Research on praise, in support of a growth mindset, has overwhelmingly focused on children. We explored how praise influences performance in college students. Colleges are often challenged to respond to students' established mindsets in the face of increasingly demanding coursework. Specifically, we examined how fear of failure may alter the…

Teaching toilet training skills to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can be challenging. Many techniques use Azrin and Foxx's Rapid Toilet Training method (RTT). However, some children with ASD find the first RTT step of entering the bathroom or restroom to be challenging due to the relatively loud sound of the toilet flushing. Although…

Background: Parenting behaviors have consistently been shown to be associated with elevated anxiety symptoms and disorders in children. However, this literature is limited as most studies have focused on global rather than specific parenting behaviors, failed to consistently account for the influence of parental anxiety, and omitted examining…

The bank foreclosed on your home because your parents divorced and don't have enough money to pay the mortgage. You're locked out of your house. Where will the family sleep? Most families turn to friends and relatives at times like these. That's why about 75 percent of the 1,258,182 homeless students in the United States live…

One-Session Treatment (OST) is a form of massed exposure therapy for the treatment of specific phobias. OST combines exposure, participant modeling, cognitive challenges, and reinforcement in a single session, maximized to three hours. Clients are gradually exposed to steps of their fear hierarchy using therapist-directed behavioral experiments.…

Perhaps one of the fastest ways to improve the quality of out-of-school time programs would be to replace practices that individuals know do not work with practices that appear to be more effective. In this brief, the authors highlight lessons from an expanding body of knowledge about specific program practices that should be avoided or minimized…

Research supported in part by Grant MH-13651-01 from the National Institute of Mental Health, U.S. Public Health Service.

Investigated the active components of covert positive reinforcement that consisted of an S-R modality, a reinforcement procedure, and a demand for expectancy of success. Results of the behavioral avoidance test indicated that subjects in the overt S-R modality groups approached closer to the rat. (Author)

Examined the relations among self-esteem, perceived competency to cope, and actual coping behaviors following a threat communication. Manipulated threat level of a tetanus communication and fear level of an antismoking film. Results indicated low-esteem subjects showed coping deficits in both experiments, with positive feedback reversing the…

This study of the outcomes of treatment of three children with autism, to reduce fear of dental examinations, found that the children could be trained through a combined desensitization, symbolic modeling, and reinforcement treatment package to undergo a dental exam in an analog setting, and the training could generalize somewhat to a clinical…