The Relationships Between Junior Middle School Students’ Reinforcement Sensitivity And School Adjustment

Reinforcement sensitivity refers to an individual’s response to stimuli: when facedstimuli, his behaviors, emotions, and the trend and degree of change in motivation.Reinforcement sensitivity includes reward sensitivity and punishment sensitivity. The theoryassumes that there are three independent biological systems that can regulate behaviors-Behavioral Approach System (o-BAS), Fight-Flight System (o-FFS), and BehavioralInhibition System (o-BIS). O-BAS is related to reward sensitivity, o-FFS and o-BIS arerelated to punishment sensitivity. However, this assumption is based on animal experiments.Thus, it cannot be used to explain individual differences in human beings. Therefore, in2000,the Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory was revised. Three revised systems (BehavioralApproach System, r-BAS, Fight-Flight-Freeze System, r-FFFS, and Behavioral InhibitionSystem, r-BIS) are related to reward sensitivity, punishment sensitivity and conflict-regulationlevel, respectively. With the greatest revision, r-BIS serves to explain goal conflict, whichincludes reward and punishment signals and can be divided into two aspects: BIS-approach(BIS-AP) and BIS-avoid (BIS-AV).Most measurement and empirical studies within this field are based on and conducted intheoretical background of previous theories. With more attention on its implications oncollege students and adults, however, its development on children and adolescents is beingneglected. For children and adolescents, school adjustment is one of the most importantindices to evaluate the level of development. Therefore, study of the revised reinforcementsensitivity theory’s implications on junior middle school students’ school adjustment has boththeoretical value and practical significance.The study have three purposes: First, developing Reinforcement SensitivityQuestionnaire for Junior middle school students under the background of the revised theory.Second, exploring the implications of reinforcement sensitivity that junior middle schoolstudents possess on their school adjustment. Third, exploring the interaction between threesystems of reinforcement sensitivity theory within its implications on school adjustment. Thestructure of the questionnaire is determined by a preliminary survey of668junior middleschool students from Changchun and a formal survey of859junior middle school studentsfrom Yanji. Meanwhile, self assessment and peer nomination are being used to investigateparticipants’ school adjustment situation. The results are as follows:(1) Reinforcement Sensitivity Questionnaire for Junior middle school students is found tohave good reliability and validity.(2) Reinforcement sensitivity of the junior middle school students has significantimplications on school adjustment. For example, r-BAS and r-BIS have positive effect onschool adjustment, while r-FFFS has negative effect on school adjustment. Effects of rewardsensitivity and conflict-regulation level on academic achievement is realized by mediatingeffect of school engagement, while there is no significant correlation between punishmentsensitivity and academic achievement. (3) There is interaction between r-BAS and r-FFFS when it comes to their implicationson school adjustment. Results from variable-oriented analyses indicate that reward sensitivityand punishment sensitivity affect school engagement together, and then further affect theacademic achievement. Students’ school engagement will gradually increase as rewardsensitivity increases; on the other hand, it will decrease as punishment sensitivity increases.Results from person-oriented analyses indicate that junior middle school students who arehigh in r-BAS and low in r-FFFS sensitivity (A1F0) are good at school adjustment; while thosewho are high in r-FFFS and low in r-BAS sensitivity (A0F1) are not so good at schooladjustment; for those who are high in both(A1F1), they tend to experience complicated schooladjustment.(4) There is interaction between r-BAS, r-FFFS and r-BIS when it comes to analyzetheir implications on school adjustment. Results from variable-oriented analyses indicate thatthe conflict-regulation level (especially BIS-AP) has full mediating effect when it comes toreward sensitivity and punishment sensitivity’s prediction on junior middle school students’school engagement. For example, reward sensitivity and punishment sensitivity affect schoolengagement through BIS-AP, thus further affect academic achievement. However, BIS-APhas no mediating effect when it comes to reward sensitivity and punishment sensitivity’sprediction on junior middle school students’ school engagement. Results from person-orientedanalyses indicate that when reward sensitivity and punishment sensitivity are at the same level,students from high-level conflict regulation group experience better school adjustment thanthose who are from low-level conflict regulation group.