The retention and generalization of operant conditioning effects in an interview situation.

In a study of the conditioning of complex verbal habits, each of 30 female Ss had her established verbal habits assessed in 2 sessions by being asked to talk about herself. In subsequent sessions, the Ss in the experimental groups were positively reinforced (by a head nod and an "mm-hm") for either independence or affection statements, whereas control groups Ss were reinforced every 30 sec. regardless of the content of their speech. The results showed that: conditioning occurred, i.e., the experimental Ss increased in their use of the reinforced category; retention also occurred, i.e., the conditioning effects were stable over a 24-hr. period; and generalization did not occur. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A laboratory adaptation of the conversational procedure for the conditioning of verbal operants.

In an attempt to adapt the conversational procedure initiated by Verplanck to the conditioning of verbal operants under laboratory conditions, an experiment was performed with each of 49 Ss who were unaware of the true nature of the experiment. While supposedly merely waiting with another S, who was in reality the investigator's assistant, their responses during their conversations with the assistant were subjected to a variety of reinforcing and deterring stimuli. The attempt was made to condition opinion, information, and question operants, with positive results being achieved for the opinion and information responses, while negative results were obtained for question operants. Under extinction conditions there was a decrease of all these operants. The results are interpreted as supporting the hypothesis that verbal operants can be conditioned in conversations which are contrived in laboratory settings. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verbal conditioning of middle and lower socioeconomic class schizophrenics.

An experiment with 140 male VA hospital patients assessed the verbal conditioning of middle and lower socioeconomic class schizophrenics and normals under conditions of social reinforcement. Ss were reinforced with a positive or negative word said in a positive, negative, or neutral tone of voice. Social class moderated diagnostic group differences in learning. Combining social classes, schizophrenics learned less than normals with reinforcement entailing incongruent word and tone but were equivalent to normals with congruent word/tone reinforcement pairs (i.e., positive word/positive tone and negative word/negative tone). Results are interpreted in terms of the double-bind theory of G. Bateson et al (1956), which views schizophrenic behavior as a response acquired after prolonged exposure to inconsistent patterns of verbal and nonverbal communication. (26 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of social approval on the verbal behavior of emotionally disturbed and normal children.

96 nondefective Ss in Grades 4-9 who were referred to a child psychiatric clinic were compared with a group of 120 public school Ss of similar intellectual and educational level in terms of their response to a Taffel-type verbal conditioning procedure. 1/2 of the Ss in each group were experimental, to whom E said "good" following their use of a 1st-person pronoun, and 1/2 were controls, to whom E made no verbal response. Normal experimental Ss showed a statistically significant increase in their usage of the reinforced words, while clinic experimental Ss, as a group, failed to show a significant increase in such usage. Verbal approval was shown to have a differential effect depending upon the S's emotional status. In neither group did grade level have an effect upon rate of conditioning. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of negative verbal cues upon verbal behavior.

Research which investigated the capacity to modify behavior, starting from the framework of Skinner's operant conditioning paradigm and utilizing verbal behavior, was found to have primarily explored the effect of positive secondary reinforcement. The present investigation explored the effect of a negative verbal cue presented under different schedules of reinforcement upon verbal behavior. Ss (male VA psychiatric patients) responded to projective techniques. The E varied the frequency of negative verbal reinforcement defined as "unh unh." The hypothesis that such a negative reinforcement would depress verbal behavior was substantiated, with a periodic schedule of reinforcement being more effective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Ethical standards as an independent variable in psychological research.

Discusses recent proposals concerning ethical standards for psychological research. An experiment was conducted using a simple, typical verbal conditioning task in which the E said "good" when the S began a sentence with either "I" or "we." The nonethical group of 14 male undergraduates was selected and run under current procedures: they were informed only that the experiment involved "sentence construction." The ethical group of 14 Ss was selected and run under conditions of full disclosure of the experiment's purpose and hypotheses. Ss were allowed to participate or not under complete informed consent. Ss in the nonethical group significantly conditioned in a positive direction, while those in the ethical group conditioned in a negative direction (p     

Self-acceptance, acceptance-of-others, and verbal conditioning with mental hospital patients.

