Attitude change through modification of attitude structure.

183 experimental Ss were tested regarding their attitudes toward allowing Negroes to move into white neighborhoods, toward 25 values in terms of expected satisfaction from each, and toward the 25 values in terms of "allowing Negroes to move into white neighborhoods" would lead to or block attainment of the values both before and after a change procedure designed to increase the S's awareness that nonsegregation would lead to the attainment of four important values. The experimental procedure changed perceptions and attitudes toward Negro housing segregation in S's with moderate initial attitude on the issue. Little attitude change was produced in extremely prejudiced and extremely nonprejudiced S's (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anxiety and the conditioning of verbal behavior.

Ninety hospitalized psychiatric patients were administered the Taylor Manifest Anxiety Scale. The S's were then required to make up sentences in response to a stimulus card on which were printed a verb and one of six pronouns. E reinforced any sentence starting with I or WE by saying "good" or flashing a light. Scores on the Taylor scale showed a relationship to the amount of conditioning produced by "good." Light, as applied in this study, does not function as a reinforcer in a verbal situation. Implications for further research are described. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Vicarious dissonance: Attitude change from the inconsistency of others.

Three studies support the vicarious dissonance hypothesis that individuals change their attitudes when witnessing members of important groups engage in inconsistent behavior. Study 1, in which participants observed an actor in an induced-compliance paradigm, documented that students who identified with their college supported an issue more after hearing an ingroup member make a counterattitudinal speech in favor of that issue. In Study 2, vicarious dissonance occurred even when participants did not hear a speech, and attitude change was highest when the speaker was known to disagree with the issue. Study 3 showed that speaker choice and aversive consequences moderated vicarious dissonance, and demonstrated that vicarious discomfort--the discomfort observers imagine feeling if in an actor's place--was attenuated after participants expressed their revised attitudes. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitude change through refutation and elaboration of audience counterarguments.

"An experiment was conducted involving a comparison of the effectiveness of (a) refutation versus no refutation, and (b) elaboration versus no elaboration of audience counterarguments in changing attitude toward the Korean War. Two independent samples were obtained: one consisted of recruits in basic training at a military base; the second consisted of high school students… . Each of the experimental programs was effective in changing attitude toward the Korean War." The results are analyzed in terms of the major variables manipulated. (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)     

Modification of behavior through verbal conditioning: Effects in group therapy.

An hypothesis that seems to be gaining acceptance on the basis of experimental (as opposed to heretofore face) validity, is that the interpersonal relationship in therapy is not only able to modify the patient's behavior, but in a predictable and desirable direction. This hypothesis was cross-validated by using a group of patients in a Veterans Administration hospital, all in group therapy. The experimental condition, the independent variable, involved exposing S to a TAT-like situation outside of therapy. E responded differentially to the emotionally-toned words used by S: (a) by nodding and saying "mm-hm," (b) by communicating to S via a machine that emitted a clicking sound and added on a counter, and (c) a "no reinforcement" group. Change in the patient's behavior, the dependent variable, was assessed by ratings on a scale to measure interpersonal relationships in group therapy. Significant improvement in the measure of interpersonal behavior in the group therapy was noted in Condition A only. From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:3IG28U. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Studies of the conditioning of verbal behavior.

"Thirty-one articles reporting studies of the conditioning of verbal behavior were reviewed in terms of setting, verbal responses, reinforcement stimuli, populations, controls, length of sessions, relationships to personality variables, results, and awareness. The majority of the studies report positive results with the use of generalized conditioned reinforcers such as good and mmm-hmmm. The studies reviewed demonstrate that general principles of learning can be fruitfully applied to the experimental analysis of verbal behavior." 108-item bibliography. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Operant conditioning of verbal behavior of dysthymics and hysterics.

Previous findings (Eysenck, 1955; Franks, 1956) indicated that neurotics of the dysthymic type react differentially to conditioning procedures than hysterics, and that conditionability is related to extraversion-introversion. The present study investigates the validity of these findings using verbal conditioning techniques. The results did not confirm the hypothesis; the Ss were not distinguished by ease of conditionability, measures of extraversion and anxiety, but were by Edwards (1957) Social Desirability scale. From Psyc Abstracts 36:04:4HI88G. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of fear arousal upon task performance and verbal behavior.

