Despite the intimate relationship dogs share with humans in Western society, we know relatively little about the variables that produce and maintain dog social behavior towards humans. One possibility is that human social interaction is itself a reinforcer for dog behavior. As an initial assessment of the variables that might maintain dog social…

A prediction derived from cognitive dissonance theory is that children devalue an attractive but forbidden toy when mild rather than severe threat deters them from playing with it. One study found the opposite effect for lower socioeconomic class children, i.e., a harsh verbal threat produced more devaluation than a mild threat. Since the latter…