“…Social responsibility, as well as our desire for parsimony, dictates that the situational dynamics obtaining in our experiments be carefully examined before theoretical superstructures of the type noted above are presented. Before modern-day demons are attributed to the retarded, minimal experimental rigor should be expended in controlling for such known variables as pre-institutional social deprivation experienced (Clarke & Clarke, 1954;Zigler, 1961b), institutionalization (Bolduc, 1960;Zigler, 1961a, in press), the reluctance and wariness of adults exhibited by retardates (Cruickshank, 1947;Shallenberger & Zigler, 1961), expectancy of reinforcement (Stevenson & Zigler,19S8), and the differential effectiveness of social reinforcers (Zigler et al, 1958).…”