IN THE past decade there has been increasing interest in the role of social reinforcement in behavior control and shaping of verbalization in psychotherapy.1-3 Closely related to this trend are studies which have been focused on the investigation of lan guage deficit in schizophrenic patients.4-6 Accordingly, this project was conceived to investigate verbal behavior of schizophrenic and normal Ss within a free operant conditioning paradigm. More specifically, the begavuir was studied as a function of group size and relevancy of feedback in an attempt to gain data based on acquisition rates of verbal self-reference by the two populations.
Among different approaches aimed at assessment of psychological deficit7 in schizophrenia, a substantial body of literature has been accumulated around the issues of concept attainment, modes of reinforcement, affect, set, drive, and somatic arousal.8 One of the predominant orientations in