Behavior Modification

Women who have been incarcerated are a high-risk group for criminal recidivism, and criminal justice statistics indicate that females are increasing in numbers more rapidly than the male detainee population. According to data from epidemiologic studies, incarcerated women are often young, single, mothers from ethnic minority backgrounds who have little education and poorwork histories. Mental illness, drug abuse, and risky behaviors relating to contracting HIV/AIDS are common problems among female detainees. In this report, research into characteristics of women in jail and literature relating to treatment programs for incarcerated women are reviewed. Implications relating to treatment needs, program development, and further research are, Hurbert, Sarmiento discussed. A case example and treatment intervention are presented based on this review.

Fifty-four female participants with hypoactive sexual desire disorder supplied daily reports of their sexual desire and motivation. The relation between desire and motivation remained statistically significant when controlling for sexual compatibility, sexual stress, sexual fantasy, and marital and sexual satisfaction. Findings suggest that (a) women higher in sexual compatibility experience greater sexual motivation regardless of their marital and sexual satisfaction, their sexual desire intensity, and depressive symptomatology; and (b) the relation between sexual compatibility and sexual desire is mediated by the propensity of those women high in sexual compatibility to have greater marital and sexual satisfaction.Within-subject analyses that controlled for autocorrelation and linear trends in the time series revealed that 40% of the women experienced significantly higher sexual motivation on greater sexual desire days.Adiscussion of these findings and evidence for the addition of sexual motivation as a distinct phase in the human sexual response cycle are explored.

A3-year-old child with multiple medical disorders and chronic food refusalwas treated successfully using a program that incorporated antecedent control procedures combined with positive reinforcement. The antecedent manipulations included visual cueing of a criterion number of self-feeding responses that were required during meals to receive reinforcement and a gradual increase in the imposed criterion (demand fading) that was based on improved frequency of oral consumption. As evaluated in a changing criterion design, the child learned to feed himself as an outcome of treatment. One year following intervention, hewas consuming a variety of foods and had gained weight. Advantages of antecedent control methods for the treatment of chronic food refusal are discussed.

Positive practice overcorrection (PPOC) has long played a significant role in the behavioral treatment of serious self-stimulatory behavior. Three experiments comparing the effectiveness of 30-second, 2-minute, and 8-minute PPOC on reduction of stereotypic hand behavior of adults with severe to profound developmental disabilities were conducted to resolve inconsistencies in previously reported findings concerning the role of PPOC duration in response suppression. Experiment 1, which used an alternating treatments-multiple baseline design, suggested that the different durations were equally effective in reducing the stereotypic behaviors to near-zero levels. Experiment 2, which used a reversal design, supported the findings of Experiment 1. Experiment 3, which used a reversal design to test the shortest and longest durations, generally confirmed the results of the first two experiments. This study therefore failed to support the oft-claimed superiority of long-duration PPOC. The possible factors underlying these findings and their implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Fear sometimes returns after attenuation via exposure. Return of fear is poorly understood due to conflicting results from diverse experiments. This article reports on two experiments in which claustrophobic fear during mock diagnostic imagingwas attenuated and allowed to return so the experiments could be evaluated and return of fear studied. Attentional focus versus distraction during exposure was a between-subjects independent variable. Attempts were made to predict return of fear, return of heart-rate responsivity, and behavioral avoidance using levels of fear and heart-rate during initial mock diagnostic imaging as predictor variables. One third of participants displayed return of fear, heart-rate response, or avoidance 1 week after fear reduction. Heart-rate response during initial mock imaging predicted posttreatment return-of-fear classification; level of fear during initial imaging did not. Neither initial heart rate nor initial fear predicted return of heartrate reactivity or avoidance. The experiments are offered as models for programmatic research.

A 3-year-old medically fragile girl who refused to eat after prolonged and frequent hospitalizationswas started on a feeding program in the home and school settings. She exhibited food aversions and received all nourishment via a gastronomy tube. Preevaluation observations of her feeding behavior revealed that she refused all presented drinks and foods. Treatment was twofold. First, food acceptance was followed by social praise and access to preferred toy play, and second, food refusal and disruptive behaviors were ignored. Gagging, vomiting, and crying occurred periodically during initial feedings. In addition, there were medical complications during the course of treatment necessitating continuous modifications of the program. Results of a multiple-phase design showed marked increases in the amount of food consumed at home, which then generalized to the school setting.

Newtechniques for measuring preference between reinforcers have emerged in a field known as behavioral economics. Preference is assessed from the relative shapes of reinforcer demand functions, shown in graphs in which rate of reinforcement is plotted against schedule requirement. In economic terminology, a schedule requirement sets the price of a reinforcer as it sets the numbers of responses needed to obtain a reinforcer. Relative shapes of demand functions for alternative reinforcers are interpreted using the principle of revealed preference, as the shape of a demand function reflects the numbers of responses emitted to obtain reinforcers at each schedule requirement. Individual preferences between reinforcers are measured from differences in shapes of demand functions. Demand functions from two single subject experiments are examined to assess the hypothesis that individuals may generate differently shaped demand functions for the same reinforcers. It is hypothesized that individual differences in reinforcer preference may be related to consistent differences in behavior such as those observed in personality traits.

According to recent research, deliberate suppression of unwanted thoughts may result in a paradoxical increase in their frequency. Recent cognitive-behavioral theories of obsessivecompulsive disorder now consider active thought suppression to be a crucial factor in the pathogenesis of obsessions. However, there are considerable inconsistencies in the results of studies investigating the thought suppression paradox that make it difficult to apply findings to obsessional problems. Furthermore, many studies have low ecological validity for obsessional problems. This article reviews the thought suppression research, discusses methodological issues relevant to application of the thought suppression paradox to obsessional problems, and offers recommendations for future research.