Abstract

There has always been a controversy on the direct or explict effects of verbal reinforcement. Unfortunately we have paid little attention to the vicarious and implict effects of verbal reinforcement. In other words, we have been s:) excessively attached to the explict effects of verbal reinforcement that we have failed to take necessary notes of rather inclusive and diffusive functioning of the implicit reinforcement effects, undulated implicitly in terms of the interactions of the explicit reinforcement effects. From this point of view, Sechrest, L. (1963) and Sugimura, T. (1965, 1966) have made a good deal of advances in the studies of the implicit reinforcement effects, but their ends are still far distant and there is margin for improvement in their works and their applicability. Accordingly, this study was undertaken to identify the relative magnitude of explicit and implicit effects of verbal reinforcement and the relative efficacy of two aspects o£ verbal reinforcement effects in accordance with conditions of competition, namely, competition among individuals in a group and competition between groups, and to ascertain possible effects of conformity as a non-intellectual personality variable influencing on the psychological processes of accepting verbal reinforcement either explicitly or implicitly. The instruments used in this investigation were conformity test revised from Berry, J.W. (1967)， originated by Asch, S.E. (1956), sociometry questionnaire and introspective reports on the feelings of accepting verbal reinforcement. The Ss were 320, 4th grade children, incidentally sampled, of primary school, of both sexes and were assigned to 16 experimental groups constructed under the cross combinations of four experimental variables of effects of reinforcement (explicit and implicit), types of reinforcement (positive and negative), conditions of com petition (within group and between groups), and degree of conforming tendency (high and low) in terms of 24 factorial design. The learning tasks were symbol-digit transformation tasks which were made of programmed nine symbols and nine digits. The Ss were given the learning tasks for seven minutes a day for two successive days. The first trial of learning tasks were administered in an ordinary condition without any verbal instructions or stimuli. The second trial of learning tasks were administered under the competitive situations, with verbal instuctions of performance reinforcers schemed to intermittent reinforcement schedule, suitable to the characteristics of experimental groups respectively. The performance increment on the second day was used as a measure to test the effects of experimental treatments and the group performance scores for each group were statistically analyzed in terms of ANOM(Analysis of Means Techniques), recently adapted by Karas, S.F. (1968) On the basis of the findings and discussion with research precedent, it could be concluded as follows: 1. As verbal reinforcement has both direct or explicit incentive value and implicit incentive value, there are explicit and implicit effects of verbal reinforcement. The explicit effects of verbal reinforcement are of the same magnitude, in a competitive situation. 2. The effects of positive verbal reinforcement are significantly greater than those of negative verbal reinforcement, in both the explicit and implicit effects of verbal reinforcement. 3. There is no significant difference between conditions of competition, competition within group and competition between groups, on the two facets of verbal reinforcement effects. 4. On die basis of the introspective report, a man with a high degree of conforming tendency has a significantly higher expectancy to receive positive reinforcement and needs to avoid negative reinforcement more than a man with a low degree of conforming tendency in his psychological process of accepting verbal reinforcement, either explicitly or implicitly, but we can not find any significant differences on the verbal reinforcement effects thereby manifested overtly. Therefore, no significant difference can be recognized between positive reinforcement effects and negative reinforcement effects on the degree of conforming tendency.