Textos

Correspondence between saying and doing

Rogers-Warren; Baer

JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN SAYING AND DOING: TEACHING CHILDREN TO SHARE AND PRAISE' ANN ROGERS-WARREN AND DONALD M. BAER BUREAU OF CHILD RESEARCH UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS

Five small groups of preschool children were taught to share and praise by the modelling of these behaviors and reinforcement of their reports of sharing and praising. Experiment I demonstrated that modelling and reinforcement of any (true or untrue) reports of sharing, and then of praising, promptly increased reports of the corresponding behaviors.

Modelling and reinforcement for true reports of each behavior increased both reporting and actual behavior. Experiment II showed that both reported and actual sharing and praising may be increased by modelling and reinforcement for true reports of the target behavior, without previous reinforcement for any (true or untrue) reports of those behaviors. Sharing, but not praising, generalized to a second setting. Experiment III replicated the results of Experiment II for sharing and praising, and demonstrated similar success in increasing a third behavior, specific praising. In general, these experiments show that developing correspondence between children's reports of behavior and actual behavior may be an efficient means of increasing prosocial responses.

DESCRIPTORS: social behavior, sharing, modelling, praise, reporting, generalization, multiple baseline, reinforcement delay, children In a very broad sense, verbal behavior is similar to currency. At any given time, there may not be sufficient gold to back up every dollar

exchange, but sellers and buyers usually act as if there were. In interactions among adults, there is a similar continual exchange of verbal reports, generally as if there is, or will be, some other behavior to correspond to the verbal reports, make them true, and give them value.

While operant research has not yet attempted to define the parameters of truthtelling among adults, a number of researchers (e.g., Bem, 1967; Birch, 1966; Lovaas, 1961; Lovaas, 1964b; Risley and Hart, 1968; Sherman, 1964) have investigated the relationship between young

children's verbal behavior and their corresponding other behaviors.

'This research was funded in part by grant MH 11739 from the National Institute of Mental Health for training new personnel for behavior modification and by grant 3336-5038 from the University of Kansas to Dr. Donald M. Baer. Reprints may be obtained from Ann Rogers-Warren, Department of Human Development, University of Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas 66045.

Investigations in the area of verbal self-control of behavior have generally taken one of two forms. In the first form (e.g., Bem, 1967; Birch, 1966; Lovaas, 1964a; Luria, 1961; Meichenbaum and Goodman, 1969), subjects have been taught to make a relevant verbal response while performing a motor response. Such studies have shown that certain verbal responses facilitate the corresponding motor response. For example, Lovaas (1964a) demonstrated that subjects who said the word "faster" as they pushed a lever, would depress the lever more quickly than subjects who said the word "slower". Bem (1967) reported that, in a task requiring children to press a lever to indicate the number of stimuli that were presented briefly and then withdrawn, those who counted as they pressed the bar responded more accurately than those who did not.

Within the same paradigm, several authors (e.g., Meichenbaum and Goodman, 1971; Monohan and O'Leary, 1971; O'Leary, 1968) have demonstrated that training a child to selfinstruct may facilitate appropriate responding 335

1976, 93, 335-354 NUMBER 3 (FALL) 1976 ANN ROGERS-WARREN and DONALD M. BAER and impede inappropriate responding. For example, O'Leary (1968) found that when subjects were told to respond only on certain trials, in an experiment where responding on any trial resulted in reinforcement, those subjects who gave self-instructions indicating whether they could respond on a particular trial, "cheated" less than those who did not self-instruct.

Risley and Hart (1968) provided a strong demonstration of the control of behavior through reinforcement of related verbal behavior. Two groups of preschool children were initially rewarded for any (true or untrue) report of the use of a specific preschool material.

Reinforcement was then made contingent on only true reports, that is, those reports that corresponded to the actual use of the material. While reinforcement for corresponding reports successfully increased the subjects' use of materials, after the noncorrespondence- correspondence sequence of contingent reinforcement had been repeated a number of times, reinforcement for any (corresponding or noncorresponding) report was sufficient to increase significantly the use of a specific material. To that extent, Risley

and Hart were able to demonstrate that "saying" could be brought to control "doing".

Israel and O'Leary (1973) further examined the role of verbal behavior in regulating nonverbal behavior. In two comparisons of sayingthen- doing, they found that having preschool subjects say which toy they were going to play with during the next play period produced

greater correspondence between saying and doing, than having subjects report which toy they had played with after the play period. Only slight increases in correspondence occurred when subjects were rewarded for the desired (but not necessarily true) content of their reports. Unlike Risley and Hart (1968), Israel and O'Leary did not find that saying came to control doing for children in the doing-then-saying sequence when only content was reinforced, even after a series of reinforcement-for-content (noncorrespondence) followed by reinforcement-for-correspondence.

Further, Israel and O'Leary did not, as had Risley and Hart, obtain high levels of correspondence for the doing-then-saying groups, even when correspondence was reinforced.

Direct comparison between the two studies is difficult because correspondence was defined by Risley and Hart as "doing and saying", while Israel and O'Leary defined it as "either doing and saying or not doing and not saying". The direct measures of positive correspondence (percentage of subjects saying and percentage of subjects doing) are not reported by Israel and O'Leary. Whatever differences there may be in immediate efficiency of the saying-then-doing and doing-then-saying sequences, both are based on the same procedural approach. If the two sequences are abstracted, and viewed as they operate over a number of sessions, it is apparent that in both cases the subjects' verbal behavior is intended to affect the next opportunity to perform the corresponding behavior. The primary difference

is that in the first case (saying-thendoing) that opportunity arises within a few minutes, and in the second (doing-then-saying), the opportunity does not arise until approximately 23 hr later.

If range of control, that is, the length of time during which verbal statements might affect the corresponding behavior, is of concern, then the doing-then-saying sequence might be more useful.

Such a sequence might contribute to the generalization of the corresponding behaviors to other opportunities not specifically included in training, but occurring within the temporal range of the training. For example, a child who plays with blocks during the designated play

period, might also play with them at home during the evening, thus establishing correspondence between his/her verbal report and actual behavior on more than one occasion.

