Abstract
Ss from reformatory, vocational school, and college settings were presented with a rating task to determine how they would react to positive, negative and neutral reinforcers (good, mmm-hmm, or poor) in relation to the source of reinforcement (boss, friend, and stranger), and the difficulty of the task (changing a tire, adjusting brakes, and grinding valves). As compared with the vocational and college Ss, convicted felons (both psychopathic and non-psychopathic) consistently assigned more neutral values to both positive and negative verbal reinforcers. In addition, felons also showed an inability to differentiate various sources of reinforcement.