Behav. Res & Therap). 1975. Vol. 13. pp. ?995-299 Pergamon Press.

Printed ,n Great Bntam

THE EFFECTS OF BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION ON

THE ATTITUDES OF DELINQUENTS*

D. STANLEY EITZEN

Dept. of Sociology, Colorado State University,

Fort Collins. Colorado 80521, U.S.A.

Summary-This study investigates whether exposure to the rehabilitation techniques of behav-

ior modification changes the attitudes of delinquents so that they more closely approximate
the norms of the community. The attitudes of delinquent boys in a community based home
that uses behavior modification principles are contrasted over time with a control group
of eighth grade boys from the same community. The results suggest thtat the delinquent
boys tend to improve dramatically in self-esteem and from externality to internality. actually
scoring more favorably in each case than the control group at post-test. They improve also
in achievement orientation but they remain below the control group. Finally, the delinquent
boys are slightly less Machiavellian than the control group and this did not change across
time.

Practitioners in the school of psychology known as ‘behavior modification’ have shown

that they can teach the skills deemed appropriate by the society to delinquents,
retardates, and disadvantaged school children. The dependent variable for behavior
modifiers has been limited, however, to overt behavior. As long as the behavior
of a delinquent becomes more socially acceptable, for example, it matters little to
them if there is a concomitant shift in attitudes. Whether there is a change in attitudes
is an important question, however, for at least two reasons: (1) an attitude change
corresponding with a change in behavior will increase the probability of a lasting
effect; and (2) such a demonstration will make the case for behavior modification
more compelling to community agencies contemplating the direction to take in their
efforts to attack a particular social problem. The primary research question, then,
for the study reported here is: does exposure to the rehabili~tion techniques of
behavior modifi~tion change the attitudes of delinquents so that they more closely
approximate the norms of the community?

METHODS

The research setting

The research setting is a community based home (‘Achievement Place’) for delinquent
boys. It is part of the trend to find alternatives to the inhumane and debilitating
conditions of traditional institutional treatment programs for children (Phillips er
al., 1973). The following is a description of the program by its originators:
Achievement Place is a community-based, family-style. behavior modification. group home
treatment program for dglinqu~nt youths in Lawrence. Kansas. The goals of Achievement Place
are to teach the youths appropriate social skills such as manners and intr~uctions. academic
skills such as study and homework behaviors. self-help skills such as meal preparation and
personal hygiene. and pre-vocational skills that are thought to bc necessary for them to be
successful in the community. The youths who come to Achievement Place have been in trouble
with the law and have been court adjudicated. They are typically 12-16 years old. in junior
high school. and about 2-3 yr below grade level on academic achievement tests.
When a youth enters Achievement Place he is introduced to the point system that is used
to help motivate the youths to learn new, appropriate behavior. Each youth uses a point
card to record his behavior and the number of points he earns and loses. When a youth first
enters the program his points are exchanged for privileges each day. After the youth learns
the connection between earning points and earning privileges this daily-point-system is extended
to a weekly-point-system where he exchanges points for privileges only once a week. Eventually.
the point system is faded out to a mertt system where no points are given or taken away

* This project was supported by a grant from NIMH {Center for Studies of Crime and ~linquency)
MH20030. My thanks to Mont Wolf, Dean Fixsen, Lonnie Phillips. and Willie Brown for their cooperation
on this project.
295
‘96 D. S. EITZEY

and all privileges are free. The merit system is the last system a youth must progress through
before returning to his natural home. However. almost all youths are on the weekly-point-system
for most of their 9912 month stay at Achtevement Place. Because there are nearly unlimited
opportunities to earn points most of the youths earn all of the privileges most of the time..
The main emphasis of the program is on teuchiny the youths the appropriate behavior they
need to be successful participants in the community. We have found that a community-based
group home that keeps the youths in daily contact with their community offers many opportuni-
ttes to observe and modify deviant behaviors and to teach the youths alternative ways to deal
with their parents. teachers. and friends. These behaviors are taught by the professional teaching-
parents who direct and operate the treatment program. The teaching-parents live at Achievement
Place with their ‘family’ of six to eight delinquent youths and provide them with 24-hr care
and guidance. The teaching-parents also work with the youth’s parents and teachers to help
solve problems that occur at home and at school (Fixsen er al.. 1973).