Both the Risley and Hart, and Israel and O'Leary studies focused on establishing correspondence, using choice of play materials as the behavior to be increased. The present study was concerned primarily with producing many instances of particular prosocial behaviors by

establishing correspondence between the chil- 336 TEACHING CHILDREN TO SHARE AND PRAISE dren's verbal reports and their related prosocial behavior. Since the target behaviors, sharing and praising, should be useful in a number of settings, the apparently greater range of the doing-then-saying sequence made it the preferred procedure. The purpose, then, was to develop an effective procedure for increasing complex social behaviors based on the previously demonstrated techniques for developing correspondence between children's saying and doing.

GENERAL METHODS

Since the same procedures were used in all three experiments, the general methods are described first.

Subjects

All subjects were children attending the Edna A. Hill Child Development Preschool Laboratory at the University of Kansas. Thirty-two children were involved in the three experiments, 19 males and 13 females ranging in age from 3 yr, two months, to 5 yr, six months.

Setting

Experimental sessions were conducted daily, Monday through Thursday. Each session lasted about 15 min. The experimental sessions were divided into two parts, the work period (10 min) and the reporting period (about 5 min). The subjects were seated on the floor, around a

large piece of paper, and had access to art materials (paper, pens, pencils, crayons, markers) during the work period. The experimenter changed the seating arrangement each day by placing cards with the subjects' names on them around the paper and requesting subjects to sit behind their own name card. At the end of the work period, the materials were collected and an activity called the Reporting Period began. Duringthe Reporting Period, the experimenterasked the children individually what they had done "while we were working today". Every

subject was given one opportunity to respond.

The session ended when each child had been queried and the experimenter indicated it was time to go to another activity or return to the classroom.

Behavioral Definitions

The behaviors recorded for the subjects were sharing, praising, and reports of sharing and praising. Experimenter prompts and reinforcement of reports were also recorded. Sharing. Two classes of sharing, verbal sharing and nonverbal sharing, were recorded. Verbal

sharing included any verbalization by a subject to a peer in which the subject: (1) invited a peer to join in a particular activity, or (2) verbally accepted the invitation of a peer to join in a particular activity, or (3) offered to share materials with a peer, or (4) verbally accepted a

peer's offer to share materials, or (5) offered to trade materials with a peer. Nonverbal sharing was recorded when one subject passed or handed a material to a second subject, if both subjects had touched the material within 5 sec, or when two or more subjects simultaneously used the same material (e.g., colored on the same sheet of paper at the same time).

Praising. Praising was defined as any verbalization by a subject to a peer in which the subject indicated approval, liking, or admiration for the peer or any aspect of the peer's art work. There was essentially four forms of praise: (1) "I like and a general object (e.g., "I like your

picture"); (2) "I like . . ." and a specific object or quality (e.g., "I like the way you used the color blue"); and (3) direct general praise (e.g., "neat picture" or "pretty"); and (4) direct specific praise (e.g., "Nice dogs" or "That's a pretty house you made"). In Experiments I and II, all four forms were recorded under the general category of "Praise"; in Experiment III, Form 1 ("I like . . ." and a general object) was scored as "General Praise", and Forms 2, 3, and 4 were scored as "Specific Praise".

Reporting. Subjects were recorded as making a report of sharing or praising whenever they responded to the experimenter's question, "What did you do while we were working today?", with 337 ANN ROGERS-WARREN and DONALD M. BAER a statement indicating that they had shared materials or had praised a peer (e.g., "I shared my pen with Susie", or "I told Jon I liked his picture").

In Experiment III, reports of praise were scored as either "General" or "Specific", using the same criteria as employed for general and specific praising behaviors. Experimenter-behaviors. Two experimenterbehaviors, reinforcement of reports and prompts for reports, were also recorded. Reinforcement was scored whenever the experimenter indicated to a subject that she approved of the behavior the subject reported and offered a bit of food (M&M's or fruit) immediately following the report.

Prompts were scored each time the experimenter corrected a child's verbal response, or modelled a response and instructed a child to repeat it during the reporting period.

Recording Procedures

Two observers were seated within viewing and hearing distance of the group of subjects, one observer at each of the narrow ends of the paper on which the subjects were working. Each observer recorded the behaviors of the three or four children closest to her, depending on the size of the group. Continuous observations were made of the children's behaviors during the work period; discrete observations of each subject's verbal report and the experimenter's behaviors were made during the reporting period.

Observers recorded instances of sharing and/or praising on the current subject's form by writing a symbol identifying the peer to whom the behavior was directed, in the appropriate column identifying the type of material shared or the type of praising used. Experimenter reinforcement and prompts were recorded each time they occurred. Reports of sharing and praising were scored only once for each subject, immediately following the experimenter's questioning of that child.

Reliability was assessed by having a third observer record independently, but simultaneously, with each of the primary observers. Interobserver agreement was determined by comparing the number of behaviors recorded by each observer for a given subject in a particular category of behavior. For example, observer A's record of pen sharing by S1 with S2 was compared with observer B's record of pen sharing by SI with S2. Similar comparisons were made for all materials, for praising, for reports of behaviors, and for experimenter behaviors directed to each subject. Each reliability was then calculated using the formula:

Reliability = number of agreements X 100. number of agreements + number of disagreements Experimental Conditions Baseline. During the initial baseline conditions there were no scheduled consequences for sharing, praising, or reports of sharing or praising.

The experimenter and an adult model sat at a small table behind, but in sight of, the group and used the same art materials as were available to the subjects. Neither sharing nor praising was modelled. Throughout the work period, the experimenter intermittently praised the subjects for "working hard" and attending to the materials. If a subject shared or praised, the experimenter waited at least 10 sec before attending to any subject. During the reporting period, each child was questioned about his/her activity during the previous work period, but no reinforcement for appropriate responses was given.

