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PubMedDate not supplied

Autonomic concomitants of discriminative avoidance and punishment training in the monkey.

Two Cebus albifrons monkeys were trained to press a back-lighted panel to postpone a brief electric shock to the tail using a Sidman avoidance schedule (SS = 40 sec, RS = 40 sec). After 25 training sessions, a discriminative schedule was introduced, with the Sidman avoidance continuing in the presence of one discriminative stimulus and punishment introduced in the presence of the other. The discriminative stimuli were colors on the panel. Discriminative training also involved 25 sessions, each with a random sequence of 6 avoidance and 6 punishment segments, with 30 sec intervals between the segments. Plantar skin conductance and heart rate were recorded along with the panel-pressing behavior. The two monkeys adjusted to the discriminative schedule quite differently from one another. One animal responded at a high level and avoided very well (during avoidance) but was punished frequently (during punishment). The other animal responded less frequently and received many shocks during avoidance but almost none during punishment. The animal that showed less ability to inhibit responding (and received about four times as many shocks overall) appeared to have discriminated better temporally in spacing its responses during avoidance training. The monkey whose panel-pressing behavior resulted in more shocks also tended to show a higher tonic level of autonomic arousal. However, within-animal differences in shock frequency (between avoidance and punishment) were not similarly related to autonomic arousal. The animal that received fewer shocks overall (but more during avoidance) showed greater arousal during punishment. The animal that received more shocks overall (but fewer during avoidance) showed no arousal differences between avoidance and punishment.

Animals↗
PubMed2004

Response perseveration and sensitivity to reward and punishment in boys with oppositional defiant disorder.

Response perseveration is the tendency to continue a response set for reward despite punishment. In the present study, response perseveration and sensitivity to reward and punishment were assessed in boys with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD). The study also examined the relation between punishment sensitivity and autonomic arousal. Nineteen ODD boys (mean age 9.8 years) and 20 normal control boys (NC) (mean age 9.7 years) were administered the door-opening task. In this task, the subject chooses either to open the next door or to stop playing; the opening of doors is initially rewarded and then increasingly punished. ODD boys opened more doors than NC boys. Following punishment, ODD boys took less time than NC boys before opening the next door, but did not differ from NC boys in time after reward. Mean skin conductance level was lower in ODD boys than in NC boys. The correlation coefficient between time after punishment and skin conductance level was moderately positive in the total sample. These results suggest that response perseveration in ODD boys is related to low punishment sensitivity and that skin conductance level is a marker of punishment sensitivity.

Arousal↗
PubMed1982

A cross-cultural examination of use of corporal punishment on children: a focus on Sweden and the United States.

It appears that Sweden and the United States may be a study in contrasts regarding the sanction and use of corporal punishment on children. A 1979 study of American parents noted that 81% of them employed corporal punishment with children. A different study done in Sweden in 1978 noted that only 26% of parents used corporal punishment with children. What points to the differences in these parenting patterns within the two countries? In addition, a 1977 U.S. Supreme Court case entitled Ingraham vs. Wright ruled that "schools are empowered to carry out corporal punishment." This court case involved two high school boys in Florida who had been repeatedly struck with wooden paddles. In contrast, Sweden had statutes which prohibited corporal punishment of children in their secondary schools as early as the 1920s. In 1957, the country passed a law which defined corporal punishment as unacceptable for small children in the schools. Then, in 1979, the Swedish government passed a statute prohibiting corporal punishment by parents. Are there differences in the way the two countries view law and its uses? Or, do the cultures sanction violence in general or just violence against children in different ways? This article examines some of the similarities and differences found in American and Swedish treatment of children and proposes what appear to be extreme differences in the way the countries and their people approach corporal punishment.

Child↗
PubMed1986

Effects of punishment on response latency in extraverts.

