Children's Socially Reinforced Task Behavior

The purpose of this study was to determine if children with warm social contact with their parents (noncaretaking functions) are more responsive to social reinforcement than are children who are deprived of such contact.Data was gathered from interviews with mothers, who described the amount and quality of both parents' contact with the child. The sample of middle class children, 13 girls and 14 boys, performed a task twice. Responses were measured before and after social reinforcement. For girls, the results showed a positive direct relationship between warm social contact and initial response rate but not between parental contact and social reinforcement. In contrast, boys who had less warm social contact were higher in initial response rate and more responsive to social reinforcement. The results are discussed in terms .of sex differences and different schools of thought concerning amounts of social contacts parents give to children. A bibliography is included. (US)