Modelling only. To determine if modelling alone would result in the desired behavior, the experimenter and the model demonstrated the appropriate response five or six times during the work period. No model of appropriate reporting ehavior was provided, and no reinforcement

for reports of sharing or praising was available. Package I: modelling and reinforcement for any report of the behavior. The first part of thepackage manipulation consisted of the experimenter

and the model demonstrating the appropriate

response, either sharing or praising, as had

been done in the Modelling Only condition. The

topography of sharing and praising behaviors

was systematically varied. In Experiments I and

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TEACHING CHILDREN TO SHARE AND PRAISE

II, both general and specific praising responses

were modelled during the praising condition. In

Experiment III, only general praise was modelled

during the manipulation of general praising,

and only specific praise was modelled during the

specific praise condition.

At the beginning of the reporting period, the

experimenter asked the model what he had done

while he was working. When the model reported

the appropriate behavior, the experimenter

rewarded him with positive comments

and food. The subjects were then asked individually

what they had done during the work

period. Any report, true or untrue, of sharing

or praising, depending on the experimental condition,

was followed by positive comments, and

either M&M's or fruit, from the experimenter.

When Package I was introduced to any group,

it was sometimes necessary for the experimenter

to prompt two or three subjects to make an appropriate

report (e.g., "Tell me that you

shared"). After at most three sessions, all

prompting was discontinued. Subjects were not

recorded as reporting appropriately if the report

was prompted.

Package II: modelling and reinforcement for

true reports of behavior. The second package

was procedurally similar to the first, except that

only true reports of sharing or praising were

reinforced. As the subject responded to the experimenter's

query, the observer who had recorded

that subject's behavior discreetly signalled

"yes" or "no" to indicate if the subject was reporting

truly. True responses were reinforced.

When a subject reported untruly, the experimenter

responded, "But you didn't really, did

you?" No response was made following an inappropriate

report (e.g., a report of sharing in a

condition when reports of praise were being reinforced);

the experimenter paused 5 sec, then

asked the next subject about that subject's activities.

Package III: modelling and reinforcement for

either true reports of sharing or true reports of

praising. During Package III, the experimenter

and the model demonstrated both sharing and

praising, and the model reported both sharing

and praising. Subjects were rewarded for true

reports of either behavior. That is, if they either

shared or praised, and gave a corresponding report,

they were rewarded. All other procedures

were identical to Package II.

Package IV: modelling and reinforcement for

true reports of both sharing and praising. Package

IV consisted of modelling both sharing and

praising responses and delivering reinforcement

contingent on true reports of both sharing and

praising. Except that each subject was required

to do and report both behaviors, the procedures

were identical to Package II.

Reliability

Reliability figures for all subject and experimenter

behaviors are shown in Table 1.

EXPERIMENT I

METHOD

Subjects

The 14 subjects selected for this study were

divided into two groups. Gr6up A was made

up of six children: one 4-yr-old girl, two 3-yrold

girls, and three 4-yr-old boys. Group B consisted

of eight children: two 4-yr-old girls, five

4-yr-old boys, and one 3-yr-old boy.

Setting

The study was conducted in a regular preschool

classroom, in an area away from other

classroom activities. While an experimental session

was being conducted with one group,

members of the other group participated in conceptual

activities in different parts of the same

classroom, and generally did not attend to the

experimental activity.

Experimental Design

Experiment I consisted of two parts. In the

first part, reinforcement of any report of behavior

(Package I), followed by reinforcement

of only true reports of behavior (Package II),

was systematically introduced in a multiple-

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ANN ROGERS-WARREN and DONALD M. BAER

Table 1

Range and Mean Reliability for Subject and Experimenter Behaviors in Experiments I, II, and III

Group A Group B Group C Group D Group E

Behavior Range X Range X Range X Range X Range X

Sharing 88-100 92 75-100 89 88-100 91 62-100 90 69-100 86

General praising* 85-100 91 88-100 94 83-100 93 66-100 91 79-100 92

Specific praising -- - 80-100 92 86-100 88

Reports of sharing 75-100 94 - 100 100 - 100 75-100 92

Reports of

praising* 88-100 91 - 100 100 75-100 100 100

Reports of

specific praising - - - - 0-100 90 - 100

Experimenter

reinforcement - 100 - 100 - 100 - 100 100

Experimenter

prompts 100 - 100 - 100 - 100 100

* In Experiments I and II, all praising and reports of praising were recorded in the category of General

Praising, hence reliability scores are reported only for the category of General Praising.

baseline design across sharing and praising by

Group A. In the second part, these procedures

were replicated with Group B, and then two

additional conditions, reinforcement for true reports

of either behavior (Package III), followed

by reinforcement of true reports of both behaviors

(Package IV), were examined.

The sequence of experimental conditions for

this experiment is summarized in Table 2.

All experimental conditions were identical to

those described in the General Methods section.

RESULTS

Group A

The results for Group A are shown in Figure

The introduction of reinforcement of any

report of behavior (Package I) resulted in a

gradual increase in mean number of shares,

double-to-triple the baseline rate, and the percentage

of the group reporting sharing steadily

increased. The percentage of group members

sharing was variable, ranging from 0% to

100%, but averaged higher than during baseline.

Under the same conditions (Package I),

mean praising increased only slightly, although

the percentage of the group praising and reporting

praising increased markedly.

When reinforcement was provided for true

reports of sharing (Package II), the mean number

of shares increased to a consistent level of

around four shares per child per session. Percentage

of the group sharing was moderately

high, while reports of sharing steadily rose to

a high of 90%.

Reinforcement for true reports of praise

(Package II) resulted in sharp upward trends in

both reporting and actual praising. A more

gradual increase was seen in the mean number of

praises per session.

Group B

Similar results for Group B are shown in

Figure 2.

For Group B, which had exhibited a moderate

level of sharing during baseline, reinforcement

for any report (Package I) produced no significant

increase in either the percentage of the

group displaying sharing, or the mean number

of shares per subject. The same procedure applied

to praising resulted in a slight increase in

the mean number of praises and produced

moderate increases in the percentages of the

group reporting and praising.

