Efficacy of educational interventions to reduce homophobia on the *college campus

Homophobic attitudes, irrational fears and negative attitudes against gay men and lesbians exist on the college campus (Lance, 2002; Rankin, 2003). Educators wishing to change these attitudes need to know what types of intervention would be effective. This investigation empirically assessed the degree of homophobia in a group of college students, and changes in the degree of homophobia following two levels of educational intervention that were rooted in educational theories and social contact theory. A 25-item scale developed by Hudson and Ricketts to measure the degree of negative attitudes toward gay men and lesbians was used in English classes at a southeastern university. This study examined the relationship between different demographic groups and the degree of change obtained as a result of the interventions. ^ Findings did not suggest that either interaction with gay men and lesbians in the form of a speaker panel or viewing a “coming out” episode of the Ellen show reduced homophobia to a significant extent. Results did demonstrate the Caribbeans and right wing authoritarians tend to be more homophobic. Post hoc analysis investigated factors that may have contaminated the interventions. Speaker Identification was a significant predictor of change in degree of homophobia. ^

Operant and respondent procedures to establish social stimuli as reinforcers in children with autism

According to the DSM-IV- TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), one of the core deficits in autism is in the impairment of social interaction. Some have suggested that underlying these deficits is the reality that individuals with autism do not find social stimuli to be as reinforcing as other types of stimuli (Dawson, 2008). An interesting and growing body of literature supports the notion that symptoms in autism may be caused by a general reduction in social motivation (Chevallier et al., 2012). A review of the literature suggests that social orienting and social motivation are low in individuals with autism, and including social motivation as a target for therapeutic intervention should be pursued (Helt et al., 2008). Through our understanding of learning processes, researchers in behavior analysis and related fields have been able to use conditioning procedures to change the function of neutral or ineffective stimuli, including tokens (Ayllon & Azrin, 1968), facial expressions (Gewirtz & Pelaez-Nogueras, 1992) and praise (Dozier et al., 2012). The current study aimed to use operant and respondent procedures to condition social stimuli that were empirically shown to not be reinforcing prior to conditioning. Further, this study aimed to compare the two procedures in their effectiveness to condition social stimuli to function as reinforcers, and in their maintenance of effects over time. Using a multiple-baseline, multi-element design, one social stimulus was conditioned under each procedure to compare the different response rates following conditioning. Finally, the study sought to determine if conditioning social stimuli to function as reinforcers had any effect on the social functioning of young children with autism. Six children diagnosed with autism between the ages of 18 months and 3 years participated. Results show that the respondent procedure (pairing) resulted in more robust and enduring effects than the operant procedure (Sd procedure). Results of a social communication assessment (ESCS, Mundy et al., 2003) before and after conditioning demonstrate gains in all areas of social communication, particularly in the areas of initiating and responding to joint attention.^

Predictors of client retention in alternative to prison substance abuse programs

Increased treatment retention among substance abusing individuals has been associated with reduced drug use, fewer arrests, and decreased unemployment, as well as a reduction in health risk behaviors. This longitudinal study examined the predictors of client retention for alternative to prison substance abuse treatment programs through assessing the roles of motivational factors and the client-worker relationship. The sample was comprised of 141 male felony offenders who were legally mandated to community based long-term residential drug treatment programs. The primary measures used in the study were the consecutive days a participant remained in treatment, Stages of Change Readiness Model and Treatment Eagerness Scale (SOCRATES), the Working Alliance Inventory (WAI), and The Readiness Ruler. Hierarchical multiple regression analysis was conducted for four hypotheses (a) participants who are more motivated to change at the time of entry will remain in treatment longer, (b) participants who have a strong therapeutic alliance will remain in treatment a greater number of consecutive days than participants who have weaker therapeutic alliance, (c) motivation to change, as measured at treatment entry, will be positively related to therapeutic alliance, (d) during the course of treatment variation in motivation to change will be predicted by the therapeutic alliance. Results support the following conclusions: Among clients in alternative-to prison programs the number of days in treatment is positively related to their motivation to change. The therapeutic alliance is not a predictor of the number of days in treatment. Motivation to change, particularly recognition of a drug problem, is positively related to the therapeutic alliance. Changes in motivation to change in response to treatment are positively related to the therapeutic alliance among clients in an alternative to prison substance abuse treatment programs. These results carry forward prior research and have implications for social work practice, research, and social welfare policy.

