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HUMAN, FREE‐OPERANT AVOIDANCE OF “TIME OUT” FROM MONETARY REINFORCEMENT 1
Author(s) -
Baron Alan,
Kaufman Arnold
Publication year - 1966
Publication title -
journal of the experimental analysis of behavior
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.75
H-Index - 61
eISSN - 1938-3711
pISSN - 0022-5002
DOI - 10.1901/jeab.1966.9-557
Subject(s) - reinforcement , psychology , avoidance learning , avoidance response , operant conditioning , avoidance behaviour , aversive stimulus , conditioning , developmental psychology , social psychology , neuroscience , statistics , mathematics
To assess the aversive effects of withdrawing monetary reinforcement, human subjects were exposed to a free‐operant avoidance procedure in which periods of no reinforcement occurred if the subject failed to respond, and each response postponed withdrawal of reinforcement. Avoidance behavior was developed either through specific instructions about the consequence of responding or through preliminary escape‐avoidance training. In all cases, rates of response were found to be a positively accelerated function of decreases in the duration by which responding postponed reinforcement withdrawal. The findings with respect to the function relating avoidance behavior to the interval of postponement were viewed as similar to those obtained when shock is used as the aversive event in free‐operant avoidance conditioning.