Reinforcement for true reports of behavior

(Package II) further increased the mean number

of shares and praises. Additional increases in

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TEACHING CHILDREN TO SHARE AND PRAISE

Table 2

The Sequence of Experimental Conditions in Experiment I

Group A Group B

Sharing Praising Sharing Praising

Baseline

Package I

Model sharing

Model reports of sharing

Baseline Baseline

Reinforce any reports

of sharing

Package I

Model praising

Model reports of prais-

Baseline ing Model sharing Baseline

Reinforce any reports

of praising

Package II Package I

Model sharing Model sharing

Model reports of shar- Model reports of sharing

Baseline ing

Reinforce true reports Reinforce any report

of sharing of sharing

Package II Package I

Model praising Model praising

Model reports of Model reports of prais-

Baseline praising Baseline ing

Reinforce true reports Reinforce any reports

of praising of praising

Package 111 Package II

Model both sharing and praising Model sharing

Model reports of both Model reports of shar-

Reinforce true reports of either ing Baseline

Reinforce true reports

of sharing

Package IV Package II

Model sharing and praising Model praising

Model reports of both Model reports of prais-

Reinforce true reports of both ing

Reinforce true reports

of praising

Package III

Model both sharing and praising

Model reports of both

Reinforce true reports of both

Package IV

Model both sharing and praising

Model reports of both

Reinforce true reports of both :

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ANN ROGERS-WARREN and DONALD M. BAER

GROUP A

SHARING

mrIb

-u

SESSIONS (2day blocks)

Fig. 1. The percentage of Group A members reporting sharing, actually sharing, and the mean number of

shares per subject are shown on the upper graph. Percentages of reporting praising, actual praising, and mean

number of praises per subject are shown on the lower graph. Note that the axis on the left refers to percentage

of group doing and reporting the target behavior; the right-hand axis refers to the mean number of

target behaviors.

percentages of children doing and reporting

the behaviors were also obtained.

The final two conditions were reinforcement

for true reports of either praising or sharing

(Package III), followed by reinforcement for

true reports of both praising and sharing (Package

IV). Actual praising (mean number of percentage

of group praising) and reports of

praising were maintained at consistently high

levels during both of these conditions. Sharing

remained near baseline levels during the "either"

condition, but rapidly increased to its highest

levels when reinforcement was made contingent

on truly reporting both behaviors.

DISCUSSION

Generally similar results were obtained with

both groups. Reinforcement for any report of

behavior (true or false) produced moderate increases

in reporting and small increases in actual

behavior. Reinforcement for true reports was

generally more effective, and resulted in higher

rates of both reporting and actual behavior.

In both groups, sharing increased more

rapidly and was maintained at consistently

higher levels than praising. These differences

may have been a function of the differences

represented in the baseline measures of behavior.

342

TEACHING CHILDREN TO SHARE AND PRAISE

SHARING

GROUP B

*~~~~~~~~~~~.~~@.~~*~~@@@

PRAISING.

%REPORTING PKG: BL. PKGI

% DOING

80 & SHARES/SUBPRAISES

JECT

PKGI MODEL+S,

69 ANY REPORTS

ffl

Cen

-4

SESSIONS (2dayblocks)

Fig. 2. The percentage of Group B members reporting sharing, actually sharing, and the mean number of

shares per subject are shown on the upper graph. Percentages of reporting praising, actual praising, and mean

number of praises per subject are shown on the lower graph. The axis on the left refers to percentage of

group doing and reporting the target behavior; the right-hand axis refers to the mean number of target behaviors.

Many subjects already had sharing in their

repertoires; thus, the experimental manipulations

needed only to increase it. Praising, however,

was not common to most subjects, and it

was necessary first to teach the subjects how to

praise (one goal of the modelling component),

and then to increase praising.

Although high rates of praising eventually

were obtained in both groups, many of the

praise statements seemed mechanical and lacking

in reinforcement value. Praising was nearly

always in the form, "I like your picture" or "I

like what you are making", with little voice

inflection or modulation. Often, subjects did not

look up from their own activities as they delivered

praise statements. As rates of praising

increased, more inappropriate praise was noted.

Sharing, however, was usually appropriate:

subjects used materials first, then offered them to

peers. Trading of materials was the most frequent

form of sharing, but on occasion, children

would simultaneously use materials (typically

drawing together on the same piece of paper).

Most exchanges of material were arranged

verbally.

The functions of the final two contingencies

(Package III and Package IV) for Group B are

clear enough in showing their effectiveness at

increasing many aspects of the target behavior.

In one respect, however, only a tentative conclusion

is possible: the praise-or-share conditions

may have functioned as merely an extension of

the previous reinforcement for true reports of

praise (Package II). The similar levels of prais-

343

ANN ROGERS-WARREN and DONALD M. BAER

ing may have been maintained because the

subjects did not discriminate the subtle changes

in criteria for reinforcement, which allowed the

praising behavior to maintain an unchanged rate

of reinforcement. This conclusion is also suggested

by the fact that sharing failed to increase,

although reports of both behaviors were modelled.

Apparently, it was not obvious to the

subjects that they could report either sharing or

praising if they had performed the corresponding

behavior.

Since these conditions (Package III and Package

IV) were introduced after subjects had a long

history of reinforcement for reporting sharing

and praising, the resulting high levels of behavior

possibly represent the cumulative effect

of numerous conditions. However, a complete

analysis of order effects would be necessary for

a final answer. Programmatically, that analysis

might not be important.

EXPERIMENT II

The second study was designed to determine

if preschool children could be taught sharing

and praising skills through the contingent reinforcement

of true reports of those behaviors

without first being rewarded for giving any (true

or untrue) reports, and to determine the extent,

if any, that training to share and praise would

generalize to a second setting, where no reports

of the behaviors were made.

