COMPARISON OF RELATIVE EFFECTIVENESS OF INSTRUCTIONS MODELING AND REINFORCEMENT PROCEDURES FOR INDUCING BEHAVIOR CHANGE

2 studies explored the relative effectiveness of instructions, imitation, and reinforcement for altering a word association response. Undergraduates were trained by 1 of the above procedures to produce syntagmatic word associations to a list of stimulus words (List A). A 2nd list (List B) contained new words as well as words presented on List A and was presented immediately (Exp. II) or 2 or 7 days (Exp. I) following List A with instructions to give the 1st response which came to mind. In both experiments, groups performed as follows with respect to number of syntagmatic responses to List A: instructions > imitation > re- inforcement > control. In Exp. I, only the imitation and reinforcement groups showed increased syntagmatic responding to List B; in Exp. II, the instruction, imitation, and reinforcement groups all demonstrated such increased responding. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved). © 1969 American Psychological Association.