Deprivation-satiation and strength of attitude conditioning: A test of attitude-reinforcer-discriminative theory.

Abstract

Previous studies have suggested that attitude conditioning is affected by deprivation-satiation (drive) operations. Deprivation of attitude-eliciting objects should make the objects (or words denoting the objects) more strongly elicit the attitude, and thus be more effective in conditioning attitudes to new stimuli. In the present study with 254 undergraduates, food words were considered to be attitude stimuli which through preexperimental conditioning (pairing with the type of food) had come to elicit positive attitude responses. Results support the hypothesis that a new stimulus paired with the attitude stimuli (food words) would come to elicit a positive attitude more strongly for Ss deprived of food than for Ss satiated on food. Relevance of the results for a general learning theory of attitudes and social interaction as well as for the study of the attitudinal and interpersonal function of language is discussed. (51 ref.)

The Deprivation-Satiation Effect in Attitude Conditioning Without Deprivation but with Demand Characteristics

“…The hypothesis was that only deprived subjects would show attitude conditioning. Staats et al (1972) presented data which support their prediction. They noted that &dquo;... many of the subjects did not accept the cover story provided, but the task led them to attribute a different purpose to the experiment than was really involved&dquo; (p. 182).…”

“…Much of the evidence to date supports the demand characteristics explanation of the conditioning effect in these paradigms (Page, Note I). Staats, Minke, Martin, and Higa (1972) offered an experimental paradigm which differs from the paradigms which Page has criticized and which they claim is less subject to a demand characteristics interpretation. Prior to the experiment, subjects either skipped breakfast and lunch (deprivation) or ate a reasonable meal (satiation).…”

“…He then read Staats' original recruitment instructions (which informed each subject of the deprivation-satiation manipulation) and told half of the subjectsrto pretend to be food deprived and half to role-play satiation. ' The remaining instructions closely followed those of the original Staats et al (1972) experiment. Subjects were told that the experiment was designed to study two types of learning taking place at the same time, one type involving words being read aloud and one type involving nonsense syllables projected on a screen.…”

“…Subjects were 135 introductory psychology students run near the end of the semester. Six subjects were eliminated for failure to follow the satiation criterion of Staats et al (1972) and one for not completing the rating scales. Thus 128 remained in the analyses--61 randomly assigned to the deprived and 67 to the satiation conditions.…”

Food deprivation and conditioned reinforcing value of food words: Interaction of Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning

“…Finch (1938) had previously shown that fooddepr ived dogs salivated more to a es. Staats, Minke, Martin, and Higa (1972) showed the food words could transfer the conditioned emotional response to a neutral stimulus, in a classical conditioning procedure, more strongly for food-deprived subjects than for nondeprived subjects. Staats and Warren (1974) showed that fooddeprived subjects could learn an approach response to food words as the directive (discrim inative) stimulus in a two-choice response task more rapidly than they could learn an avoidance response, and that such subjects learned an approach response to food words more rapidly than did nondeprived subjects.…”