A previous study by the authors with military personnel demonstrated that (a) the frequency of endorsement of self-accepting questionnaire items can be increased by standard verbal conditioning techniques, and (b) this increase generalizes to similar but novel items as well as to items indicative of more positive attitudes towards others. The present study attempted to extend these findings to 60 male hospitalized psychiatric patients who scored low on a selected portion of a self-acceptance questionnaire. Experimental Ss were reinforced for accepting responses to 18 self-acceptance items on 3 successive days, while controls received no reinforcement. A postexperimental scale, comprising the original 18 self-acceptance items and an additional 32 novel items, was administered to all Ss. Results support the previous findings, showing that attitudes, which are theoretically relevant to social interaction, can be modified by means of verbal conditioning techniques. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Self-talk in youth with anxiety disorders: States of mind, content specificity, and treatment outcome.

This study investigated the relationship between childhood anxiety disorders, the valence and content of self-statements, and the impact of treatment on the internal dialogue. Participants (151 8- to 13-year-olds) included 71 youth with anxiety disorders and 80 control participants. Positive and negative self-statements and a states-of-mind (SOM) ratio were examined. Results indicated that the negative self-statements and SOM ratio (but not positive self-statements) of children with anxiety disorders significantly predicted anxiety. Results also indicated that negative (but not positive cognition) and SOM ratio predicted improvement in anxiety after treatment and mediated treatment gains. Results of analyses to explore the content specificity hypothesis were mixed. The impact of negative self-talk on children's anxious symptomatology and favorable treatment outcome is discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Thematic Apperception Test and attitudes toward achievement in women: A new look at the motive to avoid success and a new method of measurement.

Asked 163 male and 165 female students to write stories to 1 of 3 versions of M. S. Horner's Thematic Apperception Test (TAT) verbal cue used to measure women's "motive to avoid success": a successful medical student who was a single female, a single male, or a married female. Ss then answered an objective questionnaire about the cue figure. Story protocols, classified as positive, mixed, or negative on the basis of success-related content, were significantly (p     

Response–reinforcer versus stimulus–reinforcer pretraining influences S+ versus S– discriminative control.

In 2 experiments, 60 male Long-Evans rats trained on a visual discrimination task (leverpresses reinforced) received stimulus–reinforcer (noise–food) trials, no training, or response–reinforcer (reinforcement of keypressing) training. Ss then learned an auditory discrimination (keypresses reinforced), in which the positive stimulus (S+) was a noise (N) and the negative stimulus (S–) was a tone (T). Noise–food training resulted in the greatest enhancement of leverpressing on N trials and the least suppression on T trials during a summation test. Prior training of keypress responses produced the opposite pattern of results. Findings are interpreted as reflecting the operation of the combination laws that R. A. Rescorla and A. R. Wagner (1972) proposed to account for intracompound dynamics in classical conditioning. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of conditioning upon preexperimentally acquired verbal habit in psychiatric patients.

20 adult females, hospitalized for psychiatric disorders, 7 displaying initial negative verbal habit and 13 displaying initial positive verbal habit were matched for diagnostic category, age, education, and number of hospitalizations, and divided into 2 groups. Experimental Ss reinforced for displaying a verbal habit opposite to their initial habit significantly increased their tendency to display the reinforced habit. When the initial verbal habit was then reinforced, Ss significantly increased their tendency to display this habit. Control Ss never received reinforcement, and showed no change in initial verbal habit. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Hypotheses and habits in verbal "operant conditioning.'

The traditional explanation of experiments related to conditioning of verbal behavior in terms of operant conditioning, i.e., learning without awareness, was questioned. It was hypothesized that such conditioning to cues given by E might be based on S's awareness of the cue and assumed meaning of such a stimulus. 2 experiments were performed, 1 where plural nouns were reinforced, and a 2nd to test the generalization of this acquired pattern on a word association test. The usual findings re: conditioning of plural nouns was replicated and there seemed to be a carry-over of the set to the word association test. However, some Ss seemed to be aware of the meaning of such a reinforcer as "um-hm." Moreover, response set was also seen to affect conditionability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conditioning of verbal behavior as a function of awareness, need for social approval, and motivation to receive reinforcement.

