SOCIAL REINFORCEMENT UNDER NATURAL CONDITIONS

Abstract

Adult approval, contingent on socially acceptable responses to peers, changed the nature of a 4-year-old boy's interactions in a nursery school group. An analysis of the existing situation in a reinforcement framework suggested that unacceptable behavior toward peers was followed by adult attention more consistently than were positive acts. Under experimental conditions of adult social reinforcement, positive responses were emitted with increasing frequency; the opposite occurred when the experimental manipulation of adult reinforcements was withdrawn. Concurrently, negative responses decreased when all reinforcement was directed toward positive behavior and increased when pre-existing conditions were reinstated. Analyses beyond this initial point include concern with the effect of experimental manipulations on the reciprocal reinforcement of subject and peers. Attention is also given to issues of reinforcement in a natural setting, some arising during short-term experiments and others when reinforcement principles are applied to the ongoing responsibilities of parents or teachers.