METHOD

Subjects

Six children, two 3-yr-old boys, one 3-yr-old

girl, two 4-yr-old girls and one 4-yr-old boy,

served. Three children were from one classroom

of the preschool, and three children were from

a second classroom. The subjects from different

classes did not know each other before the experiment.

Setting

Experimental (training) sessions were conducted

in a small classroom near the subjects'

regular classrooms. There were no children,

other than the subjects, present during the training

session.

Generalization (probe) sessions were conducted

in the subjects' original classrooms during

a free-play period or a small-group activity

period. Probes occurred about an hour before the

training session and lasted 10 min. During a

generalization probe, a second experimenter

served as a teacher. The children were seated

on the floor in an area adjacent to the general

classroom activities, and had free access to a

supply of materials. The materials were varied

each session, and included tinkertoys, lego, chalk,

playdough, and blocks.

At the beginning of each probe session, the

experimenter told the subjects that children who

stayed in the area until the timer rang would

receive an animal sticker or a star for their cards.

Each child had a 12.5 by 17.5 cm card on which

the stickers were pasted. At the end of the week,

the subjects took the cards home.

Ten to 12 times during each probe session, the

experimenter praised the subjects individually

or as a group for "playing nicely", and for staying

in the area. No reinforcement for sharing or

praising was given. If a subject shared or praised,

the experimenter waited 10 sec before attending

to that child.

Any nonsubjects who came near the area

where the probe session was being conducted,

were invited to join the group and were also

praised for "playing nicely", but did not receive

stickers at the end of the session. There were no

opportunities for reporting during probe sessions.

Experimental Design

This study was conducted as a multiple baseline

across the two behaviors, sharing and praising.

Generalization data were collected during

all phases.

All experimental conditions were identical to

those previously described in the General

Methods section. The sequence of experimental

conditions is summarized in Table 3.

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TEACHING CHILDREN TO SHARE AND PRAISE

GROUP C

SHARING

Baseline Package IE Baseline

a. 0

cc C!,

*-D..00 00 00 0 eSeOe @ O S O ...

Baseline

-Q

Cl)

Cm0

-i

SESSIONS

Fig. 3. The percentage of Group C members reporting sharing, and the mean number of shares per subject

are shown on the upper graph. Percentages of reporting praising, actual praising, and mean number of praises

per subject are shown on the lower graph. The axis on the left refers to percentage of group doing and reporting

the target behavior; the right-hand axis refers to the mean number of target behaviors.

RESULTS duced similar results with both sharing and

Training ~~~~~~~praising. Mean numbers of shares and praises

Troining increased to levels well above those obtained dur-

The results of the training sessions are shown ing baseline conditions. After the initial acquisiin

Figure 3. Reinforcement of true reports pro- tion period (Sessions 9 to 11), percentages of the

%OF GROUP REPORTING

_.. %OF GROUP DOING

SHARES(UBJECT ME-AN PRAISESUJEC

PACKAE II MODEL+ SR- TRE

REPORTS OF BEHAVIOR

345

ANN ROGERS-WARREN and DONALD M. BAER

Table 3

The sequence of experimental conditions in Experiment

II.

Group C

Sharing Praising

Baseline

Package II

Model sharing

Model reports of sharing

Reinforce true reports

of sharing

Package II

Model praising

Model reports of prais-

Baseline ing

Reinforce true reports

of praising

group sharing and reporting averaged above

80%. Percentages of doing and reporting praising

increased rapidly and stabilized at about

80% during the last five sessions of the experiment.

Probes

The results of the generalization probes are

shown in Figure 4. When reinforcement for true

reports began in the training sessions, sharing in

the probe setting gradually increased, and continued

throughout the remaining sessions. Shares

averaged about 0.62 per child before training

and about 1.8 per child after training.

No generalization of praising training was

apparent.

DISCUSSION

The results indicated that both sharing and

praising may be increased by reinforcement of

true reports of those behaviors, and that this

reinforcement contingency was sufficient to establish

correspondence without prior reinforcement

for any (true or untrue) reports of behavior.

A one-time instruction ("Tell me if you

shared [praised)") was used to facilitate acquisition

of reporting during the first two

sessions of each reinforcement condition. It is

possible that reports of sharing and praising

would have occurred eventually, as they did in

Experiment I; however, the brevity of the summer

term in which the experiment was conducted

prevented further exploration of that possibility.

Although the instruction was given after the

work session, immediately preceding the subjects'

opportunity to report, it may have served as a

prompt for actual behaviors, as well as for reports

of the behaviors.

The results of the probe sessions indicated that

sharing generalized to the second setting, but

that praising did not. One explanation for this

difference is that sharing and praising were

naturally followed by different consequences.

Offers to share materials frequently resulted in

the acquisition of another, desired material; however,

praising was typically followed by "thank

GENERALIZATION

SHARING

C-

AI- zw

C.)

PRAISING

100

%OFGROPDO

DE&MMEEANNSHPARARIESESS

PER SUBJECT

t TRAININGBEGA IN

USERCn

5 10 15

SESSIONS

4 >z

2 Xf I

10tams

160m

8cr

u p s- * Io i 20

Fig. 4. Sharing and praising during generalization

probes conducted in Experiment II (Group C). The

percentage of group members sharing and the mean

number of shares per subject are shown on the upper

graph; the percentage of group praising and the mean

number of praises per subject are shown on the lower

graph. The axis on the left refers to percentage of

group doing the target behavior; the right-hand axis

refers to the mean number of target behaviors.

346

TEACHING CHILDREN TO SHARE AND PRAISE

you" or by a reciprocal praise statement. The

acquisition of materials may have been a sufficiently

reinforcing event to maintain sharing,

while the consequences of praising were not. It

is also possible, as suggested earlier, that training

had a more obvious effect on sharing because

sharing was already in the subjects' repertoires

and the training only served to increase it. Praising,

on the other hand, was not initially present

and first needed to be established.

It should also be noted that relatively few

probe sessions followed praising-training. It is

possible that praising would have occurred in the

probe sessions after subjects had acquired a

longer history of reinforcement for praise reports

in the training setting.

