Abstract
The purpose of this experiment was to examine the effects of verbal reinforcement combinations and a motivational instruction toward reinforcement on verbal conditioning. Following predictions were tested; (a) “positive and negative” reinforcement would have greater effect upon verbal conditioning than “positive” reinforcement only,(b) a motivational instruction to receive reinforcement would facilitate verbal conditioning, and (c) if the two variables operate on verbal conditioning simultaneously, a group given “positive and negative” reinforcement with motivational instruction would show the greatest gain in performance among the groups.
Ninety elementary school boys and girls were randomly assigned to one of the 5 experimental conditions. These conditions were as follows: “Good” for correct response and “Bad” for incorrect response after a motivational instruction by saying “Try to let me say ‘Good’ as many as possible” (MRW),“Good” for correct response and nothing for incorrect response after motivational instruction (MR),“Good” for correct response and “Bad” for incorrect response without motivational instruction (RW),“Good” for correct response and nothing for incorrect response without motivational instruction (R), and no reinforcement for all responses (C). 80 Taffel-type cards were employed. each of which contained a three-syllable verb and four personal nouns: Taro, Hanako, Yoshiko, and Makoto. On the basis of the response frequency in 20 operant trials, the two medium-order nouns were chosen as the critical responses. Between the 20th and the 21st trials the motivational instruction was given to the Ss in MRW and MR groups. An awareness interview similar to that of Wong et al.(1966) was administered after the conditioning experiment.
The main results were that (a) the performance. difference between RW and C group was significant: in the predicted direction but that between R and C group was insignificant,(b) no difference in performance was found between the groups with motivational instruction (MRW and MR groups) and the groups without motivational instruction (RW and R groups),(c) the performance in MRW group did not differ significantly from any of other experimental groups, and (d) the performance of the aware Ss (N=18) was significantly better than the unaware Ss (N=55), and the latter group was similar to the control group in performance.
A discussion was made with reference to the fact that the motivational instruction did not influence successfully to the performance in MRW group, and to the relationship between awareness and verbal conditioning.
