Level of Satiation on Social Reinforcers and Valence of the Reinforcing Agent as Determinants of Social Reinforcer Effectiveness

The joint effect of (a) level of satiation with social stimuli (relative satiation) and (b) attitude of the child toward the reinforcing agent (valence) on social reinforcer effectiveness was investigated. The experiment was conducted in two parts. In Session 1, the valence manipulation, which consisted in showing subjects a film that depicted Experimenter 1 as nice or mean, was performed by Experimenter 1. In Session 2, 3 days later, the relative satiation manipulation was performed by Experimenter 2. The criterion task, administered by Experimenter 1, immediately followed the satiation manipulation. The positive valence condition resulted in longer playing times and faster initial performance on the criterion task. No such effects were found for the satiation variable. Neither valence nor satiation manipulations had a significant effect on the change in rate measure of social reinforcer effectiveness. The relationship among the dependent measures and the failure to replicate earlier relative satiation findings were discussed.