Publication Date

5-1975

Advisor(s) - Committee Chair

Leroy Metze, James Craig, David Sheik

Degree Program

Department of Psychology

Degree Type

Master of Arts

Abstract

Twelve kindergarten and 16 first grade children were placed in a four Protestant Ethic to obtain tokens choice situation in order to investigate the Effect (PLE). The task for each child was to trade for candy. These tokens were available from three black boxes (choice locations) which were rotated in a clockwise manner around the four corners of the testing room. These three choice locations were as follows: (B1) a location where the child was allowed the option to manipulate switches and/or obtain freely accessible tokens, (82) a location at which tokens were freely accessible, and (84) the work location where the delivery of tokens was made contingent on the operation of the switches. A split-plot analysis of variance indicated that there was not a significant difference in the number of tokens obtained at B4 when t was rotated around the four corners of the testing room, but that there was a significant difference in the number of tokens obtained at the three locations (81), (B2), and (B4). A record of the number of tokens obtained at each location indicated that the majority of the tokens, 61.5%, were obtained at the work location (B4). The number of manipulations of the toggle switches was also recorded for each child. Each child had the opportunity to manipulate the switches at choice locations (B1), and (84) described above and at an additional location (83) where toggle switches were also available for manipulation. As with the analysis performed on the number of tokens earned, there was not a significant difference in the number of manipulations performed at (B4) when moved around the room, but there was a significant difference in the number of manipulations performed at the three choice locations. Eighty-eight percent of all manipulations were performed at the work location (34). The children's preference to earn tokens by manipulation of toggle switches rather than take tokens from a free source was explained in terms of White's competency hypothesis which suggests that an organism has a need to actively control his environment.

Disciplines

Applied Behavior Analysis | Child Psychology | Clinical Psychology | Psychology | Social and Behavioral Sciences

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