The Achievement Place program has proven effective in changing behavior of delin-
quent boys. Research has shown that the boys improved in their class-room behavior
(Bailey et al., 1970) improve their grammar, punctuality, room cleanliness, reduced
aggressive verbal behavior (Phillips, 1968; Phillips rr al.. 1971). and modified their
verbal interaction behavior (Timbers et al., 1971).
The evaluation of the overall effectiveness of the Achievement Place program has
begun and the preliminary data are supportive. The data include measures of police
and court contacts, recidivism, and grades and school attendance. Information on these
variables were obtained from 18 Achievement Place youths and 19 youths committed to
Kansas Boys School (an institution for about 250 delinquent boys). All 37 youths were
from the same community and had been released from treatment for at least 1 yr
at the time of data collection. The data show that:
(1) Two yr after treatment 47 per cent of both Boys School youth were placed in
a state institution but only 22 per cent of the Achievement Place youths were re-institu-
tionalized.
(2) Fifty-six per cent of Achievement Place youths were attending school, while 33
per cent of Boys School youths were.
(3) There was no difference in the mean number of police and court contacts per
year for the two groups.

The instrument
A questionnaire was devised which included scales of achievement orientation, inter-
nal-external attitudes, Machiavellianism, and self-esteem. The questionnaire was
administered to each boy at the beginning of his stay in Achievement Place. after
4 months. after 9 months, and at the completion of his stay. The findings reported
in this paper come from 21 boys, six of whom were tested only in the during
and/or post-test phases because the project was begun after their stay was underway
at least 3 months. Two of the boys in the sample are recent arrivals to Achievement
Place and therefore have only taken the initial administration of the questionnaire.

In order to assess whether the Achievement Place experience brings the attitudes
of former delinquent boys in line with average boys, all eighth grade boys from
a Lawrence junior high school were given the same questionnaire. Eighth graders
were selected because the average age of Achievement Place boys is 13 yr. The junior
high school chosen was in the school district from which most families of Achievement
Place youngsters live.

THE FINDINGS

Achievement orientatiorl
Presumably, delinquent boys will be poorly motivated for achievement. This may
result from their lack of success in school, their low social standing, the self-fulfilling
prophecy resulting from the labels ascribed to them by significant others, or the
lack of successful role models (especially parents). With regard to the latter point,
research has shown that boys in homes where the father is absent tend to be: (1)
 Behavior modification on the attitudes of delinquents 297

low in self-esteem; and (2) poorly motivated for achievement (Bronfenbrenner, 1967).
Experience in Achievement Place may alter this lack of motivation since the teaching-
parents provide a stable environment and strong adult roIe models. Moreover, the
teaching-parents teach social skills, school skills, and most importantly, provide a
consistent system that rewards performance (achievement rather than ascription).
An eight-item achievement orientation scale devised by Fred Strodtbeck was used
(1958). The results for achievement orientation and the other attitudinal scales are
reported in Table 1. The data on achievement orientation show that the boys from
Achievement Place enter relatively low on the scale (the difference between the means
of the entering group and the control group is significant at the 0.05 level). The
scores tend to increase in achievement orientation over time but as a group they
remain below the mean of the control group.

Table 1. Comparison of Achievement Place boys with a control group on selected attitude scales

Attitude Time (months)

dimension Pre-test 4 9 Post-test Control

X N T7 N 57 N Tz N x N
Achievement
orientation* 4.41 (15) 4.63 (16) 4.93 (14) 4.80 (16) 5.33 (82)
Internal-externalt 8.53 (15) 6.50 (16) 6.39 (14) 5.38: (16) 7.48 (82)
Machiavellianism$ 92.93 (15) 92.25 (16) 92.43 (13) 92.50 (16) 94.24 (82)
Self-concept )( 37.47 (15) 27.W (16) 25.36** (14) 21.50tt (16) 30.90:: (82)

* The higher the mean, the greater the achievement orientation (possible range of scores, &8).
t The higher the mean, the more external (possible iange of scores, G21).
1 The difference between the mean score for the post-test and the pre-test is significant at the 0.01
level.
i; The higher the mean. the more Machiavellianism (possible range of scores, 60-140).
/I The higher the mean, the lower the self-esteem (possible range of scores. 10-70).
r The difference between the means for this category and the pre-test is significant at the 0.02 level.
** The difference between the means for this category and the pre-test is significant at the 0.01 level.
t+ The difference between the means for this category and the pre-test is significant at the 0.01 level.
$: The difference between the means for the control group and the pre-test is significant at the 0.01
level. So, too. are the means for the control group and the post-test.

