The "social deprivation-satiation effect": An outcome of frequency or perceived contingency?

Evaluated the contributions of frequency and contingency of reinforcement to the deprivation-satiation phenomenon. 72 3rd and 4th graders heard the word good either twice (deprivation) or 16 (satiation) times either contingently upon some action on their part, contingently upon some action of the E's, or noncontingently (at random). This was followed by a discrimination test under continuous reinforcement with the word good. All Ss showed high performance except the group exposed to the high frequency of noncontingent reinforcement. A postexperimental interview revealed that all groups except the high-frequency noncontingent group had interpreted the E's approval words as having been contingent on their behavior during treatment. Results support E. Y. Babad's (1972) thesis that the perceived contingency of reinforcement is a more powerful determinant of its subsequent reinforcement effectiveness than is its frequency per se. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)