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The present experiment explored the punishing effect of different response‐force requirements by means of a two‐operant design analogous to a two‐component chain schedule. The first component of the chain required a lever pull through 0.25 in. (0.64 cm) at 1 lb (4.45 N) of force. The second component required a lever pull through an additional 0.75 in. (1.90 cm) with the force varied between sessions from 1 lb to 50 lb (4.45 N to 223 N). Completion of the second component of the chain was reinforced after variable intervals averaging 1 min. The average rate of first‐component response decreased as the force requirement for second‐component responses was increased. This rate reduction did not appear to be due to increased response duration, “fatigue”, or differing rates of reinforcement. If the force requirement for the second‐component response is viewed as a consequence for the first‐component response, then the results of the experiment show that a high force requirement is a punisher.

Four rats were trained to suppress responses in the presence of two separately presented stimuli that signalled shock in a conditioned‐suppression paradigm. The two stimuli that signalled shock were then presented simultaneously to evaluate the effect of stimulus compounding on conditioned suppression. Two rats were tested by presenting the compound conditioned stimulus while conditioned suppression was being maintained to the individual conditioned stimuli. The other two rats were tested by giving them random presentations of the compound conditioned stimulus and the single conditioned stimuli during extinction of conditioned suppression. All four rats showed greater suppression to the compound stimulus than to either stimulus presented alone.

A light and tone were separately correlated with responding maintained by fixed‐interval schedules, in which the level of responding varied continuously throughout the duration of the interval. Responding during the presence of the single stimuli and their compound was compared during the successive segments of the interval. The following results were obtained: (1) more responses were emitted during compounding than were emitted during either stimulus alone in all segments of the interval; (2) increases in the number of responses across the interval during compounding paralleled increases during single‐stimulus presentations. The sum of the responses emitted during the single stimuli was similar to the number of responses emitted during compounding, suggesting that the response tendencies correlated with the single stimuli combined in a summative or additive fashion.

The first three pecks on a response key by experimentally naive pigeons produced grain reinforcements. Thereafter, for approximately 50 experimental sessions and under a variety of schedule conditions, grain was presented independently of the subjects' behaviors. The pigeons continued to peck the response key “superstitiously” throughout the 50 sessions. The results suggest that superstitions are commonplace—not relatively infrequent or abnormal events—in the behavior of pigeons.

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