Inappropriate behavior as a function of the energizing effect of drive.

The present study is an attempt to show that the energizing aspect of an increase in drive can lead to inappropriate behavior. Predictions for the conditions under which such an increase in inappropriate behavior would occur were made from Hull-Spence drive theory with reaction potential ceiling below the level of maximum drive times maximum habit strength. Within this framework, drive levels beyond that sufficient to raise a dominant response to its ceiling can only act to increase the probability of competing responses at the expense of the most appropriate dominant response. The amount of this decrement in appropriate behavior should be a function of the habit strength of the most appropriate response and the strength of response competition. Using a two-response-choice situation, subjects learned response hierarchies with different dominant and competing reinforcement probabilities. The major hypothesis was that, with reinforcement continuing, the introduction of high drive would lead to a significant decrement in a dominant response only in the hierarchy with a strong dominant response and a strong competing response.