The effects of vicarious reinforcement on modeling by schizophrenic hospital patients

Abstract

Adult male schizophrenic Ss were exposed to a peer model under conditions of positive vicarious reinforcement, negative vicarious reinforcement, and no vicarious reinforcement. The degree to which the Ss imitated the behaviors of the model was not affected by the vicarious reinforcement, although the Ss did emit significantly more of the dependent measure behaviors than did a group of control Ss who had seen no model. The failure of the Ss to respond to the vicarious reinforcement was seen in terms of the inability of schizophrenics to attend to relevant detail.