Subjects shot a light gun at a target with a photorecepter cell in the bull'seye, with the only information regarding their accuracy being provided by reinforcing tone signals. Half the subjects received reinforcers contingent upon their hits. The others were yoked to the contingent subjects, receiving noncontingent reinforcers in the same patterns. Experiment 1 compared contingent or noncontingent positive or aversive reinforcers in their effect on subsequent anagrams performance. Phenomenal experiences, such as cognitive awareness, attributions, and moods, were assessed. Subjects exhibited a strong helplessness effect indei>endent of their phenomenal experiences. In Experiment 2 the independent variables of contingent/noncontingent reinforcement and awareness of noncontingency were manipulated orthogonally by informing half the subjects that their reinforcement had been noncontingent in the target-shooting. Actual noncontingency produced a strong helplessness effect whereas "awareness of noncontingency" did not.Overmier and Seligman (1967) reported the first study of learned helplessness (LH), in which dogs who were given shocks not contingent upon their behavior subsequently had difficulty learning to escape or avoid shocks. Many investigators have since confirmed the finding that the noncontingent occurrence of aversive reinforcers may produce a detrimental effect on subsequent learning involving aversive reinforcers. The interpretation of LH suggested by Maier and Seligman (1976) proposes that the retardation of later learning results from the prior learning of response-reinforcer independence, which must then be overcome when response and reinforcer are no longer independent. As they put it, "Response-outcome indepenExperiment 1 was conducted by the second author under the direction of the first author. It was the basis of the second author s doctoral dissertation submitted to the City University of New York. This report was written by the first author. The first author would like to express his appreciation to Lori Elliot, who ran the subjects for Experiment 2 and made some of the statistical calculations as part of an undergraduate honors project. Requests for reprints should be sent to William Oakes, Department of Psychology, Brooklyn College

No abstract

An experiment was carried out using the Staats and Staats procedure for conditioning attitudes toward nonsense syllables. In agreement with the results of Cohen, it was found that awareness was correlated with conditioning and furthermore that an interfering intertrial activity, color naming, significantly reduced both awareness and conditioning. Ss who were unaware of the demand characteristics of the experimental situation, however, did show a significant conditioning effect. In view of the further finding that extinction did not occur either with or without partial reinforcement, the conditioning effect was interpreted as being a change, not in affect, but in symbolic reference to affect.

No abstract

4 groups of 25 Ss constructed sentences using a verb and 1 of 6 pronouns presented on an index card in a series of 6 blocks of 20 trials. In a 2 X 2 design, 2 of the groups, RN and RC, were reinforced for sentences begun with "I" or "we," while the other 2 groups, UN and UC were not reinforced. Groups RN and UN named colors between trials, while RC and UC had no such intertrial activity. After the conditioning trials an "awareness" interview was conducted. The reinforced groups increased significantly in number of "I-we" sentences constructed and did not differ in the amount of conditioning. The correlation usually found between "awareness" and conditioning scores was found in Group RC, but a nonsignificant correlation in the opposite direction was found for Group RN. (The correlations for RN and RC were significantly different.) It was concluded that the intertrial activity (color naming) interfered with the "awareness"-conditioning relationship, but not with the conditioning, per se, thus suggesting an automatic strengthening effect of the reinforcement, not mediated by cognitive processes, i.e., "awareness." The results were interpreted as not supporting the Dulany-Spielberger position on the relationship between "awareness" and conditioning, but rather as supporting the Verplanck-Krasner position.