The relative effectiveness of positive and negative information feedback in a concept attainment task

The relative effectiveness of positive and negative verbal feedback was investigated in an attempt to ascertain whether the differential effect was due to reinforcement value of the feedback or to some difference in information gained from the feedback. College Ss solved a concept attainment task under one of two conditions: (1) right-nothing (R-N), feedback for correct responses only, or (2) nothing-wrong (N-W), feedback for incorrect responses only. The expectation that, when the frequency of “right” and “wrong” feedback was controlled, there would be no difference between conditions was not supported, with N-W Ss performing significantly better than R-N Ss.