Modification of Dominant Behavior in School Children: An Attempted Replication

Abstract

The two purposes of this study were to determine the differential effectiveness of four combinations of reward and punishment on interpersonal dominant behavior and to see if any modification of responding would still be in evidence after an interval of 1 wk. 100 third and fourth graders, combined in dyads, were randomly assigned to 5 treatment groups: reward-punishment, nonreward-punishment, reward-nonreward, intrinsic reward-nonreward, and control. There were 3 experimental phases: preconditioning, conditioning, and extinction, each phase utilizing a 7-number roulette wheel as the task. Over 50 conditioning trials there was a significant increase in dominant responding by nondominant members, but none of the treatment groups was effective in bringing about this increase. The effects of conditioning were not in evidence 1 wk. later.