Retardation of extinction of an escape response by prolonged, intense goal box shock.

Self-punitive behavior: Effects of number of massed acquisition trials and percentage of goal-shocked extinction trials

“…Recently, however, it has been clearly demonstrated that facilitation of extinction response measures can reliably be induced by applying shock in the goalbox during the extinction of shock-motivated escape or avoidance behavior (Anderson, Crowell, & Brown, 1982;Babb, Kostyla , & Bennett, 1980;Matthews & Babb, 1985). The firm establishment of the behavioral reality of this effect is important, because it poses severe problems for theoretical accounts of self-punitive behavior based on the early work using alley shock (Brown, 1969;Melvin, 1971).…”