Secondary Reinforcers and Punishers
OR
Conditioned Reinforcers and Punishers
Chapter 8
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Secondary Reinforcers and Punishers
Unlike primary reinforers and punishers,
secondary reinforcers and punishers are a
learned behaviour.
They must be paired with other stimuli before
they are able to acquire the ability to evoke the
response themselves
•In terms of our old shower example, we were talking about
stimuli that preceded a primary or unconditioned stimuli,
now we are going to talk about stimuli that come after a
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behaviour and require conditioning or learning.
A:B----->neutral stimulus (punishment or reinforcement)
When neutral stimuli repeatedly precede and
predict reinforcement, they become secondary
reinforcers and when neutral stimuli repeatedly
precede and predict punishment, they become
secondary punishers.become secondary
Once again a secondary stimuli can be made
to lie anywhere along a continuum, from strong
reinforcer to strong punisher, depending upon a
person’s own unique history of reinforcement.
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Punisher
N
Reinforcer
Conditioned stimuli can be made to lie anywhere
along a continuum from strong reinforcer to strong
punisher, (money)
You might think that because primary
reinforcers and punishers are associated with
biological stimulation, they are a more important
molder of our behaviour than secondary reinforcers
and punishers. Secondary reinforcers and
punishers can become very powerful to the point
that they may even override the primary stimuli. 4
Secondary Reinforcers and Punishers as Predictive
Stimuli
Secondary reinforcers or punishers are stimuli that were
once neutral and have acquired the ability to reinforce and
punish because they are predictive of other reinforcers and
punishers.
Secondary reinforcers and punishers are predictive stimuli
that usually have the properties of both conditioned stimuli
and SD’s.
•They can serve as consequences that modify behaviour
•They can serve as elicitors of reflexive responses with an
emotional component
•They can function as SD’s and set the scene for a behaviour
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Conditioned Reinforcers (Stimuli that have Been
Connected with Reinforcement in the Past)
•Conditioned reinforcers able to reinforce are behaviour
•Conditioned reinforcers can elicit pleasurable emotional
responses
•Conditioned reinforcers can set the occasion for an operant
or a behaviour(Mailbox as a secondary or conditioned
reinforcer)
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Conditioned Punishers (Stimuli that have
been Connected with Punishment in the Past)
•Conditioned punishers have the ability to punish behaviour
•Conditioned Punishers can create unpleasant emotional
responses
•Conditioned Punishers may set the scene for not
performing a behaviour (Ice as a conditioned punisher
for the elderly)
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Information
Information is the key to how strong a conditioned
reinforcer or punisher is. The amount of information
generated, and therefore the strength of the reinforcer or
punisher, is dependent upon 2 factors.
•How well the particular stimulus predicts
reinforcement or punishment. As we already know a
conditioned stimulus is more powerful if it is always paired
with or predictive of the primary stimulus. Occasional pairing
s make for weak secondary reinforcers or punishers (ice)
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Information con’t
•How well a person has learned to respond to the
stimulus as a predictor of reinforcement or
punishment. A stimulus must be experienced and learned
about before enough information is gathered to make it into a
secondary reinforcer or punisher. (ice)
•It follows, that the more information a stimulus gives about
imminent reinforcement or punishment, the more powerful
that stimulus is as a secondary reinforcer or punisher.
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Observing Responses
The operant response class that is reinforced by information
is sometimes called observing behaviours
These observing behaviours can be made by attending to any of
our 5 senses, both internal and external. And the information
that we detect through observing may serve us in 3 ways (car
starting and woodstove).
•It may reinforce or punish behaviour
•It may elicit emotional responses
•It can set the occasion for further action
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Observing Responses con’t
Observing responses are most likely to be performed when
there is a high degree of uncertainty as to whether
reinforcement or punishment will be the result.
For example, if a behaviour is always reinforced, there is
no need to look for clues as to what the outcome of our
behaviour will be (reliable car, always starts or never starts
or a pellet stove).
The clues that we get from observing responses will serve as
SD’s for performing the behaviour when it will probably be
reinforcer and the clues will be Sdeltas for not performing the
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behaviour when it is likely it will be punished.
Extinction of Secondary Reinforcers and Punishers
When secondary reinforcers and punishers are no longer
predictive of other reinforcers or punishers, extinction takes
place and the conditioned stimuli lose their power (creepers
on ice).
