Behavioral Psych: Chapter 9 (Book)

What is reinforcement a procedure for?

Reinforcement is a procedure for increasing the frequencing of desirable behavior

• To use reinforcement, the desirable behavior has to be occuring at least occassionally

What is one strategy used to generate a person’s behavior?

One strategy used to generate a person’s behavior is shaping

What is shaping used to do?

Shaping is used to develop a target behavior that a person does not currently exhibit

Shaping

The differential reinforcement of successive approximiations of a target behavior until the person exhibits the target behavior

• Differential reinforcement involves reinforcement and extinction

How does the process of shaping start?

1. To begin shaping, you idenitfