Abstract
The separate effects of praise from an adult and the presence of that adult on preschool children's performance rate change at a simple motor task were studied for 32 4-year-old children of each sex. Following a base-line minute during which the experimenter was present but nonresponsive to the subject, the child was assigned to one of four experimental groups for the next 5 min in which the experimenter: (a) either made supportive comments or remained nonresponsive, and (b) either remained present or was absent behind a screen. The session was completed by a 5-min extinction phase in which the base-line conditions were reinstituted. The major finding was that performance increased under both adult praise and adult presence, with the effects being additive: performance increase was highest when the adult was present and praising the child, and lowest (actually decreasing) when the adult was absent and nonresponsive to the child. The reintroduction of the experimenter during extinction also facilitated performance. The results were related to previous research on both social reinforcement and imitation, and several developmental changes were hypothesized for the effects of both adult reactions and an adult's presence.
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