Effectiveness of alien reinforcement in facilitating learning in children, in relation to age and sex

Relative effectiveness of a new, alien, type of reinforcement was examined in comparison with a conventional, external, one. Ninety-six children, 3rd and 6th grade boys and girls, worked on simple visual discrimination tasks. Under the alien condition, the child's responses were reinforced by the experimenter receiving reinforcers from him/herself. While both 3rd and 6th graders learned the task under the external condition, under the alien condition, 3rd graders did not show learning and 6th graders showed learning only when the experimenter was male. Results did not differ between boys and girls. More children felt delightful under external but not under alien reinforcement. The present results corroborated previous results of adolescents.