Feedback properties of “Self-reinforcement”: Further evidence

Unresolved theoretical issues in self-management: Implications for research and practice.

“…The authors suggested that self-reinforcement effects should be viewed as a product of a continuum of external cues. Similar findings were reported by Jones and Ollendick (1979), Castro, Cajiao de Perez, Bustos de Albanchez, and Ponce de Leon (1983), and Hayes et al (1985).…”

Self‐reinforcement Effects: An Artifact of Social Standard Setting?

“…Rachlin (1974) has proposed another environmentally based account for the effects of self-reinforcement procedures, namely, that self-control behaviors cue the long-term consequences of behavior that have been experienced in the past. Although there is evidence to support this view (Castro et al, 1983;Castro & Rachlin, 1980;Nelson et al, 1983), it does not specify what environmental consequences are actually cued, nor is it dear that self-control behaviors themselves are required for cuing to take place Nelson & Hayes, 1981). The research reported here can easily be integrated with a cuing analysis if it is recognized that the "long-term consequences" engaged are primarily the social consequences established in the procedure itself.…”

“…A final line of research has examined effects for self-reinforcement and similar procedures when major parameters of external reinforcement are violated. For example, certain types of "self-punishment" procedures can be as effective as or more effective than self-reinforcement procedures even when the effects should be in the opposite direction (Castro, Perez, Albanchez, & Ponce de Leon, 1983;Castro & Rachlin, 1980), that delivering a "consequence" in these procedures before the behavior is more effective than delivering one after it (Nelson, Hayes, Spong, Jarrett, & McKnight, 1983), or that deprivation of the supposed reinforcer has no effect on the procedure . This type of research has greatly limited the useful scope of the concept of self-reinforcement in a theoretical sense, but with the exception of Rachlin's model (to be discussed later) has not suggested an alternative model.…”