Schedule interactions involving punishment with pigeons and humans.
Punishment usually makes unpunished behaviors increase, and any brief opposite effect needs clear signals and fades fast.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Researchers tested how punishment affects unpunished behavior. They used pigeons and adult humans. Each subject worked on two tasks in a row.
One task gave shocks or lost money when the person responded. The other task had no consequences. The team watched if rates in the safe task went up, down, or stayed the same.
What they found
Most of the time, the safe behavior rose. This is called induction. It happened in both birds and people.
True contrast—where safe behavior drops—was rare. It only showed up when lights clearly signaled the shock part and only on the first shock day. After that, it faded.
How this fits with other research
Older pigeon work saw strong contrast. SIDMAELLIOTT et al. (1962) and Dunham et al. (1969) both reported big jumps in unpunished responding when key pecks were shocked. The new data say those jumps are short-lived.
The 1997 study also adds humans. Schroeder et al. (1969) had already punished human button pressing. They tracked suppression, not side effects. Shearn et al. (1997) now show side effects in people mirror birds—mostly induction, little lasting contrast.
Signaling matters. Rogers-Warren et al. (1976) proved contrast survives when components are clearly marked. Shearn et al. (1997) agree: without clear signals, contrast never appears at all.
Why it matters
If you punish one behavior, do not assume other behaviors will drop. They are more likely to rise through induction. Watch the data. If you need contrast—say, to lower a competing response—you must use clear signals and check again after the first day, because the effect vanishes quickly.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The principal aim of the present experiments was to assess whether punishment increased or decreased the rate of unpunished behavior (contrast and induction, respectively) for which reinforcement rate was held constant, with physical and nonphysical punishers (electric shock and response cost), pigeon and human subjects, signaled and unsignaled components (multiple and mixed schedules), and the presence or absence of a blackout period between components. Across the three experiments there were 20 punishment conditions. Induction was found in nine of those, less consistent response‐rate reduction was found in three, contrast was found in four, and in four there was no change in responding from conditions without punishment. Contrast occurred consistently only with multiple schedules during the first exposure to electric‐shock punishment. Induction and no change, however, were found with every combination of the independent variables studied. Four conclusions regarding the interactions between punished and unpunished responding emerged from the present results: (a) Both contrast and induction occurred with the reinforcement rate held constant and a blackout between components, (b) induction was more common than contrast, (c) contrast occurred only in the presence of a stimulus different from that correlated with the punisher, and (d) contrast diminished with prolonged exposure to punishment. None of the current theoretical accounts of punishment contrast can explain the present results.
Journal of the experimental analysis of behavior, 1997 · doi:10.1901/jeab.1997.68-161