Psychology Commons^™

The Effects Of Three Levels Of Social Interaction On The Maintenance Of Sidman Avoidance In Rats, John Lewis Cofer

Master's Theses

In 1965 Zajonc theorized that the effect of the presence of others was to facilitate the maintenance of a behavior. However, opposite results have been found when rat subjects were tested with shock used as a reinforcer. It was hypothesized that shock elicited aggression interfered with responding, producing performance decrement, rather than facilitation. A wheel-turn Sidman avoidance procedure was used to study maintenance behavior in rats under three levels of social interaction: single subject, two subjects separated by a barrier to prevent shock elicited aggressions (the companion paradigm), and two subjects not separated in the. test chamber (the physical paradigm). …