Disagreement-induced drive in conversation: A social analog of intermittent shock in escape conditioning

Drivelike motivational properties of competitive behavior.

“…Intermittent shock effects appear to have no functionally equivalent parallel in reward conditioning (e.g., Franchina, 19,66, 1969a) and exhibit a pattern of results that also distinguishes between aversive (escape) and appetitive (reward) conditioning. Moreover, this variable, which identifies and pinpoints the locus of the aversive drive, has been successfully extended to studies of the motivational properties of such diverse forms of human behavior as nonconformity, altruism, and interpersonal communication (e.g., Seybert & Weiss, 1974;Weiss, Boyer, Lombardo, & Stich, 1973;Weiss, Miller, Steigleder, & Denton, 1977;Weiss, Williams, & Miller 1972).…”

Drive effects on instrumental response speed induced by intermittent disagreement in conversation

“…It therefore follows that subjects disagreed with at the outset of only half of the trials should still perform the instrumental reo sponse, but more slowly than subjects disagreed with at the beginning of all trials. This prediction was con· firmed in an experiment by Weiss, Williams, and Miller (1972). The purpose of the present experiment is to demonstrate the replicability of the effect and the independence of the effect from adventitious specifics of procedure.…”

“…There were five practiced other-person confederates, always addressing a subject of the same sex, counterbalanced for experimental condition. In this way the replicability of the intermittent shock effect was assessed, free of any problems peculiar to the other-person tapes employed by Weiss, Williams, and Miller (1972). Figure 1 shows effects in conversation which are analogous to intermittent shock effects in escape conditioning: Subjects disagreed with at the outset of only half of the trials still performed the instrumental response, but more slowly than subjects disagreed with at the outset of all trials.…”

“…Latency data from nine experiments show a fundamental similarity to a discrete· trials instrumental escape·conditioning model in demo onstrating replicable analogs of (1) acquisition, (2) ex· tinction, (3) partial·reinforcement effects, (4) drive effects, (5) a delay of reinforcement gradient, (6) cor· related reinforcement effects, (7) correlated delay of reinforcement effects, and (8) intermittent shock effects (Weiss, Beck, & Stich, 1972;Weiss, Boyer, Colwick, & Moran, 1971;Weiss, Lombardo, Warren, & Kelley, 1971;Weiss, Williams, & Miller, 1972). The importance of studying one person's reply to another is generally acknowledged by researchers in interpersonal communi· cation, but the reinforcing function of speaking in reply had not previously been identified and explored.…”