Rule-governed imitative verbal behavior as a function of modeling procedures

The present study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of modelling procedures alone and modeling procedures complemented by the appropriate rule statement on the production of plurals. Twenty normal and 20 retarded children were randomly assigned to one of two learning conditions and to either affective or informative social reinforcement.It was necessary for the child to generate and use a rule in the production of his respones since he was unable to directly copy the model's verbal behavior. Normal and retarded children emitted more plurals during the experimental phase when observing a model who complemented his responses by the underlying rule.     

Modification of verbal behavior in speech deficient children

Operant conditioning techniques were applied to the verbal behavior of three speech deficient children. Subjects A and B having no intelligible speech and Subject C having very little. Using candy and a puppet with a 13-yr-old boy (A), it was possible to condition vocalization rate. Using social reinforcement with a 6-yr-old boy (B), it was possible to extinguish animal-like sounds, to condition vocalization rate, and to shape a small vocabulary of syllables, but not to gain discriminative control over word emission. Using varied reinforcers, e.g., candy, praise, repetitions other own responses, and hand clapping with a 13-yr-old girl (C), it was possible to condition rate of verbalization, to establish appropriate mimicking, and to establish naming of five pictures. The results were consistent with the findings of Salzinger et al. (1965) and with those of Kerr et al. (1965).     

Attitudes and beliefs as verbal behavior

Attitudes and beliefs are analyzed as verbal behavior. It is argued that shaping by a verbal community is an essential part of the formation and maintenance of both attitudes and beliefs, and it is suggested that verbal communities mediate the important shift in control from events in the environment (attitudes and beliefs as tacts) to control by other words (attitudes and beliefs as intraverbals). It appears that both attitudes and beliefs are constantly being socially negotiated through autoclitic functions. That is, verbal communities reinforce (a) reporting general rather than specific attitudes and beliefs, (b) presentation of intraverbals as if they were tacts, and (c) presentation of beliefs as if they were attitudes. Consistency among and between attitudes, beliefs, and behavior is also contingent upon the reinforcing practices of verbal communities. Thus, attitudes and beliefs can be studied as social behavior rather than as private, cognitive processes.     

Modification of verbal behavior through variable interval reinforcement in a quasi-therapy situation

Principles from the operant conditioning laboratory were applied to the verbal behavior of female college students. An experimental setting was designed to replicate a psychotherapist's office, and subjects were seen daily in a study using a functional research design. Variable interval reinforcement was employed to modify the rate of emission of positive self-reference statements. Results demonstrated that the verbal, scheduled reinforcement exerted a definite, marked effect on the verbal behavior of the subjects. All subjects conditioned to the schedules. Sequence of scheduling did not appear to be a significant variable. The feasibility of employing such techniques in actual psychotherapy is discussed.     

Conformity as a function of task generalization and relative competence

Subject correctness and group agreement were varied for college subjects engaged in a light discrimination task. On another task, employing multiple-choice questions about Canada, the dependent variable of conformity was assessed to examine generalization of relative competence formed on the light discrimination task. It was seen that (1) relative competence was seen to mediate conformity for a specific task (Canadian Knowledge Inventory), but did not generalize across tasks (i.e. from the light discrimination task to the Canadian Knowledge Inventory); (2) with respect to the Canadian Knowledge Inventory, subjects who perceived themselves as more competent than the group did not conform as much as those who either perceived themselves as less competent than or as competent as the group; (3) the experimental manipulations did not affect conformity, further supporting the findings that perceived competence does not generalize across classes of tasks; (4) females conformed more than males: and (5) nonsuspicious subjects conformed more than suspicious subjects.