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.
Practise AQA A Level Psychology Approaches in Psychology with exam-style questions for A Level Psychology. 248 questions covering Learning approaches, Cognitive approach, Biological approach, Psychodynamic approach (A-level only), Humanistic Psychology (A-level only), and Comparison of approaches (A-level only), matched to the AQA A Level Psychology (7182) specification and written in Paper 1, Paper 2 and Paper 3 style. Every question includes a full worked solution and mark scheme, so you can see where marks are awarded rather than just whether you got the answer right.