Previous findings indicate that in comparison to introverts, extraverts are prone to form responses that are resistant to interruption by punishment. Because the tendency to stop and reflect following punishment may be crucial for subsequent learning, the present study was designed to examine differences between introverts' and extraverts' reactions to punishment using response latency on the trial following punishment as the dependent variable. Sixty-six extraverted and 66 introverted male undergraduates performed a pattern-matching task in which they received noncontingent 50% success and 50% failure feedback under three incentive conditions including reward only, punishment only, or both. As predicted, a significant interaction was found in the both condition, reflecting the tendency of extraverts to respond more quickly and introverts more slowly following punishment feedback than following reward feedback. No significant effects were found in the other two conditions; however, a tendency was noted for extraverts to respond more quickly overall when only reward was given. A second experiment using reward-only and punishment-only feedback replicated this finding and yielded a significant interaction of Group X Condition. The results indicate that in contrast to introverts, extraverts are activated by the availability of reward and, paradoxically, that punishment may facilitate rather than interrupt extraverts' reward seeking behavior.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

Altruistic punishment and the origin of cooperation.

How did human cooperation evolve? Recent evidence shows that many people are willing to engage in altruistic punishment, voluntarily paying a cost to punish noncooperators. Although this behavior helps to explain how cooperation can persist, it creates an important puzzle. If altruistic punishment provides benefits to nonpunishers and is costly to punishers, then how could it evolve? Drawing on recent insights from voluntary public goods games, I present a simple evolutionary model in which altruistic punishers can enter and will always come to dominate a population of contributors, defectors, and nonparticipants. The model suggests that the cycle of strategies in voluntary public goods games does not persist in the presence of punishment strategies. It also suggests that punishment can only enforce payoff-improving strategies, contrary to a widely cited "folk theorem" result that suggests that punishment can allow the evolution of any strategy.

Altruism↗
PubMed1988

Stimulus variation as a means of enhancing punishment effects.

We compared the effects of varied punishers (presentation of one of three available punishers) with the single presentation of one of the punishers on the occurrence of inappropriate behaviors with three developmentally delayed children. Two children were presented with varied-punisher conditions in which either overcorrection, time-out, or a verbal "no" was presented contingent upon inappropiate behavior. A loud noise was substituted for overcorrection for a third child. Results of the multielement with reversal design indicated that both punishment formats produced a decrease in the target behaviors with the varied-punisher format slightly more effective than the single presentations of the punishers. The results suggest the use of varied punishers as a means of enhancing the effects of less intrusive procedures to effectively reduce inappropriate behaviors.

Child↗
PubMed1997

Effects of intermittent punishment on self-injurious behavior: an evaluation of schedule thinning.

Although the use of punishment often raises ethical issues, such procedures may be needed when the reinforcers that maintain behavior cannot be identified or controlled, or when competing reinforcers cannot be found. Results of several studies on the effects of intermittent schedules of punishment suggest that therapists must use fairly rich schedules of punishment to suppress problem behavior. However, residential caretakers, teachers, and parents often have difficulty implementing programs that require constant monitoring of the client's behavior. In this study, we examined the feasibility of gradually thinning the delivery of punishment from a continuous schedule to an intermittent schedule during the course of treatment for self-injurious behavior (SIB). Results of functional analyses for 5 individuals who had been diagnosed with profound mental retardation indicated that their SIB was not maintained by social consequences. Treatment with continuous schedules of time-out (for 1 participant) or contingent restraint (for the other 4 participants) produced substantial reductions in SIB. When they were exposed to intermittent schedules of punishment (fixed-interval [FI] 120 s or FI 300 s), SIB for all but 1 of the participants increased to levels similar to those observed during baseline. For these 4 participants, the schedule of punishment was gradually thinned from continuous to FI 120 s or FI 300 s. For 2 participants, SIB remained low across the schedule changes, demonstrating the utility of thinning from continuous to intermittent schedules of punishment. Results for the other 2 participants showed that intermittent punishment was ineffective, despite repeated attempts to thin the schedule.

Adult↗
PubMed1966

Multiple punishment schedule.

