Displacement of preference as a function of avoidance-avoidance conflict.

"An earlier study [see 34: 804]… has demonstrated that approach and avoidance gradients of preference could be obtained from children, following positive or negative reinforcement (success or failure) applied to their response to a training task." This experiment is an extension of that study, and attempts to establish a condition under which preference displacement may occur. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Perceptual preferences as a function of personality variables under normal and stressful conditions.

"This investigation… studied the relationship between preference for detail and depth, which are assumed to underlie 'texture' responses [on the Rorschach], and measures of dependency, insecurity, and anxiety under normal and stressful conditions… . The more an individual acknowledges his dependency on others, the greater is his preference for detail… . Under conditions of induced stress, the change in preference for detail is a function of the level of the individual's insecurity… . Under conditions of induced stress, the change in preference for depth is a function of the level of the individual's symptomatic anxiety." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verbal reinforcement in schizophrenia.

"The common clinical observation of impaired 'reality contact' in schizophrenia implies a deficit in the intensity or direction of responsiveness to social cues… specifically those involved in verbal interactions… . [Therefore] it may be predicted that the reinforcing function of listener reactions (i.e., verbal reinforcement) will be negligible for them as compared with nonschizophrenic control Ss… . The… results [of this experiment] confirm the hypothesis… ." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Relation of the mode of prosthesis control to psychomotor performance of arm amputees.

Comparisons of a "voluntary closing" type of prosthesis control system, for hook and hand prosthetic terminal devices, "were made for a total of 17 amputees, using performance time as a criterion measure on three simple manipulation tests. Amputee preference for various types of device was determined by a questionnaire. The results indicated that the mode of control of the prehension device was unrelated to the criterion measure… preference… is related to other factors than speed… such as mechanical reliability [and]… there is no inherent superiority for either type of control; neither one stands in any natural functional relationship to the shoulder shrug or biceps contraction." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Political orientation and the perceptual effects of an anticipated interaction.

"… to shed further light on the conditions favoring similarity and complementarity in social preference, an experiment was designed to investigate the perception of a political stimulus person… by Ss varying in the strength of their own political orientation… . measured… by… political [scales]… . Ss were led to anticipate interacting with one of the stimulus persons, while in a control condition… there would be no expectation of ever meeting the SP." The results indicated that, "people with a strong need to manipulate their social enviornment tend to devalue others with similar orientation when a competetive interaction is anticipated." 15 refs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The kinetics of choice: An operant systems analysis.

The behaving organism and its environment constitute interacting elements of a feedback system. Starting with a kinetic model of the effects of reinforcement on preference and incorporating feedback functions describing the effects of responding on reinforcement rate, a systems analysis of concurrent reinforcement schedule situations was developed. Correct predictions were generated of both the form of the acquisition of preference and of asymptotic preference levels for choice between probabilistic reinforcement schedules (i.e., VI and VR). A kinetic model was then formulated at the level of switching behavior. All predictions at the molar (preference) level followed also from this molecular analysis. In addition, the switching model correctly predicted a constant sum of transition probabilities (local switching rates) and a decrease in overall switching rate as both preference strength and the difference between reinforcement rates increased. The present systems analysis is seen as being unique among recent theoretical efforts concerned with schedules of reinforcement in its ability to describe molecular as well as molar properties of both transition-state and steady-state behavior. (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preference for delayed reward as a function of age, intelligence, and length of delay interval.

"Using a simple choice measure of preference for delayed reward on elementary school children… ranging in age from 5 to 12, and under five different lengths of delay interval, the following hypotheses were tested and confirmed: (a) preference for delayed reward is positively related to age; (b) positively to intelligence; (c) and negatively to length of the delay interval… . An additional finding was that subjects preferring the immediate reward tend to have more variable future time perspectives and that length of time perspective is slightly related to IQ, but not to age." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of verbal reinforcement on the recall of early memories.

