Some effects of punishment and intercurrent "anxiety" on a simple operant.

Abstract

Using rats, the comparative effects of a conditioned emotional response (clicking sound conditioned to grid shock in a lever box) and of a punishment (shock administered to animal in lever apparatus when lever is pressed) on suppression of lever-pressing were studied. Both conditions inhibit lever-pressing, but more severely in the CER condition. The suppression effect dissipated more rapidly in the punishment group. There were generally fewer symptoms of emotional disturbance in the punished group. The results are interpreted as consistent with the view that "the effects of punishment depend heavily upon specific aversive conditioning in which the stimuli arising from the punished response itself became a significant and critical part of the compound conditioned aversive stimulus which governs the suppression.