4 male, chronic schizophrenic inpatients were subjects in an experiment aimed at investigating whether contingent verbal reinforcement could decrease delusional verbalizations. The reinforcement connoted both approval and mild punishment, and two different schedules of reinforcement, fixed and variable ratios, were employed. A significant conditioning effect was observed, but neither fixed ratio nor variable ratio was successful in providing resistance to extinction. Results were discussed in the light of the immediacy hypothesis which suggests that immediate stimuli govern the behavior of schizophrenics.
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