The present experiment investigated the relationship between laboratory measures of self-control and delay of gratification in children and explored several other factors that may influence self-control. In the self-control paradigm, 30 four-year-old children repeatedly chose between three reinforcers received after a delay and one reinforcer…

Depressive realism consists of the lower personal control over uncontrollable events perceived by depressed as compared to nondepressed individuals. In this article, we propose that the realism of depressed individuals is caused not by an increased accuracy in perception, but by their more comprehensive exposure to the actual environmental…

Participants earned points by pressing a computer space bar (Experiment 1) or forming rectangles on the screen with the mouse (Experiment 2) under differential-reinforcement-of-low-rate schedules, followed by extinction. Variability in interresponse time (the contingent dimension) increased during extinction, as for Morgan and Lee (1996);…

We assessed problem and appropriate behavior in the natural environment from a matching perspective. Problem and appropriate behavior were conceptualized as concurrently available responses, the occurrence of which was thought to be determined by the relative rates or durations of reinforcement. We also assessed whether response allocation could…

Pigeons were trained in two experiments that used the concurrent-chains procedure. These experiments sought to identify the variables controlling the preference of pigeons for a constant duration over a variable duration of exposure to an aperiodic, time-based, terminal-link schedule. The results indicated that two variables correlated with the…

The influence of magnitude of reinforcement was examined on both response rate and behavioral persistence. During Phase 1, a multiple schedule of concurrent reinforcement was implemented in which reinforcement for one response option was held constant at VI 30 s across both components, while magnitude of reinforcement for the other response option…

Four experiments compared the effects of self-rules and rules, and varied and specific schedules of reinforcement. Participants were first exposed to either several schedules (varied groups) or to one schedule (specific groups) and either were asked to generate rules (self-rule groups), were provided rules (rule groups), or were not asked nor…

Drugs, including alcohol, that are abused function as powerful reinforcers. Effective drug and alcohol addiction treatments decrease the reinforcing efficacy of the abused substance. Reinforcing efficacy arises from a variety of sources, documentation of which may aid in designing treatment and prevention interventions. Understanding the origin…

Self-control can be defined as the choice of a larger, more delayed reinforcer over a smaller, less delayed reinforcer, and impulsiveness as the opposite. Previous research suggests that exposure to visual food cues affects adult humans' self-control. Previous research also suggests that food deprivation decreases adult humans' self-control. The…

For over 40 years, much research has sought to mathematically describe the relation between operant choice responding and reinforcement. This quantitatively oriented research and the accompanying theoretical interpretation of the data are embedded in the broader context of general experimental psychology, which can at times be regrettably…

To determine whether reduction of smoking via contingency management in dependent smokers would decrease the discounting of delayed reinforcers compared with smokers who did not reduce their smoking, moderate to heavy cigarette smokers were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: a contingency management condition and a control condition. In…

Do rats run and respond at a higher rate to run during the dark phase when they are typically more active? To answer this question, Long Evans rats were exposed to a response-initiated variable interval 30-s schedule of wheel-running reinforcement during light and dark cycles. Wheel-running and local lever-pressing rates increased modestly during…

There is evidence that people discount food more steeply than money, suggesting that primary or consumable reinforcers lose value quickly, whereas conditioned or nonconsumable reinforcers lose value slowly. In the present study, discounting rates of baht (unstable currency) and rice (preservable food) were compared during a period of unstable…

The present study investigated whether Pavlovian conditioning contributes, in the form of the response operandum serving as a conditioned stimulus, to the increase in the rate of response for 1% liquid-sucrose reinforcement when food-pellet reinforcement is upcoming. Rats were exposed to conditions in which sign tracking for 1% sucrose was…

The goal of this study was to design and evaluate fluency-based training units to help students eliminate inconcision. Participants first completed a 1.5-hr lesson on writing concisely and then a 5-min test during which they edited sentences containing inconcise text from the training units. Subsequently, participants were randomly assigned to an…