Abstract
Sixteen human subjects were presented with an instrumental task in which pressing a button to produce a visual stimulus was followed by an auditory stimulus. Half of the subjects were assigned to a condition under which pressing the button at the subject’s operant level produced less of the auditory stimulus than the subject would normally choose to receive. For the others, pressing the button at operant level produced more of the auditory stimulus than the subject would choose. Subjects in the former condition showed increases in instrumental performance; those in the latter showed decreases. The results indicated that the rewarding or punishing effects of an event depend upon the relation of the instrumental contingency to the subject’s unconstrained behavior.
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This investigation was supported by the resources of the Department of Psychology, University of Alberta.
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Heth, C.D., Warren, A.G. Response deprivation and response satiation as determinants of instrumental performance: Some data and theory. Animal Learning & Behavior 6, 294–300 (1978). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209617
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03209617