College students stated their vocational objectives as freshmen and again four to six years later. On basis of test data, ratings of appropriateness of these objectives were obtained for 74 students who received vocational counseling during this period, and a matched nonclient control group of 74 students who did not. Neither group showed a significant change in appropriateness-of-vocational-choice, and there was no significant difference between the two groups with respect to amount of change. However, the follow-up objectives stated by male clients were significantly less appropriate than those of nonclients. These results were interpreted in light of other evidence to suggest that gains observable immediately after counseling do not endure. It was speculated that many vocational counseling clients lack the capacity to implement appropriate vocational plans.
Ss were also schizophrenics from the preceding two studies. Note the more rapid rise of the dependent variable during the treatment phase and the drop during extinction.Analysis showed that neither sex of the experimenter nor sex of the Ss were significant variables in this experiment.
DISCUSSION AND SUMMARYIn two previous experiments using schizophrenics as Ss, the writers have shown that psychoanalytic-type interpretations can serve as verbal reinforcers in a simple verbal conditioning problem. Each interpretation used was specifically designed to relate to the content of the particular incomplete sentence which served as its stimulus. The question asked in this study was whether any interpretive statement by El even if the content of the interpretation was unrelated to the 8's statement that it followed, could art as a reinforcer. Colby had suggested that much of the effect of interpretations may depend upon their "truth-status". To investigate Colby's hypothesis, the interpretations were listed separately from the stimulus cards and shuffled to yield random pairing of stimulus sentences and interpretations. The learning curve for the Ss receiving "shuffled interpretations" was quite similar to that of Ss who received the logically fitting interpretations following "correct" responses. The data support the hypothesis that the "truth-status" or relevance of interpretations is not the central factor in whether interpretations lawfully modify verbal behavior in a verbal conditioning situation. REFERENCES 1. ADAMS, H. E., NOBLIN, C. D., BUTLER, J. R. and TIMMONB, E. 0. The differential effect of Psyehol. 2. ADAMS, H. E., BUTLER, J. R. and NOBLIN C. D. Effects of psychoanalytically-derived inter-3. COLBY, K. M. Research in psychoanalytic information theory. . deneralization of verbal re-psychoanalytically-derived interpretations and verbal conditioning in schizophrenics. , 1962, If, 195-198. pretations: a verbal conditioning paradigm? hychol. Reports 1962,10,691-694.
Reports
358-369.tion of interview content in standardized interviews. J. eonsult. Psychol. 1960,.94,528-536. sponsea following two methods of reinforcement.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.