The effect of sex of the subject, sex of the experimenter, and reinforcement condition on serial digit learning.

Abstract

This investigation tested the hypotheses that the sex of the experimenter, sex of the subject, and treatment conditions of reward, punishment, and neutral do not have an effect on serial digit learning. Qne-hundred-twenty subjects volunteered from undergraduate psychology courses. The subjects were randomly assigned to a male or female experimenter and then randomly assigned to a reward, punishment, or neutral treatment condition. A list of positive and negative statements were made to provide reward or punishment to a subject, while in the neutral condition the subjects were told nothing regarding their performance. The treatment ended when the subject obtained a perfect trial of recalling the list of digits. The subject was then read a previously selected passage and asked to recall on paper the list of digits. A 2 x 2 x 3 between-subjects analysis of variance, simple main effects analysis, and Newman-Keul' s Test were used to analyze the data. The results indicated that there were no significant differences between sexes of the experimenters. sexes of the subjects. or between the reward. punishment. or neutral treatment conditions. There was a significant three-way interaction effect. When reward was the treatment condition male subjects with male experimenters required fewer trials to learn than male subjects with female experimenters. The male subjects with male experimenters required fewer trials to learn than female subjects with male experimenters. Finally. female subjects with female experimenters required fewer trials to learn than female subjects with male experimenters.