Partisanship, the Personal Vote, and Constituency Service

Chapter 8 tests observable implications of the book’s theory on constituency service’s supply, using the field experiment introduced in Chapter 3 to assess politicians’ motivations to respond to petitions. It shows that indicators of a personal vote—that the petitioner has voted for the politician in the past—can have a small positive effect on the quality of a politician’s response, if not the baseline response rate. This chapter also investigates whether information on local blocking affects politicians’ willingness to respond. It shows that, in states with a long history of local elections, politicians interpret information about a failure to receive assistance locally as an indicator of local partisan blocking and, combined with information on electoral history, an indication that the petitioner is a supporter or persuadable voter. Consistent with qualitative evidence from politician shadowing, this experimental evidence substantiates the argument that politicians use constituency service to reach potential supporters.

Baseline Response Rate and its Relationship to Effects of Omission and Extinction Training in Pigeons

Two experiments were conducted to examine the relationship between baseline response rate and the effects of omission training and extinction training in pigeons. Exp. 1 employed four omission-training groups, differentiated by the values of the reinforcement-reinforcement and/or response-reinforcement intervals, and an extinction-training group while Exp. 2 used two omission-training groups and an extinction-training group. Results indicated that baseline response rate was not related to the differential effects of omission training and extinction training and that omission-training groups with relatively short interval values reduced responding significantly faster than did extinction-training groups.

Effects of Chlorpromazine on Fear-Motivated Behavior, Urinary Cortisol, Urinary Volume and Heart Rate in the Dog

Several doses of chlorpromazine (6.25, 12.5, 25.0 mg) were administered to dogs while they were subjected to a Sidman nondiscriminated avoidance schedule which contained 7 conditioned stimuli-unavoidable shock (CS-US) pairings. The drug consistently reduced baseline response rate and enhanced shock rate. Facilitation of heart, response, and activity rates normally noted during the aversive CS were unaffected by administration of the drug. In addition, the over-all heart rate, urinary volume, and urinary Cortisol measures showed no consistent pattern of results in response to drug administration. These results suggest that under this schedule of reinforcement only baseline response rate was sensitive to the anxiolytic effects of chlorpromazine.

Effects of Chlordiazepoxide upon Fear-Motivated Behavior in Dogs

Several doses of chlordiazepoxide (45, 100, 200 mg) were administered to dogs while they were subjected to a Sidman nondiscriminated avoidance schedule which contained seven conditioned stimuli-unavoidable shock (CS-US) pairings. The drug reliably reduced baseline response rate and significantly inhibited the amount of urinary cortisol excreted during the experimental sessions. Facilitation of heart, response, and activity rates normally noted during the aversive CS were unaffected by administration of the drug. In addition, over-all heart rate showed no consistent pattern of results in response to drug administration. These results suggest that under this schedule of reinforcement only the baseline response rate and urinary cortisol measures were sensitive to the antianxiety effects of chlordiazepoxide.