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The current conception of the employment process is that positions become available, are publicized, and are filled by the most qualified job seekers. An alternative conception is proposed that social factors play a major role in the process and that job finding can be analyzed as an exchange of social reinforcers in which the first behavioral step is to locate job openings. A questionnaire survey of 120 jobs found that two‐thirds of the job leads came from friends or relatives who: (1) usually knew of a specific opening (63%); (2) were themselves employed by the hiring firm (71%); and (3) actively influenced the hiring process (53%). An experimental evaluation was made of an “Information‐Reward” advertisement procedure for motivating community residents to report unpublicized openings. It was found that the Information‐Reward procedure produced 10 times as many job leads and eight times as many placements as a no‐reward control advertisement. These findings represent a first step toward a much needed technology of job finding that is based on experimental evidence and support the notion that the employment process depends on factors unrelated to work skills.

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Five pigeons were trained to perform a discrimination task allowing variability of reinforced response patterning. The task consisted of moving a stimulus light within an 4 × 4 matrix of lights from the top left position to the bottom right position by pecking on two keys in succession in order to obtain a reinforcement. A peck on one key moved the light one position to the right and a peck on the other key moved it one position down. After preliminary training on alternating fixed‐ratio 3 schedules of reinforcement, the birds could peck on either key in any order, but more than three responses on a key resulted in a blackout followed by the return of the stimulus light to the start position. Results indicate that initially the birds used a wide variety of response patterns to obtain reinforcement, but with continued practice, response patterns became more stereotyped.

The study examined the effects of the availability of a non‐cooperative response on cooperative responding when cooperation did not have to result in an equal distribution of work or reinforcers. Also, an attempt was made to determine if the cooperative responding was under the control of the cooperation procedure. Pairs of institutionalized retardates were tested in full view of each other. For each subject, reinforcers (money) were contingent upon responses on each of two panels: (1) a matching panel for working matching‐to‐sample problems, and (2) a sample panel for producing the sample stimulus. The matching panels of the two subjects were 6 m apart, but a subject's sample panel could be placed at different distances from his matching panel. For each subject, either his own or his partner's sample panel could be nearest his matching panel such that less walking was required to reach one sample panel than the other. Subjects could work either individually, by producing their own sample stimulus, or cooperatively, by producing the sample stimulus for their partner. Subjects selected whichever solution involved the least amount of walking. The importance of testing for control by the cooperation procedure was indicated by the findings that cooperative‐like responses were not always under the control of the cooperation procedure.

A simultaneous, two‐choice color discrimination was carried out with three groups of four‐ to seven‐year‐old children. For Groups I and II, the opportunity to respond to the incorrect stimulus was controlled (graded) over three different conditions. First, only a red light (S+) and its retractable bar were presented (16 trials for Group I and 316 trials for Group II). Second, a green light (S—) was added with its correlated bar retracted for 14 trials. Third, 40 trials were given with both stimuli on and their correlated retractable bars extended. The opportunity to respond to S— was not graded for Group III children. They experienced only the third condition applied to Groups I and II. Responses to S+ were reinforced for all three groups, while responses to S— were not. Children in the first two groups made from zero to three responses to S—, while the control children emitted 11 to 46 errors. The results demonstrate that fading in S— or presenting S— early in the training procedure are sufficient, but not necessary conditions for errorless learning.

Bower's (1961) all‐or‐none model of human paired‐associate learning was applied to individual data supplied by three pigeons. When the center one of three keys was illuminated with red light or with three white dots in a vertical array on a black ground, pecking on the left key was reinforced. When the center key was lighted green or with a horizontal array of three white dots on a black ground, pecking on the right key was reinforced. The left and right keys were illuminated with white light. The task was considered to be analogous to learning a paired‐associate list of four pairs involving four stimulus items and two response items. The model was evaluated by comparing the following model predictions with values obtained from each animal: trials‐to‐criterion, standard deviation of trials‐to‐criterion, standard deviation of errors‐to‐criterion, mean error runs, mean error runs of lengths one to four, and autocorrelations of errors of lags one to three. Most of the predictions based upon the model were in close agreement with the obtained data.

The four most inactive schizophrenic patients were selected by an observational technique from a ward of severely ill chronic patients. Of the four, two patients repeatedly refused to accept any dispensable rewards. Applying Premack's principle of reinforcement, consistent work behavior was shaped and maintained, using sitting as the reinforcer. The results indicate that the strict application of Premack's principle may have considerable therapeutic potential for those patients who, by refusing all tangible rewards, fail to respond to a reinforcement regime.

Issues related to assessing change and retention of change were discussed. An alternative analysis was suggested for the data of a recent study by Walker and Buckley (1972). These authors had found that peer reprogramming, equating stimulus conditions, teacher training, and control groups maintained 77, 74, 69, and 67%, respectively, of appropriate behavior produced in a token economy. Their analysis made no use of baseline levels. Two analyses incorporating baseline scores were suggested. One involved change scores; the other, analysis of covariance using baselines as the covariate. Problems with the data made a clear preference difficult, but it was concluded that either analysis would have resulted in conclusions different from those of Walker and Buckley.