Texas Farmer Cooperatives' Response to Change.

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Policy Center Methodology: Its Implications For Marketing Research and Extension

In the 1980's, the center phenomena swept university campuses. Centers for addressing policy issues became particularly prominent. We are aware of policy centers related to agricultural and food issues at the following universities: Purdue, Minnesota, Georgetown, Oklahoma State, Cornell, Kansas State, Iowa State, Missouri, Texas A&M, Arkansas and California. This list is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather is illustrative of a concept that has proliferated. The purposes of this paper are: • To provide a perspective on the reasons for the proliferation of the policy center concept. • To explore the usefulness of what centers may be able to do for marketing research and extension

Induced Attack During Fixed-Ratio and Matched-Time Schedules of Food Presentation

Adjunctive or induced behavior is generated during a variety of schedules of reinforcement. Several theoretical conceptualizations suggest that rate of reinforcement is the primary variable controlling the strength or levels of induced behavior. The operant response requirement within the schedule context has not been extensively studied as a determinant of induced responding. In the present study, levels of induced attack by food-deprived pigeons against restrained conspecifics were compared during response-dependent and response-independent schedules of food presentation equated or yoked interval-by-interval for reinforcement frequency. Experiment 1 compared levels of attack induced by fixed-ratio schedules of key pecking and yoked “matched-time” schedules. Experiment 2 similarly compared chained fixed-ratio 1 fixed-ratio 74 and yoked chained matched-time matched-time schedules. In both experiments, the response-dependent schedules generated greater levels (amount and probability) of induced attack than the response-independent time-based schedules. Thus, the ratio response requirement may be an important determinant of levels of induced responding, and the lower levels of attack observed during the response-independent condition may not be due to the absence of stimuli predicting food presentations. It is concluded that rate of reinforcement is not the sole variable determining levels of induced responding and that response-based and time-based schedules differ in their generation of induced responding