While a great deal is known about the individual difference factors associated with conspiracy beliefs, much less is known about the country-level factors that shape people's willingness to believe conspiracy theories. In the current article we discuss the possibility that willingness to believe conspiracy theories might be shaped by the perception (and reality) of poor economic performance at the national level. To test this notion, we surveyed 6723 participants from 36 countries. In line with predictions, propensity to believe conspiracy theories was negatively associated with perceptions of current and future national economic vitality. Furthermore, countries with higher GDP per capita tended to have lower belief in conspiracy theories. The data suggest that conspiracy beliefs are not just caused by intrapsychic factors but are also shaped by difficult economic circumstances for which distrust might have a rational basis.

Interteaching is a behavioral teaching method that departs from the traditional lecture format (Boyce & Hineline in BA 25:215–226, 2002). We updated and expanded previous interteaching reviews and conducted a meta-analysis on its effectiveness. Systematic searches identified 38 relevant studies spanning the years 2005–2018. The majority of these studies were conducted in undergraduate face-to-face courses. The most common independent variables were manipulations of the configuration of interteaching or comparisons to traditional-lecture format. The most common dependent variables were quiz or examination scores. Only 24% of all studies implemented at least five of the seven components of interteaching. Prep guides, discussions, record sheets, and frequent assessments were the most commonly implemented. Meta-analyses indicated that interteaching is more effective than traditional lecture or other control conditions, with an overall large effect size. Furthermore, variations in the configuration of the interteaching components do not seem to substantially limit its effectiveness, as long as the discussion component is included. Future research informed by the present review includes: (a) investigating the efficacy of interteaching in additional academic areas, online environments, workplace training, and continuing education, (b) testing alternative outcome measures, generalization, and procedural integrity, (c) conducting systematic component analyses, and (d) measuring social validity from the instructor’s perspective. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10864-021-09452-3.

A conditioned reinforcer is a stimulus that acquired its effectiveness to increase and maintain a target behavior on the basis of the individual’s history—e.g., pairings with other reinforcers. This systematic review synthesized findings on conditioned reinforcement in the applied animal training field. Thirty-four studies were included in the review and six studies were eligible for a meta-analysis on the effectiveness of behavioral interventions that implemented conditioned reinforcement (e.g., clicks, spoken word, or whistles paired with food). The majority of studies investigated conditioned reinforcement with dogs (47%, n = 16) and horses (30%, n = 10) implementing click–food pairings. All other species (cats, cattle, fish, goats, and monkeys) were equally distributed across types of conditioned (e.g., clicker or spoken word) and unconditioned reinforcers (e.g., food, water, or tactile). A meta-analysis on the effectiveness of conditioned reinforcement in behavioral interventions found a medium summary effect size (Tau-U 0.77; CI95% = [0.53, 0.89]), when comparing baseline, where no training was done, and treatment levels. Moderators of conditioned reinforcement effectiveness were species (e.g., horses) and research design (e.g., multiple-baseline designs). The small number of intervention-focused studies available limits the present findings and highlights the need for more systematic research into the effectiveness of conditioned reinforcement across species.

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Despite step-down inhibitory avoidance procedures that have been widely implemented in rats and mice to study learning and emotion phenomena, performance of other species in these tasks has received less attention. The case of the Mongolian gerbil is of relevance considering the discrepancies in the parameters of the step-down protocols implemented, especially the wide range of foot-shock intensities (i.e., 0.4–4.0 mA), and the lack of information on long-term performance, extinction effects, and behavioral patterning during these tasks. Experiment 1 aimed to (a) characterize gerbils’ acquisition, extinction, and steady-state performance during a multisession (i.e., extended) step-down protocol adapted for implementation in a commercially-available behavioral package (Video Fear Conditioning System—MED Associates Fairfax, VT, USA), and (b) compare gerbils’ performance in this task with two shock intensities – 0.5 vs. 1.0 mA—considered in the low-to-mid range. Results indicated that the 1.0 mA protocol produced more reliable and clear evidence of avoidance learning, extinction, and reacquisition in terms of increments in freezing and on-platform time as well as suppression of platform descent. Experiment 2 aimed to (a) assess whether an alternate protocol consisting of a random delivery of foot shocks could replicate the effects of Experiment 1 and (b) characterize gerbils’ exploratory behavior during the step-down task (jumping, digging, rearing, and probing). Random shocks did not reproduce the effects observed with the first protocol. The data also indicated that a change from random to response-dependent shocks affects (a) the length of each visit to the platform, but not the frequency of platform descends or freezing time, and (b) the patterns of exploratory behavior, namely, suppression of digging and rearing, as well as increments in probing and jumping. Overall, the study demonstrated the feasibility of the extended step-down protocol for studying steady performance, extinction, and reacquisition of avoidance behavior in gerbils, which could be easily implemented in a commercially available system. The observation that 1.0 mA shocks produced a clear and consistent avoidance behavior suggests that implementation of higher intensities is unnecessary for reproducing aversive-conditioning effects in this species. The observed patterning of freezing, platform descents, and exploratory responses produced by the change from random to periodic shocks may relate to the active defensive system of the gerbil. Of special interest is the probing behavior, which could be interpreted as risk assessment and has not been reported in other rodent species exposed to step-down and similar tasks.

A meta-analytic review was conducted to assess the current knowledge regarding caregiver training effectiveness for human-human and human-canine dyads. The results showed that most canine-related sources (66%; n=19) were case studies reporting a decrease of learner undesired behavior when using oral instruction/advice (21%; n=6). Most of the human-related research used singlecase designs (57%; n=26) reporting an increase in desired learner behavior (22%; n=10) when caregivers received multi-component training packages, including two or more approaches (17%, n=8). The meta-analysis of betweengroup-design studies (n=18) revealed that interventions had a large effect (Hedges' g=0.88, 95%CI [0.68-1.07]), with packages yielding a slightly larger moderate effect (Hedges' g=0.76, 95%CI [0.60-0.91]) than oral instruction/advice alone (Hedges' g=0.74, 95%CI [0.32-1,15]). Although the shown effectiveness of caregiver training is promising, the results should be interpreted cautiously. Due to the preponderance of case studies within caninerelated literature and the insufficient reporting of data across sources, only few studies could be included in the meta-analysis. Overall, more systematic and comparative research regarding the efficacy of caregivers in behavior change programs across species is needed. 174 words Keywords: systematic-review; human-dog relationship; caregiver-training; interventions qualitative nature. They often describe in great detail the assessment and/or treatment of one or more participants by integrating all information about the case into a unified and related idea or set of ideas (Sturmey, 2009; Virues-Ortega & Moreno-Rodriguez, 2008). Further, their interest is frequently related to reporting new findings that lack replication with group designs, hence, informing about new methods, novel applications of established techniques or unpredicted effects of assessments or treatments (Virues-Ortega & Moreno-Rodriguez, 2008). By contrast, SCDs are special adaptations of interrupted time-series designs and provide a strong basis for establishing causal, or functional, inference by (a) operationally defining the dependent variable; (b) conducting baseline measurements; and (c) replicating experimental conditions (e.g., A-B-A-B) with each subject (

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