A strategy for facilitating post-treatment weight maintenance was examined. Subjects were matched for age, sex, and amount of weight that they desired to lose and were then assigned to one of two groups. Both groups were under contracts and had individually designed self-control programs for weight loss, but subjects in the experimental group lost weight in small steps and subjects in the control group lost weight continuously. The experimental group was predicted to have better weight maintenance after treatment because of a greater number of reinforcements for weight loss. Two-month follow-up data was obtained on the ten subjects who completed the study, and the experimental group was found to have regained significantly less than the control group after treatment ended. The implications of these results for obesity research are discussed.

A paired-associate list of three-word stimuli and one-word responses comprised the first list of an A-B, A-Br paradigm. Each of the three words from the first-list three-word stimuli was singly re-paired with first-list responses to make up three of the second-list conditions. The fourth second-list condition used the first-list stimuli plus re-paired first-list responses. Results obtained were that: (a) nine of the sixteen subjects spontaneously shifted encoding cues from first to second lists, (b) evidence of significantly greater negative transfer occurred only in the A-B, A1 2 3-Br condition, and (c) although not attaining significance level, across all A -Br conditions there were more errors on second-list learning for those not shifting encoding cues from first to second list. For those who did shift, performance was only slightly lower than the A-B, C-B control condition. Neither the encoding variability nor the associative variability theory was entirely supported. A gestalt interpretation was suggested.

This study investigated what relationship might exist between the parents' view of their interactions with their children and the degree of person orientation in their children's vocational interests. The hypotheses of this study were that the parents of subjects with toward-person-oriented vocational interests would perceive their interactions with their children as being more loving and overtly attentive than parents of subjects with away-from-person-oriented vocational interests. It was further hypothesized that these differences would be greater for males than for females.

The marketing of personnel assessment services by a variety of individuals and groups has developed into a highly competitive, somewhat unstable, and unusually controversial major American merchandising effort. This study contains a review of the promotional materials and activities of several commercial assessment organizations. Emphasis has been placed upon various "scientific breakthroughs" in the field, including, when possible, the descriptive as well as the predictive utilities that are claimed to result from their use. Three procedures were studied under actual industrial conditions, using tenure and productivity measures as criteria. None of the procedures was found to be significantly predictive in this instance.

This study investigated the use of electromyographic feedback in regulating the frequency of part-word repetitions. Two adult stutterers, one female (Subject A) and one male (Subject B) were employed. The frequency of part-word repetitions during baserate, EMG uV raising, and EMG uV lowering conditions was assessed for Subject B. As hypothesized, results indicate that there was a notable decline in the frequency of part-word repetitions during the EMG uV lowering sessions. However, contrary to the second hypothesis, (i.e. that an increase in EMG uV would correspond with an increase in part-word repetitions) there was also a decline in the frequency of part-word repetitions during the EMG raising sessions.

The present study examined whether a relationship exists between level of rigidity and prejudicial attitudes and whether prejudiced attitudes could be modified as a function of exposure to a competent black model. It was predicted that individuals with a high level of rigidity would display more racial prejudice than low-rigid individuals and that individuals with a low level of rigidity would demonstrate less prejudice than high-rigid individuals after exposure to a competent model. After exposure to a competent model, a significant main effect for rigidity was found which indicated that low-rigid individuals became less prejudiced than high-rigid individuals,

A fifty-item questionnaire, representing personality attributes related to behaviors used to index the phenomenon of learned helplessness, was administered to 152 undergraduate students. Based upon factor analysis of the results, six subscales were developed to predict latency of response, failures to solve, and trials to task criterion of anagram solving, this being used to index the phenomenon of learned helplessness. The subscales comprised a ninety-item questionnaire given to seventy-seven undergraduate students three days before participation in the experiment proper. The subjects attempted to solve Levine (1971) discrimination problems (designed to be insolvable) and then attempted to solve patterned anagrams. Contrary to the learned helpless model of depression (Miller and Seligman, 1973), depression was curvilinearly related to latency of response and failures to solve in the anagram task. In addition, internal locus of control was linearly related to trials to criterion.