Basic Principles of
Behavior
8-19-13
Kelly McElrath, Ph.D,BCBA-D,
LBS
kmcelrath@bucksiu.org
Malott, R. (2008) Principles of Behavior.
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Reinforcement
(Positive Reinforcement))
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Fundamentals
• An example of Reinforcement:
“The Grandfather”
• Juke is a successful behavior analyst.
• His grandfather had a stroke that paralyzed his
right side.
• After the stroke, his grandfather rarely talked, and
when he did, he didn’t make much sense.
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The Grandfather, cont’d
• How did Juke’s grandmother keep track of his
grandfather’s remarks?
• She counted the number of times he talked
• She counted the number of responses that made
sense and the ones that didn’t make sense
• What were the baseline data?
• Average of less than one response per hour
• 67% of his comments made sense
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The Grandfather, cont’d
• Juke’s grandmother set aside one hour per day
for a reinforcement procedure:
Before:
Behavior:
After:
The
grandfather
sees no
smiles from
grandmother
The
grandfather
makes a
sensible
remark
The
grandfather
sees smiles
from the
grandmother
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The Grandfather, cont’d
• What were the results?
• In 6 weeks, spontaneous remarks increased from
less than 1 per hour to 2.5 per hour.
• Sensible replies increased from 67% to 84%.
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Reinforcement
What is the Reinforcement Principle?
• Reinforcement Principle:
• A response will occur more frequently if a
reinforcer or an increase in a reinforcer has
followed it in the past, in similar settings.
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What is Reinforcement?
•
•
•
•
•
Reinforcement Contingency:
The response-contingent
presentation of
a reinforcer,
resulting in an increased frequency of that response.
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How quickly should the reinforcer
follow the response?
• Certainly…
• less than 60 seconds
• Ideally…
• less than 1 second
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What is the Delay Gradient?
• Delay Gradient:
• The effects of
reinforcement and
punishment
contingencies
decrease as the
delay between the
response and the
outcome increases.
What happens if a
reinforcer is delayed
more than 60 seconds?
• Reinforcers delayed
more than 60 seconds
have little or no
reinforcing effect.
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Behavioral Contingencies
What do we mean by response-contingent?
• Response-contingent: caused by or produced by the
response
What do we mean by occasion?
• Occasion: a stimulus in the presence of which a
particular response will produce a particular
outcome. Not the same as the before condition.
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What is a Behavioral Contingency?
•
•
•
•
Behavioral Contingency:
The occasion for a response,
the response, and
the outcome of the response.
Text Boxes
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The Delivery of Reinforcers Before
the Behavior
• Mr. Big gives an envelope with $10,000 to a
young woman.
• “Here’s $10,000 to throw the NCAA volleyball game.”
• Is this Reinforcement?
NO! The money came before the despicable act, not
after it.
• Is this Bribery?
YES! Bribery is the use of a reinforcer, often (but not
always) given in advance, for the performance of an
illegal or immoral act.
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Reinforcement or Bribery?
14
Bribery
The reinforcer (“Thank you”) is coming before
the behavior (doing laundry).
15
Bubblegum Bowel Movements –
Part 1
• 3-year old Todd was averaging one bowel movement
per week
• Dawn, the behavior analyst, noticed that Todd liked
his mom’s bubblegum
• What was the Procedural Solution?
• Give Todd a piece of bubblegum immediately after
each bowel movement, but not before
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Successful Intervention
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Poverty’s Children – Part 1
• Mae, the behavior analyst, set up a classroom at a
preschool for 15 children from low-income families
(ages 4-5)
• The children scored an average of 79 on the
Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (national average
is 100).
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Poverty’s Children, cont’d
• According to National Studies…
• Is poverty correlated to formal language skills?
• YES
• Do terrible language skills increase the probability
of failing school?
• YES
• Does this lower the chances of finding a good
job?
• YES
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Observing the Children
What was the problem?
• Mae’s children rarely used adjectives
• e.g., color names, sizes, shapes, or numbers
• What was the solution?
• Reinforce any appropriate use of adjectives
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What were the results?
• Nothing. The children produced only 3-4
adjectives per hour
• What did Mae conclude?
• The children’s baseline rate (pre-intervention
rate) was too low for reinforcement to have an
effect.
• Not enough occasions for reinforcement.
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Avoid Circular Reasoning
Why does
Rudolph drink
the water?
Rudolph
drinks the
water.
Rudolph
wants the
water.
How do you
know
Rudolph
wants the
water?
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Use Non-Circular Explanations
How do you know the
temperature is 120°F?
