Students' Expectations Involving Parents' Contact Comfort, Duration of Child's Appropriate Behavior, and Child's Age

College students (24 men, 24 women) expected parents to wait a longer time for a child to continue to exhibit an appropriate response before initiating contact comfort with the child as the child grows older. If college students' expectations reflect reality, the obtained result supports the suggestion that appropriate behavior by a child is followed by parents initiating contact comfort on a variable-ratio schedule in which the size of the mean ratio increases with an increase in the child's age. This suggestion is of considerable importance, mainly because gradually increasing the response requirement for a ratio schedule is an excellent way first to establish and then maintain a response in the long-term absence of primary reinforcement.