Stated Do Not Necessarily Represent Official Office of Education Position or Policy. Anxiety as a Factor in the Child's Responsiveness to Social Reinforcement1

It has been observed that following a brief period of isolation, children tend to show a greater increase in responsiveness on a simple motor task than nonisolated children do when verbal reinforcement is given periodically during a task. One explanation is that the social deprivation of the brief isolation heightens the motivation to receive social reinforcement. Another explanation is that the phenomenon is attributable to the generalized motivational properties of the anxiety which the condition of isolation arouses. Forty first-grade children were given a simple motor (marble drop) task after their anxiety level had been measured. After the child became familiar with the task, periodic verbal reinforcement was given as the child performed the task. An analysis of the data showed that response-rate increase over the task period (4 minutes) did not distinguish between high and low anxiety children. It was concluded from the overall findings that anxiety in young children is more likely to obstruct.than facilitate performance on a. simple motor task involving periodic social reinforcement. (WD) U. A variety of explanations have been offered for the empirical observation , first reported by Gewirtz and Baer (2), that following a brief period of isolation there is a general tendency for children to show a relatively greater increase to responsiveness on a simple motor task than non-isolated children when these responses are paired with verbal inducements (e.g., "good", "fine"). Gewirtz and Baer (2, 3) have emphasized the social deprivation cam-ponents of the isolation situation in their interpretation of the data. They have argued that the increased efficacy of the verbal reinforcement reflects the state of social deprivation aroused by their experimental manipulation, which in turn heightens the arousal of motivation to receive social reinforcement. Mtre recently, the nature of the specific deprivation experienced in the isolation situation has been questioned, and the potential sensory deprivation components more thoroughly examined (SI 13), but the assumption of the essential condition of deprivation has been maintained; that is, it is assumed that ths increaLed responsiveness of the child is based on properties of the reinforcement which rather specifically restore the deficiencies which the period of isolation has engendered. A more clearly alternative explanation has been offered by Walters and Ray (17). Briefly, they have argued and found some support for the view that the effect noted by Gewirtz and Baer is attributable to the generalized motivational properties of the anxiety which the condition …