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N H AZRIN

Publications and source records attributed to N H AZRIN.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1965

THE OPPORTUNITY FOR AGGRESSION AS AN OPERANT REINFORCER DURING AVERSIVE STIMULATION.

Squirrel monkeys were provided with a chain-pulling response which produced an inanimate object that could be attacked. In the absence of pain-shock, little or no chain-pulling occurred. When pain-shocks were delivered, chain-pulling responses increased. The chain-pulling response was successively reinforced, extinguished, reinforced, and again extinguished by presenting or withdrawing the opportunity to attack as the reinforcing event. Aggression appears to be a distinctive motivational state which is produced by aversive stimulation and which can be used to condition and maintain new behavior.

Aggression↗
PubMed1965

CONDITIONED PUNISHMENT.

Responses of pigeons were maintained by a VI schedule of food reinforcement. Conditioned punishment was programmed by having these responses concurrently produce an originally neutral stimulus. The effectiveness of this response-contingent stimulus was maintained by infrequent and prearranged stimulus-shock pairings delivered independently of responses. This conditioned punishment procedure reduced the overall response rate as long as the procedure was in effect. The extent and durability of the reduction was a function of the intensity of the shock that was paired with the stimulus. Analysis of the reduction in the overall response rate revealed: (1) a reduction of responses occurring in the absence of the response-contingent stimulus, which was designated as a "punishing" effect, and (2) a reduction of responses during the response-contingent stimulus, which was designated as a "suppressive" effect.

Animals↗
PubMed1965

MOTIVATIONAL ASPECTS OF ESCAPE FROM PUNISHMENT.

Punishment and escape were studied simultaneously by allowing a subject to escape from a stimulus situation in which responses were punished, into a stimulus situation in which responses were not punished. The frequency of the punished responses was found to be an inverse function of the intensity of punishment, whereas the frequency of the escape response was a direct function of the intensity of punishment. Both of these functions were obtained under three different schedules of food reinforcement. The strength of the escape behavior was evidenced by (1) the emergence of the escape response even when the frequency of food reinforcement decreased as a consequence of the escape response, (2) the maintenance of the escape response by fixed-interval and fixed-ratio schedules of escape reinforcement, and (3) the occurrence of escape responses at intensities of punishment that otherwise produced only mild suppression of the punished response when no escape was possible. This last finding indicates that a subject may be driven out of a situation involving punishment even though the punishment is relatively ineffective in suppressing the punished responses when no escape is possible.

Animals↗
PubMed1965

ELICITATION OF AGGRESSION BY A PHYSICAL BLOW.

Squirrel monkeys were exposed to brief tail-pinches in the presence of a cloth-covered ball. Attack was elicited against the ball as a direct function of the force of the tail-pinch. This finding in conjunction with previous findings regarding electric shock and intense heat demonstrates that several types of aversive stimulation can elicit aggression.

Aggression↗
PubMed1964

STIMULUS CONTROL OF AVOIDANCE BEHAVIOR.

The introduction of a warning signal preceding shocks greatly increased the effectiveness of avoidance responding. Periods of "warm-up" at the beginning of the session were eliminated, and the number of shocks received by the subjects was greatly reduced. With response-shock interval constant, response rate increased as the interval between the response and the onset of the warning signal was shortened. The response tended to occur shortly after the onset of the warning signal regardless of the duration of these "safe" periods. A greatly elevated response rate was maintained even when the duration of the safe period was reduced to 0.3 sec. Thus, the pre-shock signal obtained nearly exclusive control of the responding and overrode the usual "temporal discrimination" of the response-shock interval.

Avoidance Learning↗
PubMed1964

PUNISHMENT BY NOISE IN AN ALTERNATIVE RESPONSE SITUATION.

Operant responses of human subjects were conditioned according to a variable-interval schedule of positive reinforcement. A brief noise was delivered as punishment for each of the responses. The noise suppressed the punished responses more when an alternative unpunished response was concurrently available than when only a single punished response was available. This finding extends the generality of a previous study that had used a period of extinction rather than the brief noise as the punishing stimulus.

Conditioning, Psychological↗
PubMed1964

PAIN-AGGRESSION TOWARD INANIMATE OBJECTS.

Attack behavior was elicited from squirrel monkeys by externally applied electric shock. The shock elicited attack toward other monkeys, rats, and mice, as well as toward inanimate objects, such as a stuffed doll, and even a round ball. A method of quantifying the attack behavior was devised on the basis of the attack against inanimate objects. This method revealed that the duration and probability of attack was a direct function of the shock intensity.

