Punishment of appetitively reinforced instrumental behavior: Factors affecting response persistence

• Published in: Journal of experimental psychology Vol. 102; no. 1; pp. 125 - 132
• Main Authors: Dyck, Dennis G, Mellgren, Roger L, Nation, Jack R
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington, etc American Psychological Association 01-01-1974
• Subjects: Animal; Extinction (Learning); Operant Conditioning; Punishment; Rats; Reinforcement Schedules
• ISSN: 0022-1015; 1946-1941
• DOI: 10.1037/h0035714

In the 1st of 2 runway investigations, 2 groups of 20 male albino Sprague-Dawley rats received equal amounts of punishment and nonreinforcement during acquisition training. Group PR (punishment-reinforcement) received transitions from punishment to reinforcement and Group NR (nonreinforcement-reinforcement) received transitions from nonreinforcement to reinforcement. A control group of 20 Ss received unpunished continuous-reinforcement training. Following training, 10 Ss in each group received punished extinction, and the other 10 received unpunished extinction. Results indicate that Group PR was superior to Group NR in punished extinction, and the reverse was true in unpunished extinction. The control group exhibited the poorest performance regardless of the response-decrement procedure employed. In Exp II (n = 20), Groups NR and PR received unpunished, punished, and unpunished extinction following acquisition. Generally, results are consistent with those obtained in Exp I. Results are interpreted in terms of E. J. Capaldi's 1967 sequential theory of instrumental learning.