Concurrent schedules of punishment and fixed-ratio reinforcement were studied in six white Carneaux pigeons. Two stimuli were alternated on the translucent key which served as the response mechanism. The pigeons were exposed to continuous punishment in one stimulus and first response punishment in the other. It was found that continuous punishment suppressed the fixed-ratio performance more than did punishment of the first response. Typically, a ratio run of responses was completed in spite of the onset of continuous punishment. Responding was then reduced for the remainder of the continuous punishment stimulus, except for those times when responding was initiated near the end of the stimulus. The results indicate that a multiple schedule can be used to compare different schedules of punishment in the same organism.

Animals↗
PubMed1973

Drugs and punished responding. I. Rate-dependent effects under multiple schedules.

The effects of drugs were studied in pigeons whose responses were punished with electric shock during one component of a multiple fixed-interval 5-min fixed-interval 5-min schedule of food presentation. Most of the drugs analyzed for rate-dependent effects increased low rates of both punished and unpunished responding, while increasing higher rates less, or decreasing them; however, low rates of punished responding sometimes were increased more by pentobarbital, diazepam, and chlordiazepoxide than were matched rates of unpunished responding. In contrast, d-amphetamine and chlorpromazine usually increased low rates of unpunished responding more than matched rates of punished responding. These two drugs also decreased high rates of unpunished responding less than they decreased high rates of punished responding. Thus, the effects of drugs on punished responding depend on the control rate of punished responding; however, the rate-dependent effects of drugs on punished responding are not always the same as they are for unpunished responding.

Animals↗
PubMed1976

Punishment of responding under schedules of stimulus-shock termination: effects of d-amphetamine and pentobarbital.

Responding maintained in squirrel monkeys under 5-min fixes-interval schedules of either food presentation or termination of a visual stimulus associated with electric-shock delivery was suppressed by presenting an electric shock for every thirtieth response (punishment). In monkeys responding under the schedule of food presentation, d-amphetamine sulfate only further decreased punished responding, and pentobarbital sodium markedly increased punished responding, as expected from previous reports. In monkeys responding under the schedule of stimulus-shock termination, however, the effects of the two drugs were opposite: d-amphetamine markedly increased punished responding, whereas pentobarbital only decreased responding. Thus, the effects of these drugs on punished responding were different depending on the type of event maintaining responding. These and previous results indicate that it may be misleading and inaccurate to speak of the effects of drugs on "punished responding" as though punishment were a unitary phenomenon. As with any behavior, the effects of drugs and other interventions on punished responding cannot be accurately characterized independently of the precise conditions under which the behavior occurs.

Animals↗
PubMed1985

A survey of parental opinions on corporal punishment in schools.

Forty-three states permit corporal punishment in schools. This practice continues despite the universal opposition of professional organizations, including the American Academy of Pediatrics. This study determines parental attitudes concerning the use of physical punishment in schools. The surveyed sample is drawn from parents of military dependents who brought their children to this clinic for routine physical examinations. One hundred and twenty-nine of 132 questionnaires were returned for a 98% response rate. Fifty-one percent of the parents supported the use of corporal punishment in schools, 37% disagreed (77% of these strongly), 11% had no opinion, and 1% did not respond to the question. Analysis of the responses displayed a relationship between parental attitudes on the use of corporal punishment and opinion of the positive effects of physical punishment on children's behavior (p less than 0.0001). No relationship was found between position on corporal punishment and the respondent (mother, father, or both), the age of parents, the military rank of the sponsor (the individual whose military service makes the child eligible for military medical care, i.e., father, mother, guardian, etc.), the sex of the children, the marital status of the parents, or the schools attended by the children (public or private). Thirty-four percent of parents believed corporal punishment would improve behavior, and 20% of parents felt that physical punishment would improve their child's academic performance.

Achievement↗
PubMed1999

Alterations of GABAA receptor subunit mRNA levels associated with increases in punished responding induced by acute alprazolam administration: an in situ hybridization study.

