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Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior logoLink to Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior
. 1969 Nov;12(6):1009–1015. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1969.12-1009

Punishment of shock-induced aggression1

Roger Ulrich, Marshall Wolfe, Sylvia Dulaney
PMCID: PMC1338712  PMID: 4982672

Abstract

Squirrel monkeys were restrained in a chair equipped with a tail-shock apparatus and a pneumatic bite hose located in front of the subject's face. An aggressive response was recorded when the monkey bit the hose. Initial sessions in which no shocks were delivered produced some biting. When biting during these sessions stabilized at a near-zero level, regularly scheduled shocks were delivered to the monkey's tail, causing a consistently higher rate of biting. After several sessions under these conditions, a punishment phase was introduced in which the previous shock conditions were maintained, and every bite was followed immediately by another, more intense shock. Biting under these conditions was suppressed to a near-zero level. When the punishment contingency was removed, biting increased. With one subject, two additional bite-contingent stimuli were examined: (1) a milder shock that, when made contingent upon hose biting, also suppressed that response, and (2) a contingent tone that had no obvious suppressing or facilitating effect. Individual differences among subjects were extreme, but the effect of bite-contingent shock was consistent. Observations of the subjects during the punishment sessions indicated the existence of certain side effects that resulted from the use of punishment to suppress shock-induced aggression.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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