A Study Of Developmental Features In Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory

Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory is a personality theory which is expected to understand the differences of humans’ behaviors through a lens of biology.Generally,this theory comprehends the personality differences by the disparities,which involve the difference about sensibility,emotions,and motivation of individuals who have reacted discrepantly to the environmental stimulation of reward or punishment,then the theory,Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory,uses three systems,Behavioral Approach System,Fight/ Fight/ Freeze System,and Behavioral Inhibition System,as essential descriptive units to comprehend behavior differences.It was devised in the1970 s and maintained its vitality in more than 3 decades.The vitality maintenance has reached because that this theory could absorb fresh research findings and be capable of revising primordial theory.With the aforesaid emendation work,it formed two theoretical models which are similar in modalities but dissimilar in concepts.Therefore,this text describes evolution history of Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory systematically.What’s more,a research,which is on the basis of this text,about developmental features of revised reinforcement sensitivity.This text adopts two forms,such as self-report questionnaire and behavioral experiments,to follow-up test 189 subjects from Low Years of Primary School,(students from the second year and the third year)High Years of Primary School,(students from the fifth year and the sixth year)Students of Junior High School,(students from the seventh year and the eighth year)Students of Senior High School,(students from the senior grade one and senior grade two)and Undergraduate Group,(freshmen and sophomores in university)for 10 months.The result shows that: first of all,during the survey with the Balloon Analogue Risk Task about sensibility of award,it appears the developmental tendency of inverted U shape with the increasing of age.What’s more,these measurements,which adopt self-report inventory and behavioral experiments on departmental tendency of sensibility of award,both find that the tendency of sensibility enhances observably on the times of before and after puberty.In addition,this text have gotten different results on the measurements of the two forms.The results from self-report inventory show that subjects in Undergraduate Group are in the highest level of developing the sensibility of award,however,the results from behavioral experiments show the tendency that the sensibility of award reduces gradually with the increasing of age.Last but not least,the results of two forms show the inconformity which could indicate that the self-report inventory may have definite boundedness in the research of developmental tendency,however,the problem,whether the behavioral experiments could react the Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory well,remain to be studied and solved further.