Abstract
Leadership behavior has been analyzed a number of ways using the various traditional approaches; still it has not been adequately explained. Although researchers employing behavior modification techniques have demonstrated that reinforcing either selected leader (L) or follower (F) behavior will strengthen such behavior, they have not focused on either providing a reinforcement explanation for the origin and maintenance of leadership behavior, i.e., the behavior of effectively controlling the productive behavior of Fs, or on an experimental analysis of the combined effects of reinforcement applied to L and F behavior. An experiment was conducted investigating the effects of immediate, delayed, or no reinforcement applied to leadership behavior in combination with these three conditions of reinforcement applied to Fs1 behavior. Nine groups, one for each combination of reinforcement conditions, were formed with four persons, one L and three Fs in each group (N = 36). The subjects were randomly selected from a pool of male volunteer university students. Employing a yoked design, the combined reinforcement regimens were applied in accordance with three blocks of time: baseline, acquisition, and extinction. This procedure permitted the incorporation of a reversal design into a three-factor factorial design. ...
Pye, Royace Ann (1971). A reinforcement analysis of social control. Doctoral dissertation, Texas A&M University. Texas A&M University. Libraries. Available electronically from
https : / /hdl .handle .net /1969 .1 /DISSERTATIONS -172639.