One hundred and eight kindergarten and elementary school children, 36 at each of three age levels (5, 7, and 9 years) participated in the experiment. All children were presented a three-part successive discrimination task; original learning, presentation of incidental stimuli, and a test of recongition and recall of the incidental material.…

This article discusses a survey of administrators at an Alabama community college regarding faculty responsibilities and rewards. Respondents indicated that academic advising constituted the most important responsibility for faculty members. Professional organization conference planning and journal publications were among the least significant.…

The Experimental Manpower Laboratory for Corrections has conducted continuous experimental studies in offender rehabilitation since the lab was created in 1968. The opportunity to incorporate the findings and products from previous studies by developing a behavioral management model was provided in March 1973, when the lab began its Mount Meigs…

Four research papers discuss the influence of social cues on children's behavior. Specifically, the focus of this program of research was to systematically investigate the impact of two classes of social cues: (1) implicit or explicit instructional cues inherent in social interactions, and (2) inferred or actual evaluative cues present in…

A report on research which investigates the effectiveness of a reinforcement program which would require an increased amount of desirable behavior for each unit of reinforcement. (Author)

This study investigated effects of dissonance and positive reinforcement as feedback mechanisms for altering the humanistic behavior of student teachers. The subjects were undergraduate education majors who were enrolled in a student teaching program. The student teachers were observed twice by their pupils using the Tuckman Teacher Feedback Form.…

Sixty-four 4th graders were subjects in this experiment which examined children's choice behavior under conditions of uncertainty. In the experimental condition, 2 rewards were offered, one of which was concealed by a question mark. In addition the question mark concealed one of 2 possible rewards, presented according to varied probability…

Reinforcement hierarchy implies movement along a continuum from top to bottom, from primitive levels of reinforcement to more sophisticated levels. Unless it is immediately obvious that a child cannot function without the use of lower-order reinforcers, we should approach him as though he responds to topmost reinforcers until he demonstrates…

This article describes an experiment designed to determine if a selected reinforcement style of individual counseling could influence adolescents to engage in a greater variety of information-seeking behavior than subjects not receiving such counseling. The findings indicated that the effectiveness of this technique varied with different levels of…

Surveys some of the difficulties currently confronting the reinforcement concept and cosiders some alternatives to reinforcement as the fundamental basis of learning. Two specific alternatives considered are: an incentive motivation approach and a cognitive approach. (Author)

A learning task was used to examine the differences in responsiveness to symbolic and tangible incentives with 24 predelinquent and 25 nondelinquent 15-year-old boys. (Author/SBH)

A literature review revealed what does not work in character education: lecturing, authoritative teaching styles, external codes of ethics, and lack of student participation in setting ethics agendas. What works are use of community context; enhanced school, family, and community environment; peer education; cooperative learning; and giving…

Functional analyses of problem behaviors were performed with three individuals with severe intellectual disabilities. Results indicated that the problem behaviors were maintained either when the behavior resulted in escape from difficult tasks or when the behavior resulted in access to preferred items. Training in functionally equivalent…

This experiment was designed to assess whether the expected and actual performance of black and white students on an academic task would be differentially affected by the race of the successful models observed. Since males and females might not be equally influenced by the modeling effects, separate analyses were planned for males and females of…

For any organization to become or remain competitive and provide incentive and fulfillment for the people who work there, management must be flexible and open to change and the needs of its employees. That is where a human resources system, complete with motivational techniques, comes in. (Author)