In their book entitled, Couple Skills: Making Your Relationship Work, the authors McKay, Fanning, and Paleg (2006, pp. 57-61) list the "Ten Commandments of Clean Communication.". Describe the commandment "Use clear messages."
What will be an ideal response?
"Use clear messages.". Clear messages are not contaminated by subtext or a necessity to read between the lines to understand the intention of the communicator. For example, a "why" question is often a disguised judgment statement. A partner who says "Why are you so messy?" is really making a statement disguised as a question. The statement implies a critical judgment that "You are messy, therefore you are bad— you should clean up after yourself if you want to be good.". This is a contaminated message.
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A woman experiences high levels of nervousness right before she is to speak in front of a large audience. She decides she can't go through with the speech. She later tells her husband she could not speak because she was anxious. If her husband were B. F. Skinner, how might he respond?
A. "Your feelings of anxiety indeed caused you to not speak because they acted like a punishment." B. "The anxiety is unrelated to the change in your behavior." C. "The change in your behavior and your feelings of anxiety probably have the same aversive contingencies as a common cause." D. "Anxious feelings do not exist because we cannot observe them."
Why does transient exuberance occur in the early years of life?
A. because the brain has developed very rapidly during the prenatal period and needs to catch up B. because the brain makes more connections than it needs in preparation to receive any and all conceivable kinds of stimulation that an infant may encounter C. because infants are most interested in external stimuli in the early years of life D. because infants have not experienced myelination yet and so they need transient exuberance to start the process
Stimulus control means that:
a. the person gains control over situations in which she is reinforced. b. a cue associated with a reinforcer calls up a behavior. c. lack of control can lead to avoidance behavior. d. people attempt to gain control over their stimuli.
Research conducted by Berndt & Mekos (1995) found which of the following benefits from the transition to secondary school among adolescents in the United States?
a. better skills in science and mathematics b. improved critical thinking skills c. closer relationships with parents d. greater independence in adolescents