O'Connor, R. D. (1969).
Modification of social withdrawal through symbolic modeling.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis,
2, 15-22.
The present experiment was designed to test the efficacy of
symbolic modeling as a treatment to enhance social behavior in
preschool isolates. Nursery school children who displayed social
withdrawal were assigned to one of two conditions. One group
observed a film depicting increasingly more active social
interactions between children with positive consequences ensuing
in each scene, while a narrative soundtrack emphasized the
appropriate behavior of the models. A control group observed a
film that contained no social interaction. Control children
displayed no change in withdrawal behavior, whereas those who had
the benefit of symbolic modeling increased their level of social
interaction to that of non-isolate nursery school children.