This investigation evaluated the effects of awareness, need for social approval, and motivation to receive reinforcement on verbal conditioning. 61 male college students were reinforced with "good" for constructing sentences beginning with "I" or "we." Awareness and reinforcement motivation were assessed by an intensive postconditioning interview; need for social approval was measured by the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability scale. Ss aware of a correct response-reinforcement contingency gave more "I" and "we" sentences than Unaware Ss, who showed no evidence of learning. Aware Ss motivated to receive reinforcement gave more "I" and "we" sentences than unmotivated Aware Ss. Contrary to expectation, need for approval was not related to Ss' reinforcement motivation or performance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Experimenter approval, social desirability, and statements of self-reference.

Using 40 undergraduate Ss high or low on a social desirability scale, a verbal conditioning attempt was made to alter the relative frequency of self-referent statements that were either positive or negative. Before reinforcement, high and low social desirability Ss responded very similarly, and used more positive than negative self-references. High social desirability Ss responded to reinforcement by increasing equally the frequency of both positive and negative self-referent statements. Low social desirability Ss did not condition, but continued to make more positive than negative self-references. Although high and low social desirability Ss both have the need to impress others favorably, the high social desirability person is apparently more dependent on the overt, evaluative behavior of others, and for this reason he can be manipulated more easily than low social desirability Ss. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Use of reinforcement and imitation to reinstate verbal behavior in mute psychotics.

Verbal behavior was reinstated in 3 long-term, mute psychotics using reinforcement procedures. For 2 Ss, shaping and fading techniques were used to establish limited verbal repertoires. Wtih a 3rd S, the shaping technique was ineffective; however, a reinforced imtiation technique succeeded in developing imitative vocalizations which were then established as verbal responses. For all Ss, the functional role of contingent reinforcement in maintaining the recently developed verbal behavior was demonstrated: when Ss received reinforcement only when they were not responding verbally, their rates of verbal responding showed marked decreases, but recovered when contingent reinforcement for verbal behavior was resumed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Operant conditioning in a quasi-therapy setting.

In 6 recorded interviews with student volunteers, S was asked to talk about himself. E differentially reinforced ("mm-hm" with a nod) positive or negative self-references, or reinforced not at all. Conditioning occurred re reinforcement of negative statement, not under conditions of reinforcement of positive references or nonreinforcement. No relationship was found between initial level of anxiety or emotional adjustment and conditionability. General, but not statistically significant, trends towards reduction of anxiety or improvement in adjustment were noted. Most Ss were unaware of therapist's manipulation of his verbalizations. Conclusion: a patient's verbalizations can be influenced by therapist's communication. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reinforcement of conversation "operants" in psychiatric patients.

Investigated the hypothesis that opinion statements and information statements could be conditioned to greater frequency in hospitalized psychiatric patients (N = 24) under natural conversation conditions. After a 10-min base-line period, each S's opinion and information statements were positively reinforced for a 20-min conditioning period by means of verbal agreement, enthusiasm, or paraphrase by E. Conditioning effects were achieved for both opinion and information statements. Results are interpreted as demonstrating that verbal "operants" can be conditioned in the verbal behavior of psychiatric patients under natural conversation conditions similar to those in psychotherapy. (French summary) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Etiquette of verbal conditioning.

Explored the role of ambiguity in producing verbal conditioning by using 2 E types and 2 S types. Es, designated "craftly" because they conditioned their Ss without S becoming aware, were assumed to be more ambiguous than normal Es. Ss uninformed about the correct response were considered to be in a more ambiguous position than informed Ss. 6 college students were assigned to each role within each of the 4 kinds of E-S groups. 1 set of 4 groups sat face-to-face while a visual barrier was interposed between another set. The barrier had no effect on conditioning. As expected, crafty Es were more effective conditioners and their verbal style was rated less clear and less certain. Informed Ss conditioned better than the uninformed. Certain types of ambiguity increase verbal compliance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Control of food intake in children by reinforcement of relevant verbal behavior.

Amounts consumed of 4 foods were recorded for each child in nursery school. 10 children were randomly selected for repeated sessions of verbal conditioning, which occurred shortly before snack time, and consisted of reinforcing the verbal behavior (food term) denoting the food selected for manipulation. The data give evidence that when positive reinforcement is associated with the verbal response denoting a food, then the consumption of that food increases. Conceptually, food can be considered a stimulus that sets up a class of responses, including verbal and eating responses. If the verbal response in that class is reinforced, hence strengthened, then the other responses of that class will be strengthened as well. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)