Preference for punishment of the instrumental or the consummatory response

In two discriminable runways, rats were punished (shocked) either prior to receiving water reinforcement (punishment of the instrumental response) or after ingesting the water (punishment of the consummatory response). Both forced-choice and free-choice trials were conducted. Results indicate that rats preferred to have the instrumental response punished. It was also observed that the subjects more frequently failed to traverse the runway in which the consummatory response was punished compared to the runway in which the instrumental response was punished. The results were interpreted as being consistent with predictions derived from net incentive theory.