Responsiveness of pre- and non-delinquents to incentive aspects of a reinforcing event.
A learning task, a six-position modification of a Fellows (1967) sequence, was used to examine the differences in responsiveness to symbolic and tangible incentives with 24 pre-delinquent and 25 non-delinquent 15-yr.-old boys. Under the low-incentive condition, only the symbolic incentive was available while under the high-incentive condition a symbolic and material reinforcer was employed. The high-incentive condition had no significant effect on the non-delinquents but did significantly affect the delinquents. Also, the high-incentive delinquent group performed similarly to both non-delinquent groups. Recommendations for research are given.
D000293:Adolescent; D002652:Child Behavior; D002657:Child Development; D006801:Humans; D007604:Juvenile Delinquency / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D012054:Reinforcement, Psychology