A test of the self-perception explanation of the effects of rewards on intrinsic interest

An experiment was conducted to test the proposition that rewards undermine or enhance intrinsic interest in a task to the extent that individuals interpret their behavior as being motivated by the reward. It was predicted that when subjects were denied the opportunity to develop and confirm this attribution, rewards would not produce an undermining effect, but rather would enhance dispositions and behavior. Subjects were recruited to evaluate a new sugar-free soft drink. Two levels of incentives (reward-no reward), two levels of examination (opportunity-no opportunity), and three levels of outcome (good-neutral-poor) were employed. The results support the prediction that an incentive's effect depends on the examination opportunity. In the examination condition, rewarded subjects attributed their behavior more to external factors than did unrewarded subjects, but gave more negative product evaluations only after tasting it. In the no examination condition, there were no differences in the attributions made by rewarded and unrewarded subjects, and rewarded subjects were more positively disposed toward the product both before and after tasting it. These results are explained as a consequence of two properties of rewards, enhancement through reinforcement and undermining through discounting, and of hypothesis-testing processes.     

Social influence on attitudes and on anchoring of congeneric attitude scales

Criteria for distinguishing between attitude and response scale effects in “after-only” studies of source-recipient discrepancy were developed and applied in two experiments. These criteria refer to congeneric scales (i.e., multiple measures of the the same property, which may differ in origin, unit, and reliability). Persuasive information may function as a scale anchor, in which case it is expected to affect only that response scale to which it directly pertains. Alternatively, it may convice recipients to change attitudinal positions, and produce effects on all congeneric scales. In one experiment, the self-proclaimed leniency-sternness of a presiding judge in a manslaughter case was varied along with the sentence he imposed and his trustworthiness. In the second study, only the sentence was manipulated, while both leniency ratings and sentencing were measured as dependent variables. Both analyses revealed support for the response scale interpretation, in that effects were observed only on those scales that were directly manipulated.     

The relative law of effect: effects of shock intensity on response strength in multiple schedules

Key pecking of four birds was reinforced with food according to a two-component multiple variable-interval 1-minute variable-interval 4-minute schedule. In addition, key pecking was punished by a brief shock according to a variable-interval 30-second schedule during both components of the multiple schedule. The intensity of the shock was varied. For all birds, punishment had a stronger suppressive effect on the responding maintained by the leaner food schedule, and the ratio of responding during the two components of the multiple schedule became closer to the ratio of reinforcement as shock intensity was increased, as the relative law of effect predicts. At the higher shock intensity, there was some evidence that the ratio of responses overmatched the ratio of reinforcements.     

The order of continuous,partial and nonreward trials and resistance to extinction

In the first experiment rats were given either 16 or 48 nonrewarded or continuously rewarded trials prior to 24 continuously or partially rewarded trials, followed by extinction. Increased resistance to extinction was found for increasing numbers of nonrewarded trials when they were followed by partial reward, but not when followed by continuous reward. Similarly, more continuously rewarded trials followed by partial reward tended to increase resistance to extinction. Because of the theoretical importance of the effect of continuous reward followed by partial, a second experiment was performed where the range of the number of continuously rewarded trials was extended to 0, 48, and 96. Contrary to many theoretical predictions, resistance to extinction increased as a function of increasing amounts of continuous reward.     

Tests of symmetry in three-way contingency tables

Three-dimensional contingency tables are analyzed, with one variable (e.g., sex) as a factor, and with a natural relation between the other variables (e.g. left and right eye vision). Models of special interest, like symmetry and proportional symmetry between the related variables, and homogeneity across the factor levels, are investigated. Maximum likelihood estimators of parameters and partitions of chi-square goodness-of-fit statistics are explicitly presented; the independence of certain models is noted, and an example is discussed.     

Tokens for stuttering

Four young stutterers were observed during 10 weekly sessions. Each session was divided into pretreatment, treatment, and posttreatment segments. Redeemable tokens were administered contingent upon stuttering behaviors in the treatment segment of the Experimental condition. In a Parallel Control condition, no tokens were administered during the entire session. The differences between the pretreatment and treatment segments were compared for the two conditions. Three subjects had dramatically fewer stuttering behaviors when tokens were being administered, while the fourth had more stuttering under the same condition. The subject whose stuttering increased had a history of therapy in which voluntary, “faked” stuttering had been called for, and the behaviors that increased were judged to be of this type. The decreases were interpreted as suggesting that the contingent tokens acted to countercondition the aversiveness of the stuttering experience, which reduced the anticipation of stuttering and hence the stuttering itself. The increase was felt to be simple reinforcement. The counterconditioning interpretation was borne out in two clinical applications in which money was presented contingent on stuttering behaviors judged to be aversive to the stutterer, and in which dramatically sudden, but long-lasting, improvement was seen.     

Prediction as a means of inducing tolerance

Female subjects were exposed individually to the attitude item responses of a similar or dissimilar stranger. They were asked either to copy down the stranger's attitudes or to predict (with accurate feedback) how the stranger answered each item. Predict subjects were found to be more tolerant of the dissimilar stranger than were Copy subjects, while both groups were equally attracted to the similar stranger. It was suggested that training people to anticipate disagreements may be a useful way of fostering tolerance.     

Effects of attack and uncontrollable noise on aggression

After being either attacked or treated in a more neutral manner by an experimental confederate, male subjects shocked the confederate while being stimulated by loud noise. Among previously attacked subjects, possession of control over offset of the noise led to the delivery of shocks significantly shorter in duration than those given by subjects who did not have control. Mere predictability of noise offset did not have the same effect. Subjects who could control the noise did not differ from those who heard no noise with respect to the duration of shocks given. Noise had no effect on shock duration among nonattacked subjects. In a follow-up study subjects who were given bogus information that they were aroused by noise were less punitive toward an attacking confederate than subjects given no such information. The overall conclusion is that noise facilitates aggression in subjects who have been instigated to aggress to the degree that noise-produced arousal is misattributed to the instigating stimulus.     

Evaluation and recall of evidence: Authoritarianism and the Patty Hearst case

By using the Patricia Hearst case as the stimulus material, two experiments were conducted to examine the relationship between authoritarianism and recall of evidence. In Experiment I it was found that high authoritarians recall more prosecution evidence than defense evidence. This was not the case for the low authoritarians. Results concerning the hypothesis that high authoritarians would recall more character information than low authoritarians were equivocal. In Experiment II a trend indicating that high authoritarians draw more direct inferences from incriminating evidence than do low authoritarians or an attorney was obtained. The results are discussed in terms of previous findings, authoritarian theory, and characteristics of the Patricia Hearst case.     

Do the mentally retarded have poor memory?

The hypothesis that mentally retarded persons have a short-term memory deficit whixh is due to inadequate rehearsal strategies is reexamined. A reevaluation of results of a number of experiments suggests that normal and retarded persons differ on short-term memory tasks, and the superiority of normals is present from the time of initial stimulus exposure. While some evidence for slope differences in retention curves is found in a few tasks, it is not strong support for memory differences. The hypothesis that “memory” differences are due to differential encoding as a result of more adequate rehearsal by the normal subjects is unacceptable. If this were the case, some differences in slope of retention curves could be expected unless rehearsal beyond the encoding stage was totally precluded. The review points to a need for an empirical reevaluation of the issue with a full recognition that deficits in particular processes may characterize some retarded persons and not others.