Appetitive and Aversive Reinforcement Schedule Effects on Behavior: A Systematic Replication

Three male volunteers lived for six successive days within a laboratory environment programmed for continuous residence. During days when subjects' work on a multiple task performance battery had the effect of preventing reductions in accumulated group earnings, all subjects complained, one subject stopped working, and another subject's productivity declined. When identical work had the effect of incrementing group earnings, such byproducts of aversive control were absent. These results extend the generality of previous analyses of reinforcement schedule effects on behavior and thereby demonstrate their reliability. The reactions of the subjects to the aversive reinforcement schedule were similar to the reactions of the crew manning the last Skylab mission.