Verbal Conditioning as a Measure of Interpersonal Influence in Psychiatric Interviews

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Abstract
Verbal conditioning techniques make it possible to measure interpersonal influence in experimental clinical interviews. Taffel's verbal conditioning technique was first used to measure the influence of the same interviewer on thirty‐two neurotic patients, thirty‐two schizophrenic patients and thirty‐two general hospital patients (‘normals’). Each diagnostic group was divided into two subgroups: one received verbal reinforcement, the other acted as a non‐reinforced control group. The three groups were matched satisfactorily. There were no differences between the groups when reinforcement was omitted. Both neurotic and normal Ss conditioned in response to social reinforcement but schizophrenic patients did not. The effect in the neurotic group outlasted the reinforcement, but in normal Ss it extinguished rapidly. In both groups, conditioning was greater for responses containing ‘I’. Conditioning was unrelated to neuroticism or extraversion. Patients did not become aware of the purpose and procedure of the experiment.In the second enquiry twenty neurotic patients were divided at random into two well‐matched groups whose treatment differed in only one respect: half took part in a prior interview in which the interviewer attempted to form a ‘relationship’; the other half did not have this interview. The former group responded more in a subsequent conditioning experiment. However, this difference between groups was no longer present on the next day. The results could not be accounted for by the Ss' awareness of the purpose of the experiment and their conscious desire to please the interviewer. Provided conditions were very carefully standardized, results are reproducible.The results are discussed in relation to the problems of measuring interpersonal influence in psychotherapy and the factors which determine the influence of doctor on patient. It is concluded that verbal conditioning techniques provide a sensitive way of measuring differences in susceptibility to interpersonal influence, but that verbal conditioning effects probably play only a minor part in changes observed in psychotherapy.

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