Aggression↗
PubMed1964

REINFORCEMENT AND INSTRUCTIONS WITH MENTAL PATIENTS.

An attempt was made to modify a socially desirable response of mental patients. It was found that instructions to the patients had no enduring effect unless accompanied by reinforcement. Also, it was found that reinforcement was not effective unless the reinforcement procedure was accompanied by instructions that specified the basis for the reinforcement. Maximum change in behavior was obtained when the reinforcement procedure took advantage of the existing verbal repertoire of the patients. A significant methodological finding was that substantial modification of the behavior of psychotics could be achieved by briefly delaying, rather than withholding, food reinforcement.

Humans↗
PubMed1963

Punishment of temporally spaced responding.

The responses of pigeons were maintained by a DRL schedule of food reinforcement. With this schedule, responses were reinforced only when a fixed period of time elapsed without an intervening response. Punishment of all responses reduced the frequency of these responses as a direct function of the punishment intensity. As a consequence of the increased temporal spacing of responses, more reinforcements resulted during punishment. Under progressively higher intensities of punishment, the reinforcement frequency increased to a maximum value and then decreased at the highest intensities. The increased frequency of reinforcement which resulted during punishment did not counteract the suppressive effect of punishment, nor did it lead to a low response rate after punishment was removed. Punishment did not reduce the inter-response time distribution uniformly, but rather especially reduced the number of short inter-response times. Even at the low punishment intensities, the number of short inter-response times was considerably reduced. After punishment was discontinued, performance recovered almost completely after a compensatory burst. The number as well as the temporal pattern of responses returned to normal.

Animals↗
PubMed1963

Fixed-ratio punishment.

Responses were maintained by a variable-interval schedule of food reinforcement. At the same time, punishment was delivered following every nth response (fixed-ratio punishment). The introduction of fixed-ratio punishment produced an initial phase during which the emission of responses was positively accelerated between punishments. Eventually, the degree of positive acceleration was reduced and a uniform but reduced rate of responding emerged. Large changes in the over-all level of responding were produced by the intensity of punishment, the value of the punishment ratio, and the level of food deprivation. The uniformity of response rate between punishments was invariant in spite of these changes in over-all rate and contrary to some plausible a priori theoretical considerations. Fixed-ratio punishment also produced phenomena previously observed under continuous punishment: warm-up effect and a compensatory increase. This type of intermittent punishment produced less rapid and less complete suppression than did continuous punishment.

Punishment↗
PubMed1963

A comparison of several procedures for eliminating behavior.

The pecking response of pigeons was reinforced when a minimum period of time had elapsed since the last response (DRL schedule of food-reinforcement). Punishment, satiation, extinction, and stimulus change were employed separately to reduce responding. When the effects of the four procedures were compared, punishment was found capable of producing a more immediate, complete and long lasting response reduction than the others. Punishment had its maximum effect on the responses that were least relevant to reinforcement. The punishment reduced the frequency of the short inter-response times to a greater extent than did either extinction or satiation. In this way, punishment actually increased the efficiency of the DRL responding.

Animals↗
PubMed1963

Elimination of behavior of mental patients by response-produced extinction.

Mental hospital patients were conditioned to respond at a high rate. Then an attempt was made to eliminate the response by means of a mild punishment consisting of a period of timeout from reinforcement (response-produced extinction). When only one response was available for obtaining the reinforcement, the mild punishment was not effective in eliminating that response. When an alternative response was also made available for obtaining the reinforcement, the mild punishment was completely effective. It appears that even very mild punishment may be effective if the over-all frequency of reinforcement can be maintained by means of an alternative unpunished response.

Conditioning, Operant↗
PubMed1963

Fixed-ratio escape reinforcement.

Escape responses of squirrel monkeys were reinforced according to a fixed-ratio schedule. The reinforcement was a period of safety from a stimulus that signalled the delivery of intermittent pain-shocks. When the frequency of shock was gradually reduced, the performance remained at a high level until the shocks were quite infrequent. Similarly, the duration of the period of safety could be reduced to a few seconds with little loss of behavior. Thus, the responses appeared to be reinforced by even a brief period of safety, the actual degree of shock reduction being fairly slight. The changes in responding during this fixed-ratio escape procedure were comparable to the response changes typically obtained during fixed-ratio food procedures.

Animals↗