Some 96 fourth-grade boys participated in a study investigating the influence of personality and stimulus characteristics on perceptions of the meanings of verbal evaluations, and the functioning of differentially perceived evaluations as reinforcers in a learning task. Personality variables measured were anxiety, locus of control, need for…

Two groups of six children (aged 9 and 10 years) were given either traditional remedial reading treatment or behavioral therapy consisting of the Staats motivated Action Reading Technique. The method involved positive reinforcement for correct responses during three phases of instruction: individual word phase, oral reading phase, and silent…

This study was designed to answer two major questions: (1) whether or not operant conditioning procedures supplemented by treatments drawn from other areas of experimental psychology could produce changes in counselor interviewing behavior, and (2) how much change resulted from response specific reinforcement and how much from other factors. Three…

This series of papers was presented in a symposium on behavior therapy. Each paper represents a separate study focusing on one aspect of behavior modification. The issue of reinforcement is prominant with regard to its type and source. Methods of self-reinforcement and older-peer modeling are studied. The suggestion that subjects who reinforce…

The purpose of this study was two-fold: (1) to determine whether alcoholics will show greater persistance in responding under punishment in a simple operant task as compared to nonalcoholics; and (2) with this task, under what conditions alcoholics will suppress their responses to the same extent as nonalcoholics. In the task, all subjects during…

The relationship between internal-external control of reinforcement and attraction to others who vary in susceptibility to persuasion was investigated. Internals are defined as persons who believe that reinforcement is contingent on their behavior, while externals are those who believe that reinforcement is independent of their actions and is…

The techniques of behavior modification are of potentially great value in the schools. (Author)

The article describes a program in which paraprofessionals taught behavior modification contingency management techniques to parents of developmentally disabled children who lived beyond the range of the community residential facility. (DLS)

Examined was the use of Visual Reinforcement Audiometry (use of a moving toy animal to reinforce head turning to sound) in measuring hearing thresholds of 28 institutionalized profoundly retarded persons (9-28 years old). (CL)

It is suggested that the theory of behavior based on conditioning processes can be reconciled with new data, but only by revising certain tacit behaviorist assumptions about the parameters of the conditioning process. (Author/AM)

Response and reinforcement features of operant discrimination paradigms used in audiometric assessment were investigated with normal 17-month-old children. Findings indicated more responses prior to onset of habituation when response tasks involved complex central processing skills and a twofold increase in number of subject responses when…

A detailed hypothesis of the acquisition and maintenance of self-stimulatory behavior is offered, proposing that such behaviors are operant responses whose reinforcers are automatically produced perceptual consequences. Related concepts are discussed, and support for the hypothesis from the areas of sensory reinforcement and sensory deprivation is…

Results of a study comparing the outcome of a reinforcement (do only) procedure with correspondence (say/do) training indicated no apparent differences in generalization between two groups of mentally retarded adults (N=12). Rule-governed behavior, rather than verbal regulation of behavior, may best account for behavior changes seen in…