20 chronic schizophrenic adult female patients in a ward of a hospital for the mentally ill were placed on schedules of reinforcement designed to establish or strengthen behaviors incompatible with the diagnostic statement “apathetic.” Another 20 patients on the same ward received standard ward therapy. 30 behavioral samples, spaced evenly in ½-hr. intervals, were obtained for each of the patients for 3 5-day periods: before, during, and on termination of the program. Apathy was defined as the degree to which a patient at the time of any of the 30 daily observations engaged in one—and only one—clearly discernible behavior. While the degree of apathy was equal for experimentals and controls at the beginning of the experiment, those patients who were subjected to the schedules of reinforcement were significantly less apathetic at the termination of the experiment than the controls who were given normal ward therapy but who were not subjected to such schedules. The implications of these findings are discussed.

Previous studies suggest the utility of electrical aversion conditioning, but have failed to include adequate controls. Pseudoconditioning (random shock delivery), sham conditioning (no shock), and ward controls (routine hospital treatment) were compared with two conditioning groups. Conditioning-only (contingent shock) and booster 5s (additional conditioning sessions after release from hospital) were shocked for drinking and reinforced by shock termination for spitting out the alcohol. Sessions were run in a simulated bar setting. Fifty-one of 73 chronic male alcoholics completed treatment and were available for follow-up. The technique significantly increased time to relapse when compared with control groups, among which no significant differences were found. The results suggest the possible usefulness of booster sessions and the potential long-term effectiveness of the technique for some Ss.The potential effectiveness of electrical aversion conditioning methods in treating alcoholics is apparent in reports by Hsu (1965) and Blake (1965Blake ( , 1967. A drawback of these studies was the absence of control groups, making it difficult to determine the

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An earlier follow-up reported a successful conditioning technique for suppressing the drinking behavior of chronic alcoholics (Vogler, Lunde, Johnson, & Martin, 1970). Conditioning 5s remained sober for a significantly longer time after release from the hospital than did control 5s. Data are now available to evaluate the effects of the electrical aversion conditioning technique during a one-year period after release from the hospital.A complete description of the experimental method may be found in Vogler et al. (1970). In brief, volunteer 5s were randomly assigned in pairs to one of four groups: (a) booster, that is, response-contingent shock plus reconditioning sessions; (6) conditioning only, that is, response-contingent electrical shock; (c) pseudoconditioning, that is, control 5s shocked randomly; and (d) sham conditioning, that is, control 5s who received the same treatment as conditioning 5s but without the shock. A group of ward controls, that is, 5s who received