The Effect of Positive Reinforcement on Comprehension, Attitudes, and Rate of Bible Reading in Adolescents

Twenty-seven students from a high school Sunday School department were randomly assigned to one of three groups, money reinforcement group, verbal reinforcement group, and control group. The purpose of this experimental procedure was to evaluate the effect of two different types of positive reinforcement upon the rate of daily Bible reading behaviors, personal attitudes related to those behaviors, and comprehension of what has been read in this sample of adolescents. The major finding of this study was the general effectiveness of money as a reinforcer for this group of adolescents. Money given as a reward for reading by the parents was able to significantly increase the Bible reading of the subjects as well as positive attitudes toward themselves in relation to their Bible reading. On the other hand, verbal praise given as a reward for reading by the parents had no significant effect on the rate of Bible reading or on the attitudes of the young people toward their reading. One possible explanation for this finding is that verbal praise as a social reinforcer might be confounded during adolescence with the adolescent's movement toward establishing independence from his parents in a way that money as a reinforcer does not.

Interviewer's Locus of Control and Conditioning of Interviewee's Self-Reference Statements

An experiment sought to explore the relationship between an interviewer's perceived personal control and his effectiveness as a social reinforcer during free verbalization in an interview. The design was a 2 × 2 × 2 × 2 factorial experiment. The experimental variables were the locus of control of both interviewers and subjects, reinforced response class, and sex. During the experimental sessions subjects were reinforced for the emission of either positive or negative self-references. The following results were obtained: (1) Internal interviewers were generally more effective than externals in eliciting positive self-references. (2) Verbal reinforcement increased the emission of positive self-references. (3) Negative self-references were relatively unaffected by either internal or external interviewers. (4) Internal interviewers had maximum influence when subjects were male. (5) Internal interviewers were significantly more confident about the quality of their relationship with subjects.