Studies of abnormal behavior in the rat. VII. The permanent nature of abnormal fixations and their relation to convulsive tendencies.

Studies of abnormal behavior in the rat. XII. The pattern of punishment and its relation to abnormal fixations.

“…Because responses developed under these conditions have the properties of stereotypy and persistence, and responses developed under conditions of reward do not, it is necessary to designate these two kinds of responses by different terms. Maier, Glaser and Klee (7), and Maier and Klee (8) have called the responses developed in the no-solution situation abnormal fixations, to differentiate them from position and discrimination habits. Because an insoluble problem produced a frustrating experience, it became necessary to distinguish between responses developed under conditions of frustration and of motivation.…”

“…Attempts to break such persistent position responses by (i) punishment for each response, or (2) placing food in an open window on the side opposite, were unsuccessful. In a second experiment (8), it was shown that the fixated responses survived a rigorous period of testing during which the animals were subjected to a variety of training situations, conflicts and convulsive experiences.…”

THE COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ‘CONFLICT’ AND ‘EXPERIMENTAL NEUROSIS’1

“…Maier's approach to therapy, in the light of his theory of frustration-instigated behaviour, assumes that the aberrant behaviour is qualitatively distinct from learned behaviour, and, therefore, cannot be altered by conventional retraining procedures. In this connexion one series of his investigations (26) was designed to determine the effects of vacation from the conflict situation and of systematically varying the situation itself. Subjects were tested for the persistence of fixations throughout a programme consisting of a number of phases including a vacation, a symbol-reward learning period, an exposure to a single-door problem, an exposure to a mixed series of all these conditions plus the original conflict situation, and, a test period during which the subjects were given metrazol injections.…”

Studies on Rigidity and Crystalization of Behav-Ior

“…In a series of" studies of abnormal behavior in the rat," Maier and his collaborators were able to produce an unadaptive stereotyped or fixated behavior in rats by subjecting them to the frustrating situation (e.g., Maier, Glaser & Klee, 1940;Maier & Klee, 1941). It has been pointed out, however, the situation and the procedure they used were very complicated.…”