Abstract
The motivational function exerted by verbal antecedents has been extensively approached from a theoretical perspective and within the direct conditioning paradigm. However, there is little research concerning the alteration of the motivational function via verbal means. The current study presents 2 consecutive experiments in which the role of the verbal context in the alteration of different motivational states was examined. In the first experiment, a protocol consisting of a story about feeling hot and thirsty was administered individually to 5 children, 6 to 7 years old. After the implementation of the protocol, all children reported feeling thirstier than before the implementation and behaved in accordance with this report. In the second experiment with 5 other children, this effect was replicated with a different motivational state (physical restriction). More importantly, in a second phase with the same children, the effect was prevented when the thirst protocol was presented in a verbal context that was incoherent with feeling thirsty. Several verbal contexts in altering motivational functions, as well as some clinical implications, are discussed.
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Part of this material was presented at the annual conference of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior Group, London, March 2002. This research was conducted in partial fulfillment of a doctoral program by Sonsoles Valdivia at Universidad de Almería under the supervision of Carmen Luciano. The final manuscript was written while the first author was funded by the Fulbright Commission in Spain for the development of a predoctoral research program at the University of New Mexico.
We thank Michael J. Dougher for his valuable comments during our discussions held about this research. We also thank the other members of the Clinical Psychology group at UNM for reading and commenting on an earlier version of the manuscript.
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Valdivia, S., Luciano, C. & Molina, F.J. Verbal Regulation of Motivational States. Psychol Rec 56, 577–595 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03396035
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03396035