Intermittent punishment of human responding maintained by intermittent reinforcement.
Punishment hits ratio schedules harder and faster than interval schedules.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers shocked adult humans every so often while they pressed a button for money.
Some people earned money on a slow, steady schedule. Others earned on a fast, busy schedule.
The shocks came at random times no matter how fast the person pressed.
What they found
Slow, steady button pressing faded bit by bit as shocks got stronger.
Fast, busy pressing stopped all at once when shocks reached a certain level.
The pattern of money, not the shock, decided how the person quit.
How this fits with other research
McKearney (1970) ran the same setup one year later and saw the exact split: slow schedules fade, fast schedules crash.
Lande (1981) later showed that fast schedules can even spike for a second before they crash, a tiny detail the first study missed.
Kruper (1968) had already shown that slow schedules alone drop the same percent no matter how rich the pay. The 1969 study adds the fast schedule twist.
Why it matters
When you plan punishment, first ask what reinforcement keeps the behavior alive. A child who earns praise every few minutes may just slow down when you add a reprimand. A child who earns constant tickles for rapid play may stop cold. Match your punishment plan to the reward rhythm already in place.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
To determine the effects of variable-interval shock punishment on behavior maintained by variable-interval and variable-ratio reinforcement, human subjects' key-pressing behavior was reinforced with money on a four-component multiple schedule. Components 1 and 2 were variable-interval 30-sec, and Components 3 and 4 were variable-ratio 210. After responding was stabilized, response-contingent electric shock was scheduled on a variable-interval 10-sec schedule during the second and fourth components of each cycle. Subjects instructed as to the reinforcement contingencies showed gradually increasing suppression of variable-interval responding at increasing shock intensities and either very high or very low rates of variable-ratio responding at higher intensities. Minimally instructed subjects showed suppression at higher shock intensities, but no clear differential suppression as a function of reinforcement schedule. Recovery from initial suppression was observed within sessions.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1969 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1969.12-137