Effect of punishment: Facilitation or inhibition? A reply to Martin and Melvin

Abstract

Martin and Melvin take too narrow a definition of vicious circle behavior, restricting it to situations in which punishment is administered in the middle of a straight alley but not at the start or the goal In the author’s view, the paradigm should apply to any response motivated by aversive conditions and vicious circle behavior should occur whenever punishment-induced motivation generalizes to the conditions of training. It is further concluded that the experimental conditions leading to vicious circle behavior are not yet fully delineated. © 1966, Psychonomic Press. All rights reserved.