Abstract
“Jan-Ken” has the property of random partial reinforcement. The purpose of the present experiment was to examine the property that “Jan-Ken” facilitates and maintains the occurrence of “Jan-Ken” behaviors and “Jan-Ken” imitation. Another purpose was to examine how the effect of vicarious reinforcement was influenced by the effect of direct reinforcement.
The films that female adult and child (boy or girl) do “Jan-Ken” and the victor eats biscuits were used as modeling stimuli. In alternative condition, female adult and child model each eats three biscuits according to outcomes of “Jan-Ken”. In child-victor condition, child model eats all biscuits.
The subjects were 15 boys and 15 girls. They ranged in age from 5 years 6 months to 6 years 6 months. The experiment runs as follows; the exposure to the film-the measure of spontaneous performance-(one or two days after) the second exposure to the same film-the second measure of spontaneous performance-(after the 10th) the third measure of spontaneous performance. In the measure of performance, subjects were paired with and played with only one toy. Then, Ss ate biscuits given in consideration fo participation. Ss' behaviors were observed by the experimenter from the observation room.
The question asked after the first spontaneous performance demonstrate that many Ss of both conditions reported the models' “Jan-Ken” behavior and more than half the Ss of child-victor condition reported child having eaten all biscuits. Two modeling conditions had different effects on boys and girls. More girls in the alternative condition imitated distictly models' “Jan-Ken” behavior than Ss of the child-victor condition. More boys tended to have done “Jan-Ken” at the last biscuit and the number of boys of both conditions who performed “Jan-Ken” did not differ significantly. Such disposition of the boys lost meaning in conmparing the two conditions. Some losers at the “Jan-Ken” tended to have desired not to do subsequent Jan
