OVERJUSTIFICATION EFFECTS IN TOKEN ECONOMIES

This study tested the relevance to clinical token economies of the overjustification hypothesis that tangible reward interferes with intrinsic interest in target behaviors and causes such behaviors to be less probable following a period of reinforcement than preceding such a period. The study was carried out in an ongoing token economy for chronic psychiatric patients. Alternated over an 8-week period were weeks of token and no-token reward for one of the program's target behaviors, toothbrushing. Two different amounts of token reward were employed in order to examine whether reward magnitude might influence the presence or extent of overjustification effects. Little evidence was found for the presence of overjustification effects in token economies. However, maintenance of toothbrushing was greater in no-token weeks following weeks of low amounts of token reward than in no-token weeks following weeks of higher amounts of reward. The importance of such complex functional relationships is discussed.     

Foraging in a simulated natural environment: There's a rat loose in the lab

Rats were required to earn their food in a large room having nine boxes placed in it, each of which contained food buried in sand. In different phases of the experiment the amount of time allowed for foraging, the amount of food available in each food patch, and the location of the different available amounts were varied. The rats exhaustively sampled all patches each session but seemed to have fairly strong preferences for certain locations over others. If position preferences were for patches containing small amounts of food, the sensitivity to amount available was increased so that when location was compensated for, a pattern of optimal foraging was evident. The importance of environmental constraints in producing optimal behavior and the relation of the observed behavior to laboratory findings are discussed.     

文章标记量影响文章标记效应的实验研究

探讨文章阅读过程中文章标记量的多少对文章中不同类型的信号保持的影响。结果表明 ,在有标记的目标句上 ,少标记条件显著优于多标记条件和无标记条件 ,多标记条件与无标记条件之间无显著差异 ;在无标记的目标句上 ,无标记条件显著优于多标记条件和少标记条件 ,多标记条件与少标记条件之间无显著差异。这一结果支持在文章阅读过程中读者是微略性地运用文章标记的假设和交易效应的假设。     

Duration and rate of reinforcement as determinants of concurrent responding

The duration and frequency of food presentation were varied in concurrent variable-interval variable-interval schedules of reinforcement. In the first experiment, in which pigeons were exposed to a succession of eight different schedules, neither relative duration nor relative frequency of reinforcement had as great an effect on response distribution as they have when they are manipulated separately. These results supported those previously reported by Todorov (1973) and Schneider (1973). In a second experiment, each of seven pigeons was exposed to only one concurrent schedule in which the frequency and/or duration of reinforcement differed on the two keys. Under these conditions, each pigeon's relative rate of response closely matched the relative total access to food that each schedule provided. This result suggests that previous failures to obtain matching may be due to factors such as an insufficient length of exposure to each schedule or to the pigeons' repeated exposure to different concurrent schedules.     

Estimation of indifference points with an adjusting-delay procedure.

In a series of conditions, pigeons chose between 1.5 s and 3 s of access to grain, each preceded by some delay. The delay that preceded the small reinforcer was constant throughout a condition. The delay that preceded the large reinforcer was increased or decreased a number of times each session in order to estimate an "indifference point," a delay at which the subject chose each alternative about equally often. The experiment was designed to determine whether variations in any of four features of this adjusting-delay procedure would systematically alter the estimated indifference points. The four features were the total trial duration, the number of center-key responses necessary to begin a trial, the number of choice trials that preceded each change in the adjusting delay, and step size--the size of each increment and decrement in the delay. Manipulation of the first three features had no systematic effects on the indifference points. As step size was increased from 0.5 s to 6 s, within-session variability of the adjusting delay steadily increased, and the 6-s step size produced larger indifference-point estimates for some subjects. The results suggest that, within certain limits, these procedural features can be altered without affecting the indifference-point estimates, but that the use of a large step size can distort the estimates. Some theoretical implications of the relative constancy of indifference points across these procedural variations are discussed.     

善因营销的捐赠水平与消费者态度:一个有中介的调节效应模型检验

通过两个实验,探讨了善因营销的捐赠水平对消费者态度的影响,尤其是考察了道德提升感的中介作用以及产品-公益事业拟合度的调节作用。研究发现,善因营销的捐赠水平对消费者态度有显著的正向影响,且道德提升感在捐赠水平与消费者态度之间起中介作用。与此同时,产品-公益事业拟合度显著地调节了捐赠水平与道德提升感的关系,且该调节关系通过道德提升感的中介作用来进一步影响消费者态度。