This study was designed to demonstrate the effects of teacher attention given for specific responses children show when using building blocks. These included the responses of combining triangles to make rectangles, stacking diverse pieces to make a tower, making stairs, making a variation on a model, and making a house-like, enclosed, roofed…

An annotated bibliography of studies dealing with social reinforcement in diverse psychological and educational contexts is given. The research reviewed covers the period from 1964 to 1972, and individual studies are classified according to classes of variables which have been found to moderate the effectiveness of social reinforcement. All told,…

Major studies and theoretical positions within the incentive motivation field are reviewed in order to present an integrated picture of past and present research. Special emphasis is placed on delineating social reinforcement variables in an attempt to explicate their relative importance within the context of social reinforcement theory; however,…

This paper describes a laboratory experiment which was a replication and extension of an earlier study, both of which are part of an effort to synthesize the findings of two somewhat different approaches to the study of interpersonal attraction. The first of these approaches is a secondary reinforcement interpretation and in general assumes a…

Children having academic and behavior problems may benefit from a contract drawn up by the teacher identifying specific behaviors that should be changed. Agreed upon and understood by student, teacher, and parents, the contract becomes an effective teaching tool. (JD)

The article provides a review of research on the role of punishment in relation to the normalization of retarded persons and points out that, in the natural environment, punishment procedures normally play some part in the determination of social behavior. (IM)

Systematic application of positive reinforcement principles can be a powerful tool for teachers in the classroom setting. (NH)

Recognizing that punishment for aggression often is noneffective or inadvertently reinforces the aggressive act, the authors discuss an alternative approach and provide an explanation of the exchange theory of aggression. Three classroom experiments, operated with children chosen as the most severe behavior problems in a local school system, are…

A description of the Social Exchange Laboratory's work with autistic children is presented. The laboratory's philosophy of the exchange theory of autism, seen as a set of habitual response patterns maintained and intensified by exchanges which are inadvertantly structured by others in the child's environment, is set forth with characteristics,…

The primary purpose of this study was to examine the effects of a planned program designed to enhance the self concepts of primary children having negative self concepts. The data indicated that the self concepts of 30 children in kindergarten through grade four were enhanced through a sequentially planned program of elicitation of positive…

Discusses research strategies employed in studies of the importance of adult social cues in controlling children's behavior, illustrating some of the limitations of sole reliance on laboratory paradigms for achieving an understanding of both the contemporaneous operation and the development of social cue effectiveness. (JH)