Response to Food and Praise by Emotionally Disturbed Boys
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 13655635 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Gerald R Levin (Brown University, corresponding author), John J Simmons (Elizabeth, N. J., Board of Education) |
| Year | 1962 |
| Volume | 11 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 539-546 |
| Publication date | 1962-10-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Psychological Reports (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0033-2941 • E-ISSN: 1558-691X |
| Publisher | SAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2466/pr0.1962.11.2.539 |
| OpenAlex | W2083021316 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 4 |
Levin and Simmons (1962) found two modal response patterns when they praised emotionally disturbed boys in an operant conditioning siruation. Seven boys (Group T) terminated response on the marble-dropping task soon after the end of the baseline period and the onset of the period in which praise was contingent upon operant response. The response records for Group T resembled extinction curves. In contrast, 6 other boys (Group C) continued responding at a relatively stable rate, and typically, for twice as long a period as those in Group T. The present study (Exp. B) was conducted to test alternative explanations of the behavior of the boys in Group T in the earlier study (Exp. A). The boys in Group T were similar to each other and to who have been described as children who hate by Red1 and Winernan (1951), or as suffering from a hyperkinetic impulse disorder (Laufer, Denhoff, & Solomons, 1957). They were unusually hyperactive and aggressive and represented major management problems to adults who were responsible for their care. They rarely stayed at a task for long; and, thus, their behavior in the operant conditioning experiment seemed typical of their behavior in social situations such as school, psychotherapy, etc. It is noteworthy that explanations of the operant response pattern produced by these boys were in sharp contrast to common, clinical explanations of their similar behavior in everyday situations. Reinforcement theory suggested that the major factor in the boys' rapid cessation of response on the marble-dropping task was that there was no adequate positive reinforcer present in the siruation. In contrast, clinical explanations of similar behavior in these boys typically rested on the concepts of span or tolerance. According to explanations based on attention span, these boys were incapable of paying atten[ion to one task for more than a few minutes. According to hypotheses about frustration tolerance, the boys had a generalized inability to tolerate frustrating situations of any kind. The present study was planned to clarify three issues which were basic to the varied explanations of the behavior of these boys in Exp. A: ( 1 ) inadequate 'This study was conducted while the authors were at the New Jersey Neuro-Psychiatric Institute
Developmental psychology · Praise · Behavioral and Psychological Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0.02 |
| Citation span | 1975 - 1975 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |