Transfer of persistence across behaviors

Two experiments tested the applicability to human beings of findings with animals that the number of performances required for the reinforcement of one behavior affects the subsequent effort expended in other instrumental behaviors. In Exp I, 12 adult depressed psychiatric patients worked on a sorti...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of Experimental Psychology : Human Learning and Memory 1979-09, Vol.5 (5), p.522-530
Main Author: Eisenberger, Rober
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Behavior Modification
Child
Conditioning, Operant
Depression (Emotion)
Depression - psychology
Energy Expenditure
Frustration
Habituation, Psychophysiologic
Handwriting
Human
Humans
Learning Disabilities
Learning Disorders - psychology
Mathematics
Motivation
Persistence
Physical Exertion
Reinforcement
Reinforcement Schedule
Transfer (Learning)
Transfer (Psychology)
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Summary:Two experiments tested the applicability to human beings of findings with animals that the number of performances required for the reinforcement of one behavior affects the subsequent effort expended in other instrumental behaviors. In Exp I, 12 adult depressed psychiatric patients worked on a sorting task for the approval of a staff psychologist. The time spent and the work completed were increased by prior approval from a ward attendant for each completion of several custodial tasks, as compared to the attendant's approval for each completion of a single task or a no-pretreatment control condition. In Exp II, 11 preadolescent learning-disabled students who were required to read and spell correctly a greater number of words per reward token later spent more time and completed more work for reward tokens in mathematics and handwriting. Results suggest that individual differences in general persistence may arise, in part, from an accumulation of effort training in the natural environment. (24 ref)
ISSN:0096-1515
0278-7393
2327-9745
1939-1285
DOI:10.1037/0278-7393.5.5.522