Training institutional staff to alter delinquents' conversation

Abstract

The staff of an institution for delinquent girls were trained to use prompts and certain social contingencies to alter girls' conversation about prosocial and antisocial behavior. The major findings were: (a) staff training led to an increase in the rate of girls' prosocial comments when staff were present, and some decrease in the rate of antisocial comments; (b) changes in staff behavior led to unpredictable changes in girls' responses to peers' prosocial and antisocial comments; (c) changes in prosocial comments were not maintained during a post-training condition, and did not generalize to periods when staff were usually absent. This pattern of outcome suggests that other intervention procedures should be used to alter such behaviors.