Effects of examiner attitudes and type of reinforcement on the conditioning of hostile verbs1

Simkins, Lawrence

doi:10.1111/j.1467-6494.1961.tb01669.x

Cited by 18 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 10 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This was found to increase the amount of conditioning without altering the pattern of response. This resembles findings in normal Ss by Simkins (1961) and Solley & Long (1958).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

“…The mechanism by which this preliminary interview increases conditioning is no doubt complex, particularly when the S s are neurotic patients. For example, Simkins (1961) found that not only the length of the prior interview, but also the attitude of the interviewer at the time were important; if he was critical, S s conditioned less than if he praised them. This applied only to social reinforcement, and not when a points score was used.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ferguson & Buss (1960) showed that the interviewer's sex was a less important determinant of the S's conditioning than was the interviewer's attitude: a hostile attitude retarded learning. Sarason (1961), using a complicated factorial design, confirmed these findings, while Simkins (1961) showed that the interviewer's attitude to the patient before the start of the conditioning test was just as important as his attitude during the test; criticism led to less subsequent conditioning than did praise. The importance of the S's previous interaction with the interviewer was also studied by Solley & Long (1958), who demonstrated that no verbal conditioning took place if Ss had no contact with the interviewer before the test.…”

mentioning

confidence: 96%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Verbal Conditioning as a Measure of Interpersonal Influence in Psychiatric Interviews

Gelder

1968

Br J Soc Clin Psychol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Verbal conditioning techniques make it possible to measure interpersonal influence in experimental clinical interviews. Taffel's verbal conditioning technique was first used to measure the influence of the same interviewer on thirty‐two neurotic patients, thirty‐two schizophrenic patients and thirty‐two general hospital patients (‘normals’). Each diagnostic group was divided into two subgroups: one received verbal reinforcement, the other acted as a non‐reinforced control group. The three groups were matched satisfactorily. There were no differences between the groups when reinforcement was omitted. Both neurotic and normal Ss conditioned in response to social reinforcement but schizophrenic patients did not. The effect in the neurotic group outlasted the reinforcement, but in normal Ss it extinguished rapidly. In both groups, conditioning was greater for responses containing ‘I’. Conditioning was unrelated to neuroticism or extraversion. Patients did not become aware of the purpose and procedure of the experiment. In the second enquiry twenty neurotic patients were divided at random into two well‐matched groups whose treatment differed in only one respect: half took part in a prior interview in which the interviewer attempted to form a ‘relationship’; the other half did not have this interview. The former group responded more in a subsequent conditioning experiment. However, this difference between groups was no longer present on the next day. The results could not be accounted for by the Ss' awareness of the purpose of the experiment and their conscious desire to please the interviewer. Provided conditions were very carefully standardized, results are reproducible. The results are discussed in relation to the problems of measuring interpersonal influence in psychotherapy and the factors which determine the influence of doctor on patient. It is concluded that verbal conditioning techniques provide a sensitive way of measuring differences in susceptibility to interpersonal influence, but that verbal conditioning effects probably play only a minor part in changes observed in psychotherapy.

show abstract

“…This was found to increase the amount of conditioning without altering the pattern of response. This resembles findings in normal Ss by Simkins (1961) and Solley & Long (1958).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 87%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 96%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Verbal Conditioning as a Measure of Interpersonal Influence in Psychiatric Interviews

Gelder

1968

Br J Soc Clin Psychol

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Results indicated that only aware .Ys showed performance gains and that the introduction of the monetary reinforcer did not induce further gains. This study corrects for Simkins's (1961) failure to take awareness into account; however, it docs not separate the two types of reinforcement during the process of response acquisition so that they may be compared.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Studies of verbal conditioning which have compared material and social reinforcements have yielded conflicting results. Simkins (1961) reported that tangible rewards (points exchangeable for pennies) resulted in higher performance levels on a verbal conditioning task than did verbal reinforcers ("good," "fine"). However, Simkins did not evaluate awareness of Ss, and it is possible that more .S"s in the material reward condition were aware of the response-reinforcement contingency, thus accounting for the differences found.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Verbal performance effected by social and material reinforcements.

Simpkins¹

1970

Journal of Experimental Psychology

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study investigated the effects of two levels of social and material reinforcement on the verbal performance of 104 university males who were divided into Impulsive and Nonimpulsivc groups by paper-and-pcncil tests. A Taffel-type verbal conditioning task was used. Following preliminary instructions given to ,9s in person, all further interaction took place with R in an adjoining control room. Social reinforcement involved prerecorded comments : "mm-hm" or "ok" for weak; "good," "that's good," "very good," "excellent," or "fine" for strong. The material reinforcement was either 2(' (weak) or 15<# (strong). Thus the design was a 2X2X2 factorial for type of reinforcement, intensity, and level of impulsivity. Only data from aware .?s were included in the analysis. Material reinforcement was found to be more effective than social reinforcement for all blocks of reinforced trials (/><.01). There were no significant effects for intensity or impulsivity. Results were discussed in terms of awareness of the response-reinforcement contingency and differential valuation of incentives.

show abstract

Personality Dynamics1

London

Rosenhan

1964

ETS Research Bulletin Series

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Effects of examiner attitudes and type of reinforcement on the conditioning of hostile verbs1

Cited by 18 publications

References 10 publications

Verbal Conditioning as a Measure of Interpersonal Influence in Psychiatric Interviews

Verbal Conditioning as a Measure of Interpersonal Influence in Psychiatric Interviews

Verbal performance effected by social and material reinforcements.

Personality Dynamics1

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About