Internal-external attitudes
Previous research has shown that lower-class children and delinquents tend to
be externals (i.e., they believe that things happen to them rather than their having
any control over their own destinies) (Rotter, 1971). Rotter has suggested that reward-
ing a behavior strengthens an expectancy that the behavior will produce future rewards
(1966). Thus, it would be expected that the external attitudes of delinquents should
become more internal in a setting where behavior modification principles are consis-
tently applied.
A children’s version of Rotter’s internal-external scale was used in this research
(Nowicki and Strickland, 1973). This scale is for persons in grades 7 through 12
and is readable at the fifth grade level. The data in Table I for this scale are
impressive in their support for the Achievement Place experience. Upon entering
the program. the delinquent boys, as expected, tended to be externals, but by the
time they left, the average score had dropped below the mean of the control group
in the internal direction. The difference between the means -of the entering group
and the post-test group is significant at the 0.01 level. Examined another way, 72
per cent of the boys became more internal during their stay in Achievement Place.
A clear implication of this is that a person within a consistent behavior modification
milieu where his actions consistently receive appropriate credits or debits, tends to
develop a feeling that he is the master of his fate.

MachiavelliarGm
A 20-item Machiavellian scale for children developed by Susan Nachamie was
incorporated in the questionnaire (Christie, 1970). This scale was included because
19x D. S. W-ZEN

some critics have speculated that children in a behavior modification setting may
become more manipulative and deceptive in their own social relationships since they
have been the objects of manipulation by powerful others.
The data on Machiavellianism from Table 1 show that the Achievement Place
experience does not lead to greater Machiavellian attitudes among the boys. As a
group they entered Achievement Place with a mean slightly less Machiavellian than
the control group and they remain remarkably consistent across time.

Self-cotzcept
Albert K. Cohen has argued that the delinquent gang permits working-class boys
to recoup self-esteem lost through defeat in middle-class institutions (1956). If this
is the case, then delinquents in a behavior modification setting should gain in self-
esteem because they: (1) succeed in the token economy; (2) learn the skills that
pay off in social relationships; (3) improve in skills useful for school: and (4) change
from socially unacceptable to socially acceptable behavior.
To determine the degree of self-esteem a semantic differential scale devised by
Swartz and Tangri (1965; 1967) was included in the questionnaire. With this method,
the respondent was asked to rate himself on each of ten sets of bi-polar adjectives
(e.g., I am: good . bad; useful . . . useless). The data on self-concept found
in Table 1 demonstrate overwhelmingly that the Achievement Place experience is
conductive to a good self-concept. As expected, the mean score of the entering group
was significantly more negative in self-esteem (JJ < 0.01) than the control group mean.
The greater the length of stay in Achievement Place, however, the more positive
the self-concept. The post-test group mean was not only significantly different from
the pre-test mean (p < 0.01) but those completing the program also differed significantly
from the control group, this time in the positive direction (p < 0.01). When the data
were analyzed across time for each boy, we find that 88 per cent of the boys improved
in self-concept. Examined another way, 80 per cent of the boys entering Achievement
Place were above the control group mean (i.e., had a more negative self-concept).
while 75 per cent of the boys at the post-test administration of the questionnaire
were now helow the control group mean (p < 0.01). Clearly, the longer the stay at
Achievement Place, the better the self-concept.

The findings reported here are impressive in their support of the Achievement
Place experience. Accompanying the behavioral changes of these delinquent boys,
are positive shifts in attitudes. The greatest shifts in attitudes were from poor to
good self-esteem and from externality to internality. Not only were these changes
more favorable over time, but they were dramatic-from much more negative than
the control group at the beginning to much more favorable than the control group
at the post-test.
No support was found for a behavior modification milieu making youngsters more
Machiavellian. This ‘no-difference’ finding is in fact a favorable one for this technique,
since it negates the criticism often charged that the objects of behavior modification
will become more manipulative in their social relationships as a consequence of their
being manipulated.
In sum. the data reported here. provide support for positive attitude change accom-
panying positive behavioral change in formerly delinquent adolescents. An important
question is as yet unanswered, however. Are these positive attitudinal changes a
function of the treatment model or the result of placing troubled boys in a stable
environment with caring ‘parents.’ The next phase of the research will be a five-year
study to answer this question. The sample will be enlarged to delinquent youngsters,
both male and female, who reside in a large number of community-based, small
treatment centers that use a variety of treatment philosophies.
 Behavior modification on the attitudes of delinquents 299

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