Changes in the mRNA encoding alpha1, alpha2, beta2 and gamma2 subunits of the GABAA receptor associated with the anxiolytic effects of alprazolam were measured in 20 brain regions using in situ hybridization techniques. Compared to non-punished controls, punishment decreased alpha1 mRNA levels in two nuclei of the amygdala, the cerebral cortex, and the mediodorsal thalamic nucleus and decreased alpha2 mRNA levels in the hippocampus. Punishment increased beta2 mRNA levels in ventroposterior thalamic nucleus and gamma2 mRNA levels in the CA2 area of the hippocampus. All of these effects were reversed when alprazolam increased punished responding, while alprazolam alone had no effect on either non-punished responding or GABAA receptor subunit regulation in these brain regions. Some brain regions that were unaffected by punishment were altered by alprazolam plus punishment. These results demonstrate that punishment and alprazolam can produce reciprocal changes in the mRNA levels for some subunits of the GABAA receptor. These changes may alter GABAergic synaptic inhibition by altering the density of GABAA receptors or their efficacy to bind drugs. They suggest that the underlying mechanisms by which drugs affect behavior can depend upon the conditions under which behavior is assessed.

Alprazolam↗
PubMed1992

Antagonism studies with BMY-7378 and NAN-190: effects on 8-hydroxy-2-(di-n-propylamino)tetralin-induced increases in punished responding of pigeons.

The purported serotonin (5-HT)1A antagonists BMY-7378 and NAN-190 were examined in pigeons for their potential to block the effects of the prototypical 5-HT1A agonist 8-hydroxy-2-(di-n-propylamino)tetralin (8-OH-DPAT) on punished ("conflict") and unpunished behavior and for their binding affinity at the 5-HT1A receptor site labeled by [3H]-8-OH-DPAT. Although BMY-7378 and NAN-190 both displayed high affinity for the 5-HT1A receptor (IC50 values of 0.8 and 7.5 nM, respectively), their effects, when administered alone, as well as in combination with 8-OH-DPAT, were distinct. 8-OH-DPAT (0.3-3.0 mg/kg) produced large increases in punished responding at doses that did not affect or that decreased unpunished responding. Administration of NAN-190 (1.0-3.0 mg/kg) did not increase punished responding, whereas BMY-7378 (1.0-5.6 mg/kg) slightly increased behavior suppressed by punishment. Pretreatment with BMY-7378 attenuated the rate-increasing effects of 8-OH-DPAT on punished responding; however, these effects were accompanied by dose-dependent enhancement of the rate-decreasing effects of 8-OH-DPAT on unpunished responding. In contrast, NAN-190 blocked the rate-increasing effects of 8-OH-DPAT on punished responding and also reversed the rate-decreasing effects of 8-OH-DPAT on responding that was not punished. Pretreatment with NAN-190 failed to block increases in punished responding produced by 0.1 to 1.0 mg/kg of the benzodiazepine midazolam. These data suggest that NAN-190 may be characterized as an antagonist and BMY-7378 a partial agonist with respect to 5-HT1A-induced behavioral changes observed in the conflict procedure with pigeons.

8-Hydroxy-2-(di-n-propylamino)tetralin↗
PubMed1964

SELECTIVE PUNISHMENT OF FIXED-RATIO PERFORMANCE.

Key-pecking of pigeons, maintained by an FR 50 grain reinforcement schedule, was punished by shocking the first, middle, or last response of the ratio. Under high shock levels, the three punishment conditions produced differential effects on the behavior. Punishment of the first response of the ratio resulted in consistent and extended post-reinforcement pausing and frequent extended breaks after the initial response(s) of the ratio. Punishment of the 25th response disrupted responding in the first half of the ratio with little effect on the last half of the ratio. Punishment of the final response resulted in breaks and local rate changes in various parts of the ratio. Durations of pauses after reinforcement were more variable when the 25th and 50th responses were punished relative to those when the first response was punished.

Animals↗
PubMed1964

FIXED-RATIO PUNISHMENT WITH CONTINUOUS REINFORCEMENT.