"Thirty-four college students were asked to recall events from their early childhood… . 16… were reinforced by E saying "uh-huh" for memories concerned with members of the S's family. Eighteen… were similarly reinforced for memories not concerned with the family. In both groups the reinforcing stimulus served to increase the proportion of memories in the reinforced category… . The results, indicating that personally relevant and emotionally charged materials are subject to manipulation by the use of a minimal reinforcement verbalization, were related to the testing of causal and dynamic hypotheses about personality within the psychotherapeutic interview." 15 refs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age differences: A developmental study of discriminability and affective response.

"A sample of… children… ranging in age from 4 to 6 was studied with regard to capacity to discriminate age differences and affective responses to stimulus persons varying in age. Each S was presented with two sets of stimulus faces of heterogenous ages with instructions to rank the photographs in terms of age, preference, and attractiveness… . Progressive increase in age discriminability were noted from ages 4 to 5… [with] a ceiling… [at] 5 to 6. Affective judgments with increasing age were in the direction of a more positive response to the younger faces… [esthetic preferences] were influenced… by… sex of the subject and of the photograph set." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4HJ21K. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A semantic analysis of a normal and a neurotic therapy group.

"The purpose of the research… was to see if S's entering therapy can be differentiated from persons that have never been in therapy by meanings they associate with certain selected concepts and to test for areas where semantic changes followed therapy, especially as they may relate to parental identification… . The findings indicate that control S's can be differentiated from therapy S's prior to therapy by the meaning they attribute to the concepts of the self and of parents… therapy affects the self-estimate and not the judgment of parents… ." The research is related to the findings of Rogers and Dymond (1954), Greenspoon (see 30: 4488), and Verplanck (see 31: 2940) on verbal reinforcement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Evaluation of client preference for function-based treatment packages

Functional communication training (FCT) and noncontingent reinforcement (NCR) are commonly prescribed treatments that are based on the results of a functional analysis. Both treatments involve delivery of the reinforcer that is responsible for the maintenance of destructive behavior. One major difference between the two treatment procedures is that client responding determines reinforcement delivery with FCT (e.g., reinforcement of communication is delivered on a fixed-ratio 1 schedule) but not with NCR (e.g., reinforcement is delivered on a fixed-time 30-s schedule). In the current investigation, FCT and NCR were equally effective in reducing 2 participants' destructive behavior that was sensitive to attention as reinforcement. After the treatment analysis, the participants' relative preference for each treatment was evaluated using a modified concurrent-chains procedure. Both participants demonstrated a preference for the FCT procedure. The results are discussed in terms of treatment efficacy and preference for control over when reinforcement is delivered. In addition, a method is demonstrated in which clients with developmental disabilities can participate in selecting treatments that are designed to reduce their destructive behavior.     

Children's attitudes toward rational versus inhibitory parental authority.

"Starting with Fromm's (1941) distinction between rational and inhibitory authority, the study investigates children's attitudes towards their parents' restrictive norms and checking actions… . The results indicate that if parents' restrictive norms and checking actions are accompanied by authoritarian motivations (inhibiting authority), the children's positive attitudes towards these are negatively correlated with chronological age, verbal intelligence… and preference for altruistic alternatives to authoritarian ones… . If the… actions are accompanied by rational motivations (indicating rational parental authority), the attitudes have a tendency to correlate positively with these three independent variables." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4FG15P. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Cognitive risk and environmental change.

"It is the objective of the present paper to examine wherein breadth of categorizing reflects the manner in which people deal with the risk of errors of judgment—specifically, the risk of saying that things are similar when they might be different, or that they are different when they might be similar… . Our central interest is in the specific behavior of broad and narrow categorizers in a highly simplified judging task. Two questions concern us. The first… with consistency of preference for broad and narrow categorizing in a stable stimulus situation… [and the] consistent manner in which… categorizers alter their judgments in the face of changes in the stimulus situations… . The narrow categorizer appears to prefer the risk… possibly being wrong… . The broad categorizer prefers the risk of not reacting to change and possibly being wrong." From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4HE31B. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Generalization of children's preferences as a function of reinforcement and task similarity.

