Factors Affecting Mediation of E-Bias Effects in Verbal Operant Conditioning

Abstract

Three studies investigated the mediation of E-bias effects on the relationship between awareness and verbal conditioning. The hypotheses were tested that such effects are determined in part by: (i) the personality of E, (ii) E's knowledge of S's conditioning performance, and (iii) the closeness of contact between the biasing authority and Es being biased. Results for a Taffel-type conditioning task supported the last two hypotheses but not the first.