•Secondary reinforcers and punishers that have been
maintained by intermittent conditioning are slower
to extinguish than secondary reinforcers and
punishers learned through continuous conditioning
(mailbox and ice).
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Social Reinforcers and Punishers
In general social attention in looked upon as a very
powerful conditioned or secondary reinforcer.
•Children especially find attention reinforcing, however,
we don’t enter the world finding smiles and attention
reinforcing, and frowns and criticism punishing. These are
secondary stimuli no matter how strongly they effect us,
and they are learned through socialization.
•Children learn, through experience, to discriminate
that in one situation a stimulus may be a secondary
reinforcer, but in another situation it may be a secondary
punisher (teacher looking closely at you).
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Tokens as Secondary Reinforcers and Punishers
Ribbons and plaques are examples of tokens that function
as secondary reinforcers.
Traffic tickets and F’s are examples of tokens that
function as secondary punishers.
•None of these stimuli have any ability to reinforce or punish
without conditioning , but once conditioned they make very
effective reinforcersa dn punishers (WW2)
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Generalized Reinforcers and Punishers
Some stimuli are predictive of a wide range of either
reinforcement or punishment, under a broad range of
circumstances (smiles and money).
•However, secondary reinforcers and punishers need not
be effective in all situations in order to be called
generalizedrc reinfoers and punishers.
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Chains of Operants
A sequence of behaviours is called an operant
behaviour chain. Each behaviour in a chain is usually joined
to the next behaviour by a secondary reinforcer.
Note that we are talking here exclusively of secondary
reinforcers. If a behaviour was linked to the next with a
puinsher the second operant would probably not occur.
•
•The reinforcer that falls in between two behaviours, serves
to reinforce the first one and set the scene for the next
behaviour.
•In other words, the secondary reinforcer between the 2
operants acts as an SD for the next operant (simplest chain).
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Behaviour Chains con’t
Multi-linked Operant Chain
•The reinforcer that falls between the two operants, serves to
reinforce the first one and set the scene for the next.
•Often the behaviour chains finish up with a primary or
unconditioned reinforcer (dinner party)
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Behaviour Chains con’t
There may be many pairs of operant and secondary
reinforcer in a chain, but most of the operants are response
produced stimuli that depend upon the previous response to be
initiated (sweater).
Secondary Reinforcers or Punishers can
function in a number of ways…….
•They can reinforce or punish the previous behaviour.
•They can elicit reflexive responses that have an
emotional component
•They can act as an SD to set the scene for the next
behaviour
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Behaviour Chains con’t
•Finally, conditioned reinforcers bridge the time gap
between early behaviours in the chain and the end
consequences located at the end of the chain.
•In other words, secondary reinforcers bridge the time gap
by providing immediate reinforcement for behaviours that
advance a person through a chain toward terminal
reinforcers.
Secondary Punishers……..
Suppress the problematic behaviour that produced them and
provide negative reinforcement for corrective action that can
bring the behaviour chain back on track (culinary disaster).19
Behaviour Chains con’t
There are many variations of operant chains…...
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Behaviour Chains con’t
There are many variations of operant chains…...
•Some chains contain primary reinforcers mixed with
secondary reinforcers at various points in the chain.
•The terminal reinforcer is not always a primary reinforcer.
•The terminal reinforcer doesn’t always need to be powerful
if the earlier reinforcers are relatively powerful.
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Socially Interlocked Chains
•Socially interlocked chains produce a rather unique type of
interlocked behaviour chain
A asks B a question. The asking is an SD for the response. The response
is a secondary reinforcer for A’s asking the question and an SD for A to
go on with their story. So as the conversation unfolds, what A says acts
as an SD for B to speak and B’s response acts as a secondary reinforcer
for A and an Sd for A to go on. When the secondary stimulus turns out
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to be a punisher it acts as the impetus to change the conversation.
Learning Operant Chains
When we learn an operant chain on our own we usually
have to start at the end of the chain and work
backwards learning one link at a time.
•The last link is the easiest one to learn because it is usually
associated directly with the terminal reinforcer.
•When we have help from others to learn a chain of operants,
we are freed from this labourious backwards process.
•Models, Rules and Prompts are other helpful aides in
learning links in a behaviour chain.
•Finally many of the links in a long behaviour chain may
already be in our repertoire and may only need to be strung23
together to form a more sophisticated chain.