The effects of verbal reinforcement on children's performance as a function of type of task

Abstract

Ninety kindergarten and 90 fifth-grade boys participated in 1 of 3 tasks, Sorting, Drawing, or Puzzle, and in 1 of 3 reinforcement conditions, approval, criticism or silence. The tasks differed in level of difficulty or interest. Younger boys remained longer in all of the tasks when they were approved by an adult than when they were criticized or E was silent. Older boys remained longer in the Sorting and Drawing Tasks when E was supportive or remained silent. As the tasks became more difficult, there was a consistent decrease in the effectiveness of reinforcement for all Ss. With older Ss, it appears that when an adult's comments differ from S's evaluation of his performance, S attempts to reduce the conflict by remaining longer in the task in an effort to determine what type of response will yield satisfactory evaluation. Younger Ss, however, appear to rely more strongly on adult evaluation as estimates of their performance. Support thus tends to reinforce the response of remaining in the task while criticism punishes that response. Correlations between rate of response measures in the Sorting and Drawing Tasks and the time measures indicated that the two measures are comparable.