80 undergraduate females were classified as being either high or low in fear of speaking in front of a group. ? were told that they were to speak following a task; the remaining Ss did the task without expecting to speak. All Ss spoke about the task for 1 min. immediately following the task. Experimental Ss took significantly longer to perform the task, and naive judges were able to detect differences in the verbal productions of the groups. Formal aspects of S's verbal productions also discriminated among high- and low-fear Ss. Implications for theory and importance of assessing different types of behavior are briefly discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The Minnesota conference on associative processes in verbal behavior.

The Committee on Linguistics and Psychology of the Social Science Research Council held a work conference at the University of Minnesota on April 25-26, 1955, "to facilitate communication among a small group of research workers who were interested in problems of verbal association." "The program consisted of seven discussion sessions and a summary session." Papers were presented by W. A. Russell, J. J. Jenkins, W. A. Bousfield, L. J. Postman, C. N. Cofer, D. H. Howes, S. Saporta. Titles of the papers are given and a summary statement concerning each is given. Similarities and differences, types of objectives emphasized, and methodological trends are discussed. "With reference to differences in conceptualization, the participants seemed to be divided with respect to practically all dimensions." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitude change and justification for compliance.

"This experiment has tentatively illustrated some of the processes involved in creating and reducing psychological dissonance and the implications of such dissonance for attitude change in compliance situations. It was hypothesized that increased justification for taking an opinion position discrepant from one's private opinion would lead to decreased dissonance and therefore decreased attitude change toward the discrepant position. Ss were asked to write an essay taking a stand opposite to their initial opinion on a given issue. One group of Ss was then given a number of reasons for compliance with the request (high justification condition). For another group (low justification condition) Ss were given no detailed justification for writing the essay. Attitude change was determined from a postexperimental questionnaire… . Attitude change tended to be greater where manipulated (and perceived) justification was least." From Psyc Abstracts 36:01:1GD76C. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The conditioning of verbal behavior as a function of the need for social approval.

The hypothesis tested herein is that need for approval will facilitate learning. Need for approval was measured by the M-C Social Desirability Scale (Crowne & Marlowe, 1960); the learning task employed the model of verbal conditioning as used by Greenspoon (1955); the Ss were undergraduate psychology students. The results supported the hypothesis. (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)     

Avoidance conditioning of verbal behavior without awareness: A paradigm of repression.

31 male college students responded to a 15-item word association list receiving an electric shock immediately after 5 arbitrarily selected response words. A number of additional trials were given with shock administered every time as S responded with one of the 5 first-trial punished responses. They were then asked to chain-associate to each of the stimulus words with no shock administered. At the conclusion of the experiment Ss could be classified into insight and non-insight groups on the basis of their levels of verbal awareness as to the reasons for the shocks and what they had done to avoid them. Both groups showed a rapid and marked learning of avoidance behavior and a significant decrement in the number of punished responses occurring during chained associations. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Body position, facial expression, and verbal behavior during interviews.

The communicative value of body position and facial expression was evaluated by measuring an O's ability to detect a relationship between nonverbal and verbal behavior which had been simultaneously emitted. The verbal and nonverbal stimuli were collected during 2 different standardized stress interviews. Judges (Js) were shown pairs of photographs together with short written speech samples and required on each trial to pick the photograph which matched the verbal behavior. In 4 separate experiments with different groups of Js, accurate judgments were obtained. Evidence for a relationship between nonverbal and verbal behavior simultaneously emitted was replicated across 2 different samples of interview behavior and under 3 cue conditions—seeing the head, body, or whole person. (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)     

The effect of subliminal stimulation upon autonomic and verbal behavior.

Using the subception hypothesis of Lazarus and McCleary, 2 hypotheses pertaining to the effect upon verbal and autonomic behavior of subliminal visual stimulation were tested. The hypotheses stated that: response latencies and GSRs would be determined by the affective value of the stimuli, and the verbal guesses made during subliminal stimulation would be associations to the stimulus items. 7 Ss were used, and after subliminal presentation of the stimuli, each S was presented with his responses and asked to match them against the stimulus items. The part of the hypothesis pertaining to response latencies was not supported, but the part pertaining to GSRs was confirmed. The second hypothesis, likewise, was confirmed. 18 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)