The Premack principle in human experimental and applied settings

Studies claiming support for the Premack Principle in human experimental and applied settings are reviewed in terms of the standard test conditions associated with the Principle and in terms of the Principle's conceptual constrains. Little definitive evidence was found to support the claim that a high probability response will reinforce a lower probability response, nor was the converse contention supported, that a low probability response will act as a punisher for a high probability response. More importantly, among the reports reviewed there was no evidence for the reversibility of the reinforcement relationship.     

“Snowball” and other control groups

In the Spring of 1973, the Office of Research and Development of the Appalachian Center, West Virginia University, began an evaluation of the University's mining extension program. Since all interested miners are allowed to enroll in the course, the only feasible way to obtain a control group was to use the “snowball process.” This paper examines how well the snowball process did in producing a control group which matched the trainees. While the trainees and controls seemed well matched on many demographic characteristics they differed on several variables, particularly attitudes.     

Evaluation as a function of correspondence and hedonic relevance

An experiment was conducted to test and refine some of the implications of Jones and Davis' (1965) model of the attribution process in person perception. Subjects read anecdotes about actors who performed either in-role (low correspondence) or out-of-role (high correspondence) behaviors which were positive, negative, or neutral in the subject's estimation (hedonic relevance). Respect and admiration for the actor were influenced by both hedonic relevance and correspondence (did the action reflect an inner attribute?), but liking and friendship were affected by hedonic relevance only. The implications for the evaluation process in person perception were discussed.     

Reinforcers and vocational maturity in occupational aspiration,expectation, and goal deflection

When vocational aspirations and expectations are not the same, this difference is termed occupational goal deflection. The present study was designed to investigate the notion that such aspirations, expectations, and goal deflection are related to an individual's vocational maturity, education, and job reinforcers. The subjects were 149 vocational rehabilitation clients and 51 graduate students. Analyses of variance yielded findings that more vocationally mature individuals tend to display greater vocational aspiration, greater vocational expectation, and less goal deflection. Similarily, subjects who value such job characteristics as “getting a feeling of accomplishment, fair company policies, trying out their own ideas, doing work without feeling it is morally wrong, making their own decisions, (and) planning work with little supervision” tend to have higher aspirations and expectations, but lower goal deflection.     

Process assessment: An examination of reinforcer effectiveness and predictive validity

This research describes an assessment procedure based on measures of actual learning. First-grade children (N = 120) learned five sight vocabulary words under feedback only, and were then assigned to one of five conditions where they learned five additional words either under feedback, praise, candy, praise and candy, or reproof. In a sixth condition (reciprocal to the first treatment), students learned the first five works under praise and the second five under feedback only. Although results indicated no differences in learning rate under different reinforcement conditions, learning measures under feedback accounted for approximately 39% of the variance in achievement (r = .62), with combined reinforcement learning measures slightly improving prediction (r = .68). The order of treatments had no effect on learning rate. Implications for this process approach to assessment are discussed. Directions for future research are suggested.     

Stimulus control of responding by response-reinforcer temporal contiguity

The stimulus properties of brief disruptions in response-reinforcer temporal contiguity were investigated using a discrete trial conditional discrimination procedure. Key pecking (nondelay) or key pecking followed by a brief interval of nonpecking (delay) in the sample component produced a stimulus change (choice component). Pecks in the choice component to one of two alternatives resulted in food or blackout, conditional upon which response requirement was met in producing the choice component. A baseline condition, in which key pecking always produced the choice component and correct choices were arranged randomly, alternated with experimental conditions that included nondelay and delay values of either 0.2, 0.5, or 1.0 sec between the last key peck and the initiation of the choice component. All subjects accurately discriminated brief temporal delays between a response and stimulus change, with choice accuracy increasing for three of four subjects as the temporal disruption in contiguity increase. Implications of the research for the study of delayed reinforcement, response-independent reinforcement, and the discrimination of causality are discussed.