Behavioral assessment

This thesis investigated situational and personality moderating
variables' interaction in determining attitude-behavior correspondence.
Experimental participants completed the Self-Monitoring Scale and an
index measuring attitude favorability towards affirmative action. High
and low self-monitors then rendered verdicts (the behavioral measure)
on a mock affirmative action lawsuit after being given one of three
situational expectations: 1) discussion with a pro-affirmative action
partner; 2) discussion with an anti-affirmative action partner; or 3)
no discussion. Participants expecting no discussion had significantly
greater attitude-behavior correlations than those expecting a
discussion. Attitude-behavior correlations did not vary as a function
of self-monitoring, the personal moderating variable. Correlations
were not determined by expectation and self-monitoring interactions.
Behavior was not correlated with participants' perceptions of their
partner. The results' research and theoretical implications were
discussed in terms of situational constraint, predicting behavior in
constraining situations, and an interaction approach to predicting
attitude-behavior relationships.

Historically, there have been questions concerning the areas and methods of assessment that are appropriate with individuals with profound handicaps. Recently, research efforts toward the assessment of biobehavioral states of these individuals have been advocated. The purpose of this study was to examine how biobehavioral states and orienting responses might be influenced by environmental variables. More specifically, this study involved investigation into whether increasing degrees of stimulation provided through individuals, activities, and objects in the environment appeared to influence the biobehavioral states of the subjects. Additionally, the influence of time of day, day of week, the position of the subject, and the subject's prior state were explored. Five subjects were selected from a classroom for students with profound mental handicaps in southeast Florida. Subjects were observed using a partial-interval recording procedure and a previously developed and piloted instrument. Each subject was observed for 20 observation periods with each period consisting of 15, 20 second intervals. These observation periods were evenly distributed across mornings and afternoons and across the days of the week. Subjects were randomly selected for the order of observations. One additional rater was used in addition to the investigator for reliability purposes. The overall reliability coefficients for all observed variables exceeded.90. All environmental variables and the prior state variable were crosstabulated with the state variable and the significance of each bivariate relationship was tested using the chi-square statistic. All environmental variables, with the exception of the continuous auditory stimulation variable, shared a statistically significant relationship with the state variable (p < .0277). Prior state also shared a statistically significant relationship. Additionally, those environmental variables with the strongest relationships with the state variable along with the prior state variable were used as predictors for a multiple regression procedure. State was used as the criterion variable and significant variance was predicted by the environmental and prior state variables. This study resulted in an increase in the data base concerning state assessment in students with profound handicaps, investigated environmental variables that may have affected state occurrences, and raised issues concerning previous and future research. In addition, implications concerning how instructional grouping, provision of stimulating activities, intensity of staff-student interactions, positioning of students, and time of day and day of week might have affected subjects' biobehavioral states were discussed.