EXPERIMENT III

In the first two experiments, subjects' praising

had nearly always taken the form of statements

such as "I like your picture", or "I like what you

are making". This type of praise, while sufficient

to fulfill the criterion for reinforcement, seemed

to be of limited value as a social reinforcer.

Since a primary objective of the research was to

increase appropriate social responses, it was

decided that specific, varied forms of praise

should be trained in addition to the more general

category of praising.

METHOD

Subjects

Twelve subjects were selected from two different

preschool classrooms and divided into two

groups of six. Three members of each group

came from the first classroom, and three from

the second. Group D was composed of three 4-yrold

boys, two 4-yr-old girls, and one 3-yr-old

girl. Group E consisted of four 4-yr-old boys,

one 4-yr-old girl, and one 3-yr-old girl.

Setting

Experimental sessions were carried out in an

experimental room near the subjects' regular

classrooms. Separate sessions were conducted

for each group.

Behavior Definitions

For the purposes of this experiment, praising

was divided into two mutually exclusive categories,

general praising and specific praising.

General praise statements were those consisting

of "I like . . ." and a general object (e.g., "I

like your picture", "I like what you are making",

"I like that"). Any other praise statement was

scored as specific praise. Specific praise, in addition

to indicating liking or admiration, noted

particular qualities (e.g., neatness, number of

colors), particular objects (e.g., circles, lines,

houses), or particular procedures (e.g., drawing

with two pencils, covering the whole page with

colors). Specific praise included statements such

as "I like the way you used the color red", and

"That's a neat house you drew".

Using the same criteria, reports of praise were

scored as either general or specific.

Experimental Design

The experimental design within each group

was a multiple baseline across three behaviors:

sharing, general praising, and specific praising.

There was also an umbrella multiple baseline

across these two groups of subjects.

All experimental conditions were identical to

those described in the General Methods section.

The sequence of experimental conditions is summarized

in Table 4.

RESULTS

Group D

The results for Group D are shown in Figure

5. No effects of the "modelling-only" procedure

were observed. When reinforcement of

true reports of sharing was introduced, sharing

rapidly increased to an average of about seven

shares per subject. Reports of sharing and the

percentage of the group sharing showed corresponding

increases.

347

ANN ROGERS-WARREN and DONALD M. BAER

Table 4

The Sequence of Experimental Conditions in Experiment III

Group D _ Group E

General Specific General Specific

Sharing Praising Praising I I Sharing Praising Praising

Baseline

Model Sharing

Package II

Model sharing

Model reports

of sharing

Reinforce true

reports of

sharing

Baseline

Package II

Model gen.

praising

Model reports

of gen.

praising

Reinforce true

reports of

gen. -praising

Baseline

Package I

Model spec.

praising

Model reports

of spec.

praising

Reinforce any

reports of

spec.

praising

Package II

Model spec.

praising

Model reports

of spec.

praising

Reinforce true

reports of

spec.

praising

Baseline

Model Sharing

Package II

Model sharing

Model reports

of sharing

Reinforce true

reports of

sharing

Baseline

Package II

Model gen.

praising

Model reports

of gen.

praising

Reinforce true

reports of

gen.

praising

Baseline

Package I

Model spec.

praising

Model reports

of spec.

praising

Reinforce any

reports of

spec.

praising

Package II

Model spec.

praising

Model reports

of spec.

praising

Reinforce true

reports of

spec.

praising

I I

-1

I L. -i I I

348

TEACHING CHILDREN TO SHARE AND PRAISE

GROUP D

GENERAL PRAISE *

100 Baseline

SPECIFIC PRAISE

100 d % OF GF

So -0 %OF GI

-M MEAN S

60 P

PACKAGE I: MODI

40 REPC

PACKAGE U: MODI

20 REPC

n _ Bas4

ROUF

ROUI

;HAR

'RAIC

MEL+ '

)RTS

EL +

)RTS

Beline

WM&s

*-%% @@ @@ @@ @@- ------------* *@ s ----------*-*-@@-@ I- - - - -- -

Package I *Package HI

REPORT ING ..

P DOING

IES SUBJECT

3R+ ANY

OF BEHAVIOR4

SR+ TRUE

OF BEHAVIOR

SESSIOIS (2 day blocks)

Fig. 5. The percentage of Group D members performing the target behavior, reporting that behavior, and

the mean number of behaviors per subject for sharing (top graph), general praising (middle graph), and specific

praising (lower graph). The axis on the left refers to percentage of group doing and reporting the target

behavior; the right-hand axis refers to the mean number of target behaviors.

General praising increased less dramatically

when true reports were reinforced, averaging

about 1.8 praises per subject. Doing and reporting

general praise were variable, ranging from

50% to 100% of the group, but generally

showed a high degree of correspondence.

Because of the complexity of the verbal response

for specific praise, any report of specific

praise was initially reinforced (Package I). This

allowed subjects to contact the reinforcement

contingency more quickly than they might have

during Package II (reinforcement for true re-

Ua:-l

cwG

IL.-

-U

-I

01 AL -.AL Ala-.A, -Alk

349

ANN ROGERS-WARREN and DONALD M. BAER

ports), and provided an opportunity for the

experimenter to prompt subjects to make different

reports of specific praise without interfering

with the "truth" requirement.

Only small increases in the mean number of

specific praises were noted when any report of

specific praise was reinforced (Package I). Reports

of specific praise increased moderately;

however, fewer than half the subjects actually

gave specific praise.

Reinforcement for true reports of specific

praise (Package II) produced consistent specific

praising, averaging about 1.7 praises per subject.

Reports of specific praise and the percentage of

the group specifically praising varied during the

first part of the condition, but increased to near

100% for the last four sessions. During the application

of Packages I and II to specific praise,

subjects continued to praise generally and reported

both general and specific praise.

Group E

The results for Group E are shown in Figure

6. Generally, the results for Group E are similar

to those for Group D for sharing and general

praising. Modelling appropriate sharing did not

produce significant changes in the sharing baseline.