"An experiment was designed to study children's preferences for a series of problem-solving tasks as a function of the particular reinforcement condition associated with a training task, and the degree of similarity of each task to the training task… negative reinforcement produced in some S's approach gradients and in others avoidance gradients. The meaning of the results was discussed and related to motivation theory. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A note on the use of the terms conditioning and reinforcement.

The "… term conditioning was originally used… to denote the behavioral fact that a stimulus inadequate for some response could become adequate by virtue of being combined one or more times with a stimulus adequate for the response… . The situation at present is as follows. Conditioning is being used as an all-covering account of both Pavlovian and Skinnerian learning which by all tokens are quite distinct—and even divergent—from each other methodologically, operationally, behaviorally, and functionally. And reinforcement, in its turn, wields four different meanings." The author claims that "… not only is such a mixing of terms in itself unjustified but in twenty years has hardly caught on beyond the reign of its immediate proponents." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Acquired and symbolic affective value as determinants of size estimation in schizophrenic and normal subjects.

"The present experiment investigated the size estimations… of pictures imbued with two kinds of affective meaning by schizophrenics with good premorbid adjustments… with poor premorbid adjustments, and normals. Positive and negative affective meanings were built into two pictures by means of a prior task involving differential reinforcement. In addition, size estimates were made of pictures depicting a mother scolding a boy and feeding a boy. The good premorbid schizophrenics… significantly overestimated the sizes of both the pictures associated with 'wrong' and the Scolding picture… . The results are interpreted in terms of a high degree of anxiety or affective responsivity in the Goods and the predominance of avoidance and withdrawal mechanisms in the Poor." 19 refs. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Conformity and character.

In 1953 "… one hundred men visited the Institute of Personality Assessment and Research… to participate in an intensive three-day assessment of those qualities related to superior functioning in their profession." Conformity is discussed with regard to individual differences, relations to personality variables, conformity behavior in different populations, psychological processes involved in expressions of conformity to group pressure, and the reinforcement of conformity behavior. The author suggests that "… we have what appears to be a powerful new research technique, enabling the study of conformity behavior within a setting which effectively stimulates genuine group interaction, yet preserves the essential requirements of objective measurement." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The elimination of tantrum behavior by extinction procedures.

"This paper reports the successful treatment of tyrant-like tantrum behavior in a male child by the removal of reinforcement… [and] did not involve aversive punishment." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Preference for unpredictable food rewards occurs with high proportion of reinforced trials or alcohol if rewards are not delayed.

A recently developed mathematical model (DMOD) also predicts that Ss prefer the unpredictable reward situation under conditions that substantially decrease aversiveness of unpredictable nonreward (Daly & Daly, 1982). Because a high proportion of reinforced trials (lenient schedule) and alcohol decrease aversive conditioning, these variables were tested with rats in 5 E-maze experiments. A choice to 1 side of the maze resulted in a stimulus uncorrelated with reward outcome (unpredictable). A choice to the other side resulted in stimuli correlated with reward and nonreward (predictable). Stimuli were not visible until after the choice was made. A lenient reinforcement schedule resulted in preference for the unpredictable reward situation if rewards were not delayed. Alcohol resulted in preference for the unpredictable reward situation if a medium 5-pellet reward was given. A lenient reinforcement schedule combined with an alcohol injection resulted in faster acquisition of the preference for the unpredictable reward situation than did a lenient schedule combined with a saline control injection. These results pose a major challenge to most theories, yet were predicted by DMOD. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of prior reinforcement on the interaction of observer pairs.

"The hypothesis that the interaction of observer pairs is a function of the degree of prior reinforcement of the judgment responses was tested on 38 Ss who first made judgments of lengths of lines when alone, and then in pairs. The pairs were so chosen that the alone judgments of the two Ss overlapped minimally… . On the basis of these findings it is concluded that Ss with a past history of positive reinforcement in a given type of judgment are less influenced by their partners in a group judgment situation than Ss with a history of negative reinforcement." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)