Correspondence between saying and doing: teaching children to share and praise

Abstract

Five small groups of preschool children were taught to share and praise by the modelling of these behaviors and reinforcement of their reports of sharing and praising. Experiment I demonstrated that modelling and reinforcement of any (true or untrue) reports of sharing, and then of praising, promptly increased reports of the corresponding behaviors. Modelling and reinforcement for true reports of each behavior increased both reporting and actual behavior. Experiment II showed that both reported and actual sharing and praising may be increased by modelling and reinforcement for true reports of the target behavior, without previous reinforcement for any (true or untrue) reports of those behaviors. Sharing, but not praising, generalized to a second setting. Experiment III replicated the results of Experiment II for sharing and praising, and demonstrated similar success in increasing a third behavior, specific praising. In general, these experiments show that developing correspondence between children's reports of behavior and actual behavior may be an efficient means of increasing prosocial responses.