Publications [#288054] of John E. Staddon

Journal Articles

1. Staddon, JER; Simmelhag, V (1971). The “superstition” experiment: A reexamination of its implications for the principles of adaptive behavior. Psychological Review, 78(1), 3-43. [doi]
   (last updated on 2024/04/24)

   Abstract:
   Replication and extension of Skinner's "supersitition" experiment showed the development of 2 kinds of behavior at asymptote: (a) interim activities, related to adjunctive behavior, which occurred just after food delivery; and (b) the terminal response, a discriminated operant, which occurred toward the end of the interval and continued until food delivery. These data suggest a view of operant conditioning (the terminal response) in terms of 2 sets of principles: principles of behavioral variation that describe the origins of behavior appropriate to a situation, in advance of reinforcement; and principles of reinforcement that describe the selective elimination of behavior so produced. This approach was supported by (a) an account of the parallels between the law of effect and evolution by means of natural selection; (b) its ability to elucidate persistent problems in learning, e.g., continuity vs. noncontinuity, variability associated with extinction, the relationship between classical and instrumental conditioning, the controversy between behaviorist and cognitive approaches to learning; and (c) its ability to deal with a number of recent anomalies in the learning literature (instinctive drift, auto-shaping, and auto-maintenance). The interim activities are interpreted in terms of interactions among motivational systems, and this view is supported by a review of the literature on adjunctive behavior and by comparison with similar phenomena in ethology (displacement, redirection, and vacuum activities). The proposed theoretical scheme represents a shift away from hypothetical laws of learning toward an interpretation of behavioral change in terms of interaction and competition among tendencies to action according to principles evolved in phylogeny. (4 p. ref.) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved).