as experimental noise, has become the object of systematic study. In studies of behavior there has been a high level of consistency in data referring to the initial appearance and maintenance of variability. However, research on behavioral variability includes theoretical/conceptual questions that still need to be addressed. This paper discusses the concept of variability and proposes criteria for encompassing the wide range of existing research and other work yet to be produced in this area. It is suggested that the difference between behaviors constitutes the property common to the universe of variable behaviors, and that this property can be modified or induced by reinforcement. If this is the common property of behavioral variability, the various uses of the term can be understood and grouped from a small number of criteria employed in scientific methodology. We consider the characteristics or properties in the units involved, the complexity and number of such units,the quantitative or qualitative type of the units and comparisons between them, and whether the units are considered in molecular or molar terms.