When reinforcement was made contingent

on true reports, the percentage of group members

reporting the appropriate behaviors rapidly increased

to near 100%. The percentage of group

members actually doing the behaviors also increased,

so that a high level of correspondence

between reports of behavior and actual behavior

developed and was maintained throughout the

reinforcement condition.

When reinforcement was made contingent on

any report of specific praising (Package I), subjects

immediately began doing and reporting

specific praise. The percentage of group members

specifically praising reached 100% by the third

session of the condition. General praising and

reports of general praising declined to near baseline

levels.

During the final condition (reinforcement for

true reports of specific praise), the mean number

of specific praises per subject averaged about 2.0

while the percentages of reporting and doing

the behavior remained about 80%. Functionally,

this final condition was no different from the

preceding one for the subjects; in both conditions

they truly reported specific praise and were rewarded

for their reports.

DISCUSSION

The results supported the findings of the two

previous experiments and demonstrated that reinforcement

for true reports of behavior can be

used to increase a still more complex behavior,

specific praising.

Specific praise appeared to be a more reinforcing

event than general praise had been in the

same experiment or in earlier ones. General

praise was often "recited" by one child to another,

then repeated by the second child. Often

the child being praised did not attend to the general

praise statement a peer was making. Specific

praise statements seemed more spontaneous and

less stereotypical, possibly because they required

the subject making the statement to stop working,

assess other's activities, and then make an

appropriate statement. Because such statements

were of longer duration and of more unique

content than the general praise statements, specific

praise more often elicited attention from the

child being praised.

Most subjects demonstrated several different

types of specific praise and tended to vary their

praise statements within and across sessions.

None of the subjects imitated the modelled

praise statements, but rather, subjects generated

specific praise that was appropriate to a peer's

particular activity.

During the reinforcement of true reports of

general praising, some subjects in Group E began

praising specifically. These same subjects performed

and reported general praising and, thus,

were rewarded for their reports of praising. This

reinforcement may have maintained both specific

and general praising.

It is not clear whether it was necessary to train

general praise, or the use of a single praise state-

350

TEACHING CHILDREN TO SHARE AND PRAISE

GROUP E

SHARING

GENERAL PRAISE

Baseline

SPECIFIC

100

PRAISE

Baseline

PACKAGE I: MODEL+ SR+AN R

OF BEHI

PACKAGE II:MODEL+SR+ TRUI

REPORTS OF BEH)

A A A A . .A . -M.--

PKG.

EKG 10

IEPORTS

MVOR

WVIOR .6

15 25

SESSIONS (2 day blocks)

Fig. 6. The percentage of Group E members performing the target behavior, reporting that behavior, and

the mean number of behaviors per subject for sharing (top graph), general praising (middle graph), and

specific praising (lower graph). The axis on the left refers to percentage of group doing and reporting the

target behavior; the right-hand axis refers to the mean number of target behaviors.

C-)

m11

Cc)r

C-

351

-A AANN

ROGERS-WARREN and DONALD M. BAER

ment, before training the class of specific praise.

The results obtained with Group E suggest that

specific praising might be trained immediately

with the desired results. It may be that long

periods of reinforcement for general praise,

without the occurrence of specific praise, impede

the acquisition of the specific praise responses

and reports. The subjects in Group E who exhibited

specific praising during the general praising

training (and thus were not exposed to a

long period of reinforcement for only general

praise) reported specific praise more quickly

and more truly than the subjects in Group D,

who did not exhibit any specific praise until that

behavior was trained. In Group E, reinforcement

for any reports of specific praise quickly produced

the actual behavior from nearly all subjects;

yet, Group D showed very few instances

of specific praising when any report of that

behavior was reinforced, and somewhat lower

levels of performance during reinforcement for

true reports of specific praise. Additional research

would be needed to determine if this

effect is the function of a long period of reinforcement

for general praising without any occurrence

of specific praise, or simply reflects the

difference in the subject's initial verb repertoires.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

The experiments reported here extend the

previous research on verbal self-control of behavior

along two dimensions: from simple to

complex behaviors, and from asocial to social behaviors.

Previous research has been limited in its application

to nonsocial behaviors such as bar

pressing (e.g., Bem, 1967; Birch, 1966), eating

(Lovaas, 1964b), and the use of preschool materials

(e.g., Risley and Hart, 1968). Although

the target behaviors have been varied, all were

primarily motor responses that did not require

the cooperation or presence of persons other than

the subject. The two behaviors examined here,

sharing and praising, could occur only with one

or more peers present, and thus increases in

either behavior served to further social interaction

among group members.

There are other ways in which sharing and

praising are more complex responses than those

previously studied. Sharing has both verbal and

nonverbal components. In particular, the nonverbal

component may take a variety of forms

(e.g., a gift, an exchange of materials, acceptance

of a material, or simultaneous use of a material).

Although general praising could consist of a

simple verbal statement without accompanying

responses, specific praise required that a subject

assess a peer's activity, attend to a specific aspect

of it, choose a verbal description that indicated

this aspect, and make a praise statement specifically

mentioning what was being praised.

Generally, similar results were obtained in

all three studies; however, there were considerable

differences in the rates of behaviors and the

time needed for subjects to acquire these behaviors.

There are a number of possible reasons

for these differences. First, the composition of the

groups differed with respect to the ages and skills

of the subjects. The subjects who acquired the

reporting and actual behaviors more quickly appeared

to be more verbally and socially skilled.

Studies by Luria (1961) and Bem (1967) reported

that younger children consistently exhibited

little verbal control of behavior without

special training. With the exception of only one

subject, this seemed to be true in all three studies

reported here. Younger subjects required longer

training to make reports of their behaviors and

to increase their actual behaviors.

