Partial punishment schedules (20% or 50% trials punished) are as effective as 100% punishment in generating and maintaining self-punitive behavior following avoidance training. If punishment is not continued. running extinguishes fairly quickly.After a ratlearns an avoidance running response, punishment given in the last section of the alley before the goal box is similar in some respects to the avoidance training shock. Given a few avoidance training trials, the animal is usually well on the way to the goal when shock onset occurs and the shock continues during the balance of the run. In the punishment case we have studied, the animal encounters shock 1 ft from the goal box and runs through the punishment zone to complete the trial. We have made use of the presumed similarity of avoidance training and punishment during extinction in predicting that self-punitive running will persist longer following avoidance training than following escape training (Beecroft & Brown, 1967). The first experiment reported in this paper was concerned with a related issue, the resistance to ordinary extinction without punishment which is produced by punishment training as compared to avoidance training. Insofar as punishment training is similar to avoidance training, comparable amounts of such training should produce equal resistance to extinction. EXPERIMENT 1 MethodThe runway and the avoidance training procedures have been described previously (Beecroft, Bouska, & Fisher, 1967). All Ss, female hooded rats 84-94 days old, were trained to one avoidance with a 3 sec avoidance interval. One group of 20 Ss was given 10 more avoidance training trials. The number of additional shocks received by the avoidance Ss ranged from 0 to 7 with a mean of 3.4. The other group of 20 Ss was given punishment training for 10 trials. The punishment was a55 V shock applied in thelastlftofthealley. After receiving either avoidance or punishment training for 10 trials, shock was discontinued for all Ss. The extinction criterion was 60 sec without entering the goal box. A maximum of 100 extinction trials was permitted, although no S approached this limit in Experiment 1. Four Ss were discarded. One did not reach the goal on the first avoidance training trial, one was lost because of an equipment breakdown, and two Ss extinguished during punishment training. ResultsThe Ss given extended avoidance training showed slightly more resistance to extinction than the punishment-trained Ss. The respective means were 23.5 and 17.5 trials completed; medians were 20 and 12.5. The difference between the means was not statistically significant. The resistance to extinction displayed by these groups is somewhat greater than that of Ss who are ex-

No abstract

Resistance to extinction of avoidance running was enhanced by punishment. More self-punitive running was observed when the punishment voltage was the same as the training voltage. Running speed was correlated with punishment intensity. Note 1.

No abstract