A girl from Ohio

A GIRL FROM OHIO is a dark and comic novel about the plight of an older woman who wants to connect with a special man in post-9/11 New York City. Fortyeight year old Kathy has had boyfriends-but the wrong ones. She wants to find a good man for genuine love and commitment while at the same time doubting such a man exists. As she engages in her search via writing an ad for an Internet dating site, she recollects growing up in Ohio, past transgressions and an array of ill-fated relationships. When her interest with a special man, Jim, develops, Kathy struggles to trust herselfand Jim. After realizing that Jim is the real deal, Kathy softens her hardened exterior and opens herself to the possibility of having true love. In the end, Kathy learns that she has to allow herself to change. She must let love in.

Efficacy of Educational Interventions to Reduce Homophobia on the College Campus

Homophobic attitudes, irrational fears and negative attitudes against gay men and lesbians exist on the college campus (Lance, 2002; Rankin, 2003). Educators wishing to change these attitudes need to know what types of intervention would be effective. This investigation empirically assessed the degree of homophobia in a group of college students, and changes in the degree of homophobia following two levels of educational intervention that were rooted in educational theories and social contact theory. A 25-item scale developed by Hudson and Ricketts to measure the degree of negative attitudes toward gay men and lesbians was used in English classes at a southeastern university. This study examined the relationship between different demographic groups and the degree of change obtained as a result of the interventions. Findings did not suggest that either interaction with gay men and lesbians in the form of a speaker panel or viewing a “coming out” episode of the Ellen show reduced homophobia to a significant extent. Results did demonstrate the Caribbeans and right wing authoritarians tend to be more homophobic. Post hoc analysis investigated factors that may have contaminated the interventions. Speaker Identification was a significant predictor of change in degree of homophobia.

An Autoregressive Conditional Filtering Process to remove Intraday Seasonal Volatility and its Application to Testing the Noisy Rational Expectations Model

We develop a new autoregressive conditional process to capture both the changes and the persistency of the intraday seasonal (U-shape) pattern of volatility in essay 1. Unlike other procedures, this approach allows for the intraday volatility pattern to change over time without the filtering process injecting a spurious pattern of noise into the filtered series. We show that prior deterministic filtering procedures are special cases of the autoregressive conditional filtering process presented here. Lagrange multiplier tests prove that the stochastic seasonal variance component is statistically significant. Specification tests using the correlogram and cross-spectral analyses prove the reliability of the autoregressive conditional filtering process. In essay 2 we develop a new methodology to decompose return variance in order to examine the informativeness embedded in the return series. The variance is decomposed into the information arrival component and the noise factor component. This decomposition methodology differs from previous studies in that both the informational variance and the noise variance are time-varying. Furthermore, the covariance of the informational component and the noisy component is no longer restricted to be zero. The resultant measure of price informativeness is defined as the informational variance divided by the total variance of the returns. The noisy rational expectations model predicts that uninformed traders react to price changes more than informed traders, since uninformed traders cannot distinguish between price changes caused by information arrivals and price changes caused by noise. This hypothesis is tested in essay 3 using intraday data with the intraday seasonal volatility component removed, as based on the procedure in the first essay. The resultant seasonally adjusted variance series is decomposed into components caused by unexpected information arrivals and by noise in order to examine informativeness.

Effect of Performance Feedback on Perceived Knowledge and Likelihood to Pursue Continuing Education

The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of performance feedback on Athletic Trainers’ (ATs) perceived knowledge (PK) and likelihood to pursue continuing education (CE). The investigation was grounded in the theories of “the definition of the situation” (Thomas & Thomas, 1928) and the “illusion of knowing,” (Glenberg, Wilkinson, & Epstein, 1982) suggesting that PK drives behavior. This investigation measured the degree to which knowledge gap predicted CE seeking behavior by providing performance feedback designed to change PK. A pre-test post-test control-group design was used to measure PK and likelihood to pursue CE before and after assessing actual knowledge. ATs (n=103) were randomly sampled and assigned to two groups, with and without performance feedback. Two independent samples t-tests were used to compare groups on the difference scores of the dependent variables. Likelihood to pursue CE was predicted by three variables using multiple linear regression: perceived knowledge, pre-test likelihood to pursue CE, and knowledge gap. There was a 68.4% significant difference (t101= 2.72, p=0.01, ES=0.45) between groups in the change scores for likelihood to pursue CE because of the performance feedback (Experimental group=13.7% increase; Control group= 4.3% increase). The strongest relationship among the dependent variables was between pre-test and post-test measures of likelihood to pursue CE (F2,102=56.80, p<0.01, r=0.73, R2=0.53). The pre- and post-test predictive relationship was enhanced when group was included in the model. In this model [YCEpost=0.76XCEpre-0.34 Xgroup+2.24+E], group accounted for a significant amount of unique variance in predicting CE while the pre-test likelihood to pursue CE variable was held constant (F3,102=40.28, p<0.01,: r=0.74, R2=0.55). Pre-test knowledge gap, regardless of group allocation, was a linear predictor of the likelihood to pursue CE (F1,102=10.90, p=.01, r=.31, R2=.10). In this investigation, performance feedback significantly increased participants’ likelihood to pursue CE. Pre-test knowledge gap was a significant predictor of likelihood to pursue CE, regardless if performance feedback was provided. ATs may have self-assessed and engaged in internal feedback as a result of their test-taking experience. These findings indicate that feedback, both internal and external, may be necessary to trigger CE seeking behavior.

Investigating Stakeholders’ Preferences for Coral Reef Research Funding in Florida

Abstract: Heavily used and highly valuable, the Florida Reef is one of the world's most threatened ecosystems. Stakeholders from a densely urbanized coastal region in proximity to the reef system recognize its degradation, but their comprehension of climate change and commitment to pay for sustainable management and research funding have been opaque. With an emphasis on recreational anglers, residential stakeholders were surveyed online about their marine activities, perceptions of resources and threats, and willingness to pay (WTP) for dedicated coral reef research funding in Florida. The majority of stakeholders are wealthy, well educated, and politically independent. Supermajorities favored the two scenarios of taxation for a Florida Coral Reef Research Fund, and the scenario with matching federal funds earned higher support. In regression analyses, several factors emerged as significant contributors to stakeholders’ preferences, and the four recurring factors in extended models were prioritizing the environment over the economy, donating to environmental causes, concern about coral reefs, and concern about climate change, with the latter indicating a recent shift of opinion. Status in terms of income and education were found insignificant, and surprisingly income was negatively correlated with WTP. Perceptions through lenses of environmental and emotional attachments appear to overwhelm conventional status-based factors. Applied statewide, the first scenario's extrapolated WTP (based on a sales tax rate of 2.9%) would generate $675 million annually, and the extrapolated WTP under the second scenario, with matching federal funds (based on a sales tax rate of 3.0%) would generate $1.4 billion. Keywords: willingness to pay, coral reef research, taxation, climate change, stakeholder, perceptions, Florida Reef, recreational fishing, anglers

Operant and Respondent Procedures to Establish Social Stimuli as Reinforcers in Children with Autism

According to the DSM-IV- TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2000), one of the core deficits in autism is in the impairment of social interaction. Some have suggested that underlying these deficits is the reality that individuals with autism do not find social stimuli to be as reinforcing as other types of stimuli (Dawson, 2008). An interesting and growing body of literature supports the notion that symptoms in autism may be caused by a general reduction in social motivation (Chevallier et al., 2012). A review of the literature suggests that social orienting and social motivation are low in individuals with autism, and including social motivation as a target for therapeutic intervention should be pursued (Helt et al., 2008). Through our understanding of learning processes, researchers in behavior analysis and related fields have been able to use conditioning procedures to change the function of neutral or ineffective stimuli, including tokens (Ayllon & Azrin, 1968), facial expressions (Gewirtz & Pelaez-Nogueras, 1992) and praise (Dozier et al., 2012). The current study aimed to use operant and respondent procedures to condition social stimuli that were empirically shown to not be reinforcing prior to conditioning. Further, this study aimed to compare the two procedures in their effectiveness to condition social stimuli to function as reinforcers, and in their maintenance of effects over time. Using a multiple-baseline, multi-element design, one social stimulus was conditioned under each procedure to compare the different response rates following conditioning. Finally, the study sought to determine if conditioning social stimuli to function as reinforcers had any effect on the social functioning of young children with autism. Six children diagnosed with autism between the ages of 18 months and 3 years participated. Results show that the respondent procedure (pairing) resulted in more robust and enduring effects than the operant procedure (Sd procedure). Results of a social communication assessment (ESCS, Mundy et al., 2003) before and after conditioning demonstrate gains in all areas of social communication, particularly in the areas of initiating and responding to joint attention.