Vasconcelos Marco, Urcuioli Peter J, Lionello-DeNolf Karen M
Department of Psychological Sciences, Purdue University, 703 Third Street, West Lafayette, IN 47907-2081, USA.
J Exp Anal Behav. 2007 May;87(3):383-99. doi: 10.1901/jeab.2007.68-06.
We report six unsuccessful attempts to replicate the "work ethic" phenomenon reported by Clement, Feltus, Kaiser, and Zentall (2000). In Experiments 1-5, pigeons learned two simultaneous discriminations in which the S+ and S- stimuli were obtained by pecking an initial stimulus once or multiple (20 or 40) times. Subsequent preference tests between the S+ stimuli and between the S- stimuli mostly revealed indifference, on average, between the S+ from the multiple-peck (high-effort) trials and the S+ from the one-peck (low-effort) trials, and likewise between the two respective Sstimuli. Using a slightly different procedure that permitted assessment of the relative aversiveness of low versus high effort, Experiment 6 again revealed a pattern of indifference despite showing that pigeons took considerably longer to begin pecking on high- than on low-effort trials. Our findings call into question the reliability of the original findings and the sufficiency of the hypothesized within-trial contrast mechanism to produce them.
我们报告了六次尝试复制克莱门特、费尔图斯、凯泽和曾塔尔（2000年）所报告的“职业道德”现象，但均未成功。在实验1 - 5中，鸽子学习了两种同时进行的辨别任务，其中通过啄一次初始刺激或多次（20次或40次）啄击来获得S + 和S - 刺激。随后在S + 刺激之间以及S - 刺激之间进行的偏好测试大多显示，平均而言，多次啄击（高努力）试验中的S + 与单次啄击（低努力）试验中的S + 之间无差异，两个相应的S - 刺激之间也是如此。实验6采用了略有不同的程序，该程序允许评估低努力与高努力的相对厌恶程度，尽管结果显示鸽子在高努力试验中开始啄击的时间比低努力试验中长得多，但再次揭示了无差异的模式。我们的研究结果对原始研究结果的可靠性以及假设的试验内对比机制产生这些结果的充分性提出了质疑。
