Expectations of Parents' Behaviors Preceding Initiation of Contact Comfort with Children: An Extension

Abstract

Responses to incomplete paragraphs indicated college students (192 males, 192 females) expected parents' exhibition of certain “positive” and “neutral” interpersonal behaviors, e.g., smiling, looking, is followed by their initiating contact comfort with 2-yr.-old and 7-yr.-old children more frequently than their exhibition of “negative” interpersonal behaviors. The expected absolute frequency of contact comfort initiation was less for 7-yr.-olds. The obtained results extend those of King (1973), further suggest that certain interpersonal behaviors become social reinforcers partly because they are conditioned stimuli for contact comfort and thereby conditioned reinforcers, and may relate to the problem of how interpersonal behaviors maintain their reinforcing strength in adulthood in the near absence of primary reinforcement.