Differences among groups might also be attributed

to the fact that in some groups, one or

two subjects served as informal, unprogrammed,

peer models for appropriate behavior. The rates

of sharing, praising, and the reporting of these

behaviors may have been affected by the presence

and relative effectiveness of such interactive

models. Apparent models were subjects with unusually

good verbal and social skills, who interacted

with most other members of the group. On

several occasions, model-subjects were observed

instructing peers about the appropriate behaviors

352

TEACHING CHILDREN TO SHARE AND PRAISE

and explaining the contingencies of reinforcement.

Such subject-models were apparent in

Groups A, B, and E, but not in Groups C and D.

While these experiments clearly demonstrated

that the package (modelling and reinforcement

for true reports) can be used to increase social

behaviors, three issues in particular, are left unresolved.

First, the function of the reporting

responses as an example of verbal mediation is

not clear. It is possible that the reinforcement

for reports of behavior paradigm used here was

simply functioning as a delayed reinforcement

procedure, and that children who were rewarded

for sharing and praising after each session would

respond in the same way as children who were

rewarded after each session without reporting

their behavior. A further study, in which delayed

reinforcement was directly compared with reinforcement

for reports of behavior, would aid in

this respect.

The effects of the adult model should also be

more carefully evaluated. In most instances, the

modelling of appropriate sharing responses without

reinforcement for reports of behavior did not

have a significant effect on rates of sharing; however,

the effect of the model after it was paired

with the reinforcement contingencies was not

investigated. The model seemed to be particularly

important during the initial sessions of an

experimental condition, possibly because it provided

the subjects with information about the

reinforcement contingencies, in addition to providing

examples of the appropriate behavior.

In most cases, subjects did not appear to be attending

to the model after the first five or six

sessions of the condition.

A third issue that merits further consideration

is generalization, since, potentially, one of the

most important aspects of this procedure is its

range of control over time and settings. Generalization

data were collected throughout Experiments

II and III. In Experiment II, there was

clear generalization of sharing but not praising,

to a second setting. In Experiment III, limited

generalization of sharing was observed, but no

generalization of praising was evident. The generalization

data for Experiment III have not been

included here because of difficulties related to

their collection.

In Experiment III, a probing technique (a

5-min observation of the subjects while they

played with materials similar to those used in

training) was used in place of the 15-min generalization

sessions employed in Experiment II.

It is highly questionable if the 5-min probe

was sufficient to detect generalization. The variable

results, particularly in the case of sharing,

in Experiments II and III, lead to the conclusion

that the conditions under which generalization

data are collected should be specified as clearly as

the primary experimental procedures. It may be

that conflicting reports of generalization are a

product of different procedures and settings for

collecting generalization data, and, thus, do not

necessarily reflect the strength of the primary

training or intervention.

It was of interest in the present studies that

although formal evidence of generalization was

limited, anecdotal reports from parents and

teachers of subjects in all five groups suggested

that sharing and praising began to occur more

frequently in classrooms and at home after training

was initiated in the experimental sessions.

The present studies did not attempt to consider

the theoretical issues underlying the verbal selfcontrol

of behavior. It should be noted that these

studies in some ways resemble Festinger's studies

of cognitive dissonance (e.g., Festinger, 1957).

For example, Festinger and Carlsmith (1959)

reported that when subjects were rewarded for

publicly advocating an opinion discrepant from

their private ones, a subsequent change in the

direction of the opinion publicly advocated was

noted. The change was considered to be an afterthe-

fact way of justifying the discrepant public

stance and thus alleviating the cognitive dissonance.

In the present studies, there were some

instances where subjects began sharing and praising

after reinforcement of untrue reports (that is,

during conditions when any report, true or untrue,

was reinforced), similar to the effects noted

in the Festinger and Carlsmith study. 353

354 ANN ROGERS-WARREN and DONALD M. BAER

Further research might take two directions. The component procedures discussed above might be further evaluated and tested for their relative functions. The present package also might be extended toward further application. This self-reporting procedure might also be an

efficient technique for maintaining social behavior in the classroom. Once true reporting has been established, the teacher might need only to be present during the reporting period. The teacher's attention during other times may be directed toward teaching other behaviors. The

delayed contingencies also allow for increasing social behavior without interrupting ongoing behavior among the subjects.

REFERENCES

Bem, S. L. Verbal self-control: the establishment of effective self-instruction. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1967, 74, 485-491.

Birch, D. Verbal control of nonverbal behavior. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1966, 4, 266-275.

Israel, A. C. and O'Leary, K. D. Developing correspondence between children's words and deeds. Child Development, 1973, 44, 575-581.

Festinger, L. A theory of cognitive dissonance. Evanston, Ill.: Row, Peterson, 1957.

Festinger, L. and Carlsmith, J. Cognitive consequences of forced compliance. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1959, 58, 203- 210.

Lovaas, 0. I. Interaction between verbal and nonverbal behavior. Child Development, 1961, 32, 329-336.

Lovaas, 0. I. Cue properties of words: the control of operant responding by rate and content of verbal operants. Child Development, 1964, 35, 245-256. (a)

Lovaas, 0. I. Control of food intake in children by reinforcement of relevant verbal operants. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 1964, 18, 672-678. (b)

Luria, A. R. The role of speech in the regulation of normal and abnormal behavior. New York: Pergamon Press, 1961.

Meichenbaum, D. H. and Goodman, J. Teaching children to talk to themselves: a means of developing self-control. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 1973, 27, 115-126.

Meichenbaum, D. H. and Goodman, J. The developmental control of operant motor responding by verbal operants. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1969, 7, 553-565.

Monohan, J. and O'Leary, K. D. Effects of selfinstruction on rule-breaking behavior. Psychological Reports, 1971, 29, 1059-1066.

O'Leary, K. D. The effects of self-instruction on immoral behavior. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 1968, 6, 297-301.

Risley, T. JOURNAL OF APPLIED BEHAVIOR ANALYSIS CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN SAYING AND DOING: TEACHING CHILDREN TO SHARE AND PRAISE' ANN ROGERS-WARREN AND DONALD M. BAER BUREAU OF CHILD RESEARCH UNIVERSITY OF KANSAS