Differential satiation for a social reinforcing stimulus as a determinant of its efficacy in conditioning

Differences in conditionability as a function of race of subject and prior availability of a social reinforcer1

“…The present report focuses on some serendipitous findmgs mvolvmg differences m black-white conditicmability to a white reinforcmg agent, which were obtemed as part of a partial rephcation of Landau and Gewirtz (1967) ^ These findmgs were serendipitous m the sense that we were initially concerned simply with testing, usmg a white college sample, the generahty of Gewortz's mverse availabihty hypothesis Dunng the early runs of the availabihty conditions, however, an implanned-for sample of black subjects was drawn mto the expenmental population because of the random selection procedure used. An early exanunation of these data (Heckenmuellar, Schultz, & Baron, 1968) revealed that with the lowavailabihty condition (relative depnvation) the black college subjects conditioned more readily to the verbal praise of a white experimenter than did a sample of white college students This findmg suggested the advisabihty of mcluduig a condition of high availabihty (relative satiation) for both black and white subjects.…”

“…The general issue with which the present authors have been concerned is an attempt to specify how an mdividual's past social reinforcement history is hkely to affect his responsivity to subsequent social reinforcement expenences, l.e, how variations m the prior availability of a social remforcer affect its subsequent eflBcacy (cf Baron, 1966, Baron, Robmson, & Lawrence, 1968 The genenal paradigm has mvolved confrontmg subjects with sequential changes m the rate of provision of a particular class of social stimuh One such schedule change of particular interest mvolves estabhshmg groups which receive mitially either a relatively high or a relatively low level of verbal approval All subjects are then presented wiih a 100-percent fix^-ratio remforcement schedule for emittmg the "correct" verbal label on a discnmmation task For this general class of situations Gewirtz (1967) has predicted, and generally found with a child population, an mverse relationship between amount of pnor short-term availabihty of a social stimulus and its subsequent efficacy as a social remforcer (cf Landau & Gewirtz, 1967). The present report focuses on some serendipitous findmgs mvolvmg differences m black-white conditicmability to a white reinforcmg agent, which were obtemed as part of a partial rephcation of Landau and Gewirtz (1967) ^ These findmgs were serendipitous m the sense that we were initially concerned simply with testing, usmg a white college sample, the generahty of Gewortz's mverse availabihty hypothesis Dunng the early runs of the availabihty conditions, however, an implanned-for sample of black subjects was drawn mto the expenmental population because of the random selection procedure used.…”

“…The general issue with which the present authors have been concerned is an attempt to specify how an mdividual's past social reinforcement history is hkely to affect his responsivity to subsequent social reinforcement expenences, l.e, how variations m the prior availability of a social remforcer affect its subsequent eflBcacy (cf Baron, 1966, Baron, Robmson, & Lawrence, 1968 The genenal paradigm has mvolved confrontmg subjects with sequential changes m the rate of provision of a particular class of social stimuh One such schedule change of particular interest mvolves estabhshmg groups which receive mitially either a relatively high or a relatively low level of verbal approval All subjects are then presented wiih a 100-percent fix^-ratio remforcement schedule for emittmg the "correct" verbal label on a discnmmation task For this general class of situations Gewirtz (1967) has predicted, and generally found with a child population, an mverse relationship between amount of pnor short-term availabihty of a social stimulus and its subsequent efficacy as a social remforcer (cf Landau & Gewirtz, 1967). The present report focuses on some serendipitous findmgs mvolvmg differences m black-white conditicmability to a white reinforcmg agent, which were obtemed as part of a partial rephcation of Landau and Gewirtz (1967) ^ These findmgs were serendipitous m the sense that we 1 The research and preparation of this report were supported by grants No GS-1342 and No GS-2372 from the National Science Foundation to the semor author 2 Now at the Umversity of Detroit 3 The present study, although procedurally similar to Landau and Gewirtz (1967), differs m that (a) undergraduates rather than children served as subjects, and (b) the sex of the experimenter was male and that of the subjects female, while the reverse was true for Landau and Gewirtz Gewirtz (1967) sug-were initially concerned simply with testing, usmg a white college sample, the generahty of Gewortz's mverse availabihty hypothesis Dunng the early runs of the availabihty conditions, however, an implanned-for sample of black subjects was drawn mto the expenmental population because of the random selection procedure used. An early exanunation of these data (Heckenmuellar, Schultz, & Baron, 1968) revealed that with the lowavailabihty condition (relative depnvation) the black college subjects conditioned more readily to the verbal praise of a white experimenter than did a sample of white college students This findmg suggested the advisabihty of mcluduig a condition of high availabihty (relative satiation) for both black and white subjects.…”

Generality and Generalization of Social Reinforcer Efficacy Subsequent to Satiation

“…GEWIRTZ AND HIS COLLEAGUES (Gewirtz, 1967(Gewirtz, , 1969Gewirtz & Baer, 1958a, 1958bLandau & Gewirtz, 1967) have demonstrated that a functional relationship exists between the amount of pre-exposure to social or verbal stimuli (e.g., good, fine) and the subsequent effect of these stimuli as reinforcers. Most germane to the present investigation is the suggested existence of an inverse linear relationship between reinforcer effectiveness and the number of times a stimulus word is presented to a subject by an experimenter in a period immediately prior to the use of the stimulus as a reinforcer (Gewirtz, 1969;Landau & Gewirtz, 1967).…”

“…Most germane to the present investigation is the suggested existence of an inverse linear relationship between reinforcer effectiveness and the number of times a stimulus word is presented to a subject by an experimenter in a period immediately prior to the use of the stimulus as a reinforcer (Gewirtz, 1969;Landau & Gewirtz, 1967). This inverse linear relationship is in contrast to the curvilinear relationship obtained by Cook (1968Cook ( , 1970, who had the subject rather than the experimenter continually repeat the stimulus word in a pre-exposure period.…”