Because that’s
what the
thermometer
says.
Because the
temperature
is 120°F
in the box.
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Circular argument that does not involve
the reification of any concepts.
Why is Rudolph
pressing the lever?
In the past,
lever pressing
has produced
drops of water.
Because he’s
now pressing
the lever.
How do you know
lever pressing has
produced drops of
water?
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What is the Error of Reification?
The Error of Reification:
•To call a behavior or process a thing.
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Example:
• Why does Jenny act so strangely (a behavior)?
Because she has a mental illness (a thing). How
do you know she has a mental illness? Because
she’s acting so strangely…
• The proof of the existence of the thing is the
behavior that the thing was supposed to explain.
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What is the Medical Model Myth?
Medical Model Myth:
• An erroneous view of human behavior –
• that behavior is always a mere symptom of
• an underlying psychological condition.
My assistant is passive
aggressive. He agrees to do
the tasks I ask him to do, but
then he doesn’t do them. He’s
passively aggressing against
me because he doesn’t like
me.
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A More Behavioral Approach:
Your approval is a powerful
reinforcer, and it reinforces your
assistant’s agreeing to do the
tasks.
But without clear-cut deadlines,
even that powerful reinforcer will
fail to control your assistant’s
behavior…
Without deadlines, procrastination
will take over.
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Success with Behavioral Approach
• Barb Fulton measured her assistants’ task
completion
What was the baseline condition?
• Orally assigning tasks and not following up
when assistants do not complete the tasks.
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What was the Intervention?
• Intervention:
• Holding weekly meetings where she assigned
tasks in writing, gave due dates, and checked
on task completion.
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Successful Intervention
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More Examples of Medical
Model Myth
• A graduate student fails to get her homework done
in time
• What is the Medical Model Interpretation?
• This failure is a symptom of the underlying
cause of an unconscious fear of success.
• What is the Behavioral Interpretation?
• Doing almost anything else is more reinforcing
and less effortful than homework.
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Root Causes
• Medical Model…
• Invents fictional causes
• Behavioral Model…
• Addresses actual causes
• Example:
• We don’t smoke cigarettes because we are
fixated on our oral stage of infantile development.
• We smoke because smoking is reinforced by the
outcome.
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What is the Reinforce Behavior
general rule?
Reinforce Behavior:
• Reinforce behavior,
• not people.
Don’t reinforce
us…
Reinforce
our
behavior!
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Reinforcer vs. Reinforcement
What’s the difference?
• Reinforcer =
• Thing, event, or change of conditions
• Reinforcement =
• The delivery of the reinforcer and the resulting
change in behavior
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What is Baseline?
• Juke measured his grandfather’s sensible remarks
during baseline
• Barb Fulton measured her assistants’ task
completion during baseline
Baseline:
• The phase of an experiment or intervention
• where the behavior is measured
• in the absence of an intervention.
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And another thing…
• Reinforcement occurs when the current occasion for
the response…
• …is similar to occasions when the response has
been reinforced in the past.
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Example:
In the past Rod’s tantrumming has
been reinforced by Dad…
So when Dad’s around…
And Rod has
little or no
attention…
If Rod
tantrums…
Rod is likely
to get
attention.
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And…
If in the past, you worked
with Rudolph the rat only
when he was deprived of
water…
And you used water as a
reinforcer for his response
of mouse clicking…
Then if you put him in the
Skinner box after he has had
a lot to drink…
He’s probably not
going to perform very
frequently.
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So an exhaustingly exhaustive redefined definition of Reinforcement
Contingency could be…
• Reinforcement Contingency:
• The presentation
• Or increase of
• A reinforcer
• Promptly following a response
• Resulting in an increased frequency of that
response
• On similar occasions
• And with similar motivating operations.
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Footnotes
1. Based on Green, G. R., Linsk, N. L., & Pinkston, E. M. (1986).
Modification of verbal behavior of the mentally impaired elderly
by their spouses. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 19,
329-336.
2. Based on Tomlinson, J. R. (1970). Bowel retention. Journal of
Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 2, 83-85.
3. Based on Hart, B. M., & Risley, T. R. (1968). Establishing use of
descriptive adjectives in the spontaneous speech of
disadvantaged preschool children. Journal of Applied Behavior
Analysis, 1, 109-120.
4. Fulton, B. J., & Malott, R. W. (1981-1982). The structured
meeting system: A procedure for improving the completion of
nonrecurring tasks. Journal of Organizational Behavior
Management, 3(4), 7-18.
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