An office manager investigated the effects of operant conditioning on the completion of optional training modules using two separate departments of administrative staff:
Group A: the manager excused employees from a tedious weekly data-entry chore for every optional training module they completed.
Group B: the manager did not excuse employees from the weekly data-entry chore, regardless of whether they completed any optional training modules.
After four weeks, the manager calculated the mean number of optional training modules completed per employee in Group A and Group B.
The results are shown in Table 1.
Table 1: Mean number of optional training modules completed per employee
| Group A (Excused Chore) | Group B (Not Excused) |
|---|---|
| 5.8 | 2.4 |
Explain the type of reinforcement being used by the office manager in this investigation.
248 exam-style questions on AQA A Level Psychology Approaches in Psychology, covering Learning approaches, Cognitive approach, Biological approach, Psychodynamic approach (A-level only), Humanistic Psychology (A-level only), and Comparison of approaches (A-level only). Each one has a worked solution and a mark scheme showing where the marks go.