Simultaneous Examination and Method Analysis by Variance Algebra |
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| Authors: | William J Moonan |
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| Institution: | U. S. Naval Personnel Research Field Activity San Diego, California |
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| Abstract: | The present study attempted to test positive and negative reinforcement contingencies on learned helplessness. The basic task involved responding where the probability of a reinforcement given a response was equal to the probability of a reinforcement given a nonresponse. Four groups of subjects were assigned to one of two reinforcement conditions (20% or 80% reinforcement) and given positive or negative reinforcement. An attempt was made to induce helplessness in Task 1 by asking subjects to identify an object in each of sixty slides, with the experimenters controlling the actual reinforcement contingencies, unknown to the subjects. A second problem-solving task was administered to measure the effect of the induced helplessness from Task 1. An additional two groups of subjects participated in the second problem-solving task, along with the initial four groups, to serve as control measures. Results revealed no significant differences between the positive and negative reinforcement contingencies nor between the experimental control conditions. |
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