Dextroamphetamine and individual susceptibility to reinforcement in verbal operant conditioning

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Abstract
The relationship was studied between extraversion, d-amphetamine and modes of reinforcement in verbal operant conditioning. A factorial design involving 2 levels of extraversion (extraverts and introverts), 2 reinforcement conditions (good and electric shock) and 3 treatments (placebo and 2 doses, 7.5 and 12.5 mg, of d-amphetamine) with repeated measures on the last factor was used. Postgraduate female students (60) were individually subjected to Taffel''s verbal conditioning procedure. The study supported the following conclusions: under the placebo condition, the extraverted subjects condition better with the rewarding reinforcer while the introverted subjects condition better with the punishing reinforcer; under the influence of d-amphetamine, the extraverted subjects condition better with the punishing reinforcer while the conditioning scores of introverted subjects decrease with the punishing reinforcer but are not influenced with the rewarding reinforcer.