MOTIVATIONAL ASPECTS OF ESCAPE FROM PUNISHMENT¹

Abstract

Punishment and escape were studied simultaneously by allowing a subject to escape from a stimulus situation in which responses were punished, into a stimulus situation in which responses were not punished. The frequency of the punished responses was found to be an inverse function of the intensity of punishment, whereas the frequency of the escape response was a direct function of the intensity of punishment. Both of these functions were obtained under three different schedules of food reinforcement. The strength of the escape behavior was evidenced by (1) the emergence of the escape response even when the frequency of foodl reinforcement decreased as a consequence of the escape response, (2) the maintenance of the escape response by fixed-interval and fixed-ratio schedules of escape reinforcement, and (3) the occurrence of escape responses at intensities of punishment that otherwise produced only mild suppression of the punished response when no escape was possible. This last finding indicates that a subject may be driven out of a situation involving punishment even though the punishment is relatively ineffective in suppressing the punished responses when no escape is possible.Aversive stimuli have been defined in several ways. One defining characteristic (Dinsmoor, 1954;Keller and Schoenfeld, 1950;Skinner, 1953;Holland and Skinner, 1961) is whether escape or avoidance conditioning results from the termination or postponement of the stimulus. A second defining characteristic is whether suppression results when responses produce the stimulus (Keller and Schoenfeld, 1950; Azrin and Holz, in press). This latter procedure is designated as punishment. The present experiment attempts to study both defining characteristics simultaneously. The same theoretical objective was pursued by Hefferline (1950) and Harrison and Abelson (1959) utilizing two components (bar-press and bar-release) of the same general response. The present study used two different responses to achieve greater independence: one response produced the aversive stimulus, a second avoided it. In order to establish motivation for producing the aversive stimulus, Ss were first conditioned to respond for food; then, the aversive stimulus was delivered for each ' The punishing stimulus was a brief 100 msec pulse of 60 cps ac (lelivere(I through a 1OK ohm series resistance to gold wires implanted beneath the skin and anchored around the pubis bone on each side of the bird (Azrin, 1959a). When the punishment procedure was used, the shock was delivered immediately after each response. Results Figure 1 shows the typical change in escape responses for one S as a function of the punishment intensity. It can be seen that less than three escape responses were emitted daily by this S when the punishment intensity was less than 40 v. At a critical intensity (40 v for this S, but 20 to 50 v for the other five), the escape responses increased to 60 per session (one escape response per reinforcement) and remained at that level as the intensity was increased further to 7...

THE EFFECTS OF SHOCK AS A PUNISHER FOR CIGARETTE SMOKING1

“…Escape responses do increase as a function of increasing punishment intensity with infra-human organisms (Azrin, Hake, Holz, and Hutchinson, 1965). Also, the use of aversive stimulation with human subjects can result in their refusing to return for additional experimental sessions (Azrin, 1958;Franks, Fried, and Ashem, 1966) or terminating their participation within an experimental session Tatum, 1961, 1963).…”

Fixed‐interval Work Habits of Congress

“…To (Kefauver and Levin, 1947), part of the late upswing in Congressional performance may represent FI escape behavior (Azrin, Hake, and Holz, 1965).…”

SCHEDULES USING NOXIOUS STIMULI. L MULTIPLE FIXED‐RATIO AND FIXED‐INTERVAL TERMINATION OF SCHEDULE COMPLEXES1

“…Hearst and Sidman (1961) and Hearst (1963) reported experiments in which responding was maintained by terminating a stimulus associated with the scheduled presentation of both food and electric shock. Azrin, Hake, Holz, and Hutchinson (1965) reported that responding was maintained on one response key when it eliminated response-produced electric shocks programmed concurrently with a variableinterval schedule of food presentation on another response key. Responding may also be maintained or enhanced by termination of comporrents of food presentation schedules (for example, Azrin, 1961;Ferster, 1958;Findley, 1958Findley, , 1962Herrnstein, 1955;Kelleher, Riddle, and Cook, 1962;Thompson, 1964;Zimmerman and Ferster, 1964).…”