Thomas J. Stachnik

Student Acceptance of Generalized Personality Interpretations

Two groups of Ss were given personality tests and their interpretations, which were identical for each S. Ss were asked to rate the interpretations on a scale ranging from Excellent to Very Poor. They were also asked to make any additional comments which they felt appropriate. In the first group the tests and interpretations were given by a professional psychologist, whereas in the second they were given by students. In both the experiments a significant number of Ss rated the interpretation as good or excellent, but there was no difference in the ratings when given by a student or a psychologist. They also wrote comments containing praise for the examiner and indicated their complete acceptance of the interpretation. It is suggested that similar circumstances may occasionally exist in the actual counseling setting.

Fighting and avoidance in response to aversive stimulation.

Avoidance behavior in single and paired rats was established by placing the animals into a chamber and allowing their shock-induced random movements to produce a bar press. Single subjects consistently performed better in the avoidance situation than paired subjects. This finding was related to the high incidence of shock elicited fighting which was observed between the paired animals. Both avoidance and fighting responses were typically made by one of the paired subjects while the other showed only the stereotyped fighting reaction. The addition of a naive subject into the chamber with a subject that had previously learned to avoid, also produced fighting behavior which disrupted the avoidance responding.

Reinforcement of aggression through intracranial stimulation)

Intracranial stimulation was used as a reinforcer to condition fighting in paired rats. Stimulation for an implanted animal was made contingent upon responses which successively approximated those typical of attack. A stable pattern of aggression developed, the maintenance of which was possible on intermittent reinforcement schedules although at depressed frequencies.

The role of response effort in extinction: Much ado about nothing

In order to determine the importance of response effort in operant extinction, albino rats (N = 21) were trained on differentially weighted bars in an operant chamber and then extinguished to a 5 min no-response criterion. By using a recessed bar and by giving substantially greater training than in previous studies, the inverse relationship between response effort and resistance to extinction noted in earlier studies failed to appear.

Avoidance of conditioned aggression

A pigeon was trained with food reinforcement to attack a target bird, and the subsequent aggression was brought under the control of an exteroceptive stimulus. The aggressor bird was then required to keypeck (FR 20) in order to produce the SD condition, while the target bird was provided access to a second key which, when pecked (FR 3), instituted an SΔ condition for the aggressor. These contingencies were effective in maintaining keypecking by both birds and warrant the conclusion that the target bird did find the behavior of the aggressor bird aversive.

A Laboratory Section for Educational Psychology

Eighty-four students in an Educational Psychology class were divided into groups of three. Each group worked with a pre-school child using the principles of behavior they had read and discussed. Specific objectives, spelled out in behavioral terms, were used to identify behaviors indicative of learning. The results of this program from the standpoint of student learning, child learning, and the interest of all participants indicate that the lab section greatly facilitated the understanding of behavioral principles.