Rats were reinforced with water for every bar-press and concurrently punished for every 10th or 20th bar-press. Punishment produced an initial suppression of responding followed by recovery. A slight change in the method of delivering punishment eventually led to a high response rate just after punishment, a low response rate just before punishment, and frequent intermediate pauses. The results are interpreted as showing that punishment became a safe signal and that the high rate of responding it released came to act as a conditioned aversive stimulus. The effects of amphetamine were consistent with this interpretation. Alcohol had the paradoxical effect of increasing pauses and depressing the low rate before punishment.

Amphetamine↗
PubMed2001

Why people punish defectors. Weak conformist transmission can stabilize costly enforcement of norms in cooperative dilemmas.

In this paper, we present a cultural evolutionary model in which norms for cooperation and punishment are acquired via two cognitive mechanisms: (1) payoff-biased transmission-a tendency to copy the most successful individual; and (2) conformist transmission-a tendency to copy the most frequent behavior in the population. We first show that if a finite number of punishment stages is permitted (e.g. two stages of punishment occur if some individuals punish people who fail to punish non-cooperators), then an arbitrarily small amount of conformist transmission will stabilize cooperative behavior by stabilizing punishment at some n -th stage. We then explain how, once cooperation is stabilized in one group, it may spread through a multi-group population via cultural group selection. Finally, once cooperation is prevalent, we show how prosocial genes favoring cooperation and punishment may invade in the wake of cultural group selection.

Cooperative Behavior↗
PubMed1984

Effects of some volatile sedative-hypnotics on punished behavior.

Lever-press responses of rats were established under a schedule in which punished and unpunished responding alternated. Every 30th response produced food (unpunished responding) during an alternate schedule component, while every tenth response produced both food and shock (punished responding) during an alternate schedule component. Each schedule component was correlated with a different visual stimulus. Unpunished behavior was characterized by high sustained rates which followed brief pauses after food delivery. Punished behavior occurred at less than 10% the rate of unpunished behavior. Oral administration of diazepam, ethchlorvynol, chloral hydrate, tertiary-butanol, and ethanol all produced marked dose-related increases in punished behavior at doses that decreased or had little effect on unpunished responding. Potency estimates for increasing punished responding varied over a 400-fold range. The potency ranking was diazepam greater than ethchlorvynol greater than chloral hydrate greater than tertiary-butanol greater than ethanol. Higher doses of all drugs decreased unpunished responding with relative potencies comparable to those found for doses producing maximal increases in punished responding. Increases in punished behavior appear to be a characteristic feature of drugs with sedative-hypnotic properties.

Animals↗
PubMed1980

Attenuation of the effects of punishment by ethanol: comparisons with chlordiazepoxide.

Ethanol (ETOH), like chlordiazepoxide (CDZ), significantly attenuated the suppressive effect of punishment on licking behavior in water-deprived rats and mice. In rats, the greatest effects of ETOH (1.5 g/kg) were observed between 30 and 60 min following IP administration. tert-Butanol also attenuated the effects of punishment, suggesting that acetaldehyde was not contributing to this effect of ETOH. Since a dose of ETOH that increased punished drinking did not increase unpunished drinking, alteration in thirst motivation would not appear to be responsible for its antipunishment action. However, doses of ETOH or CDZ that significantly increased punished responding increased jump thresholds to aversive shock, suggesting that decreased sensitivity to aversive stimulation may contribute to the anti-punishment action of both agents. In addition to these similarities between ethanol and CDZ, several differences were noted in their effects. For example, CDZ decreased serum corticosterone concentration, whereas ETOH did not. Further, ETOH impaired aerial righting reflex and reduced rectal temperature, whereas CDZ had no effect on these parameters at doses that had anti-punishment activity. Finally, specific binding of [3H]flunitrazepam to crude brain cortical membranes was decreased by CDZ, but not ETOH. Although ETOH and CDZ similarly alter punished behavior, results suggest that ETOH does not act through a direct interaction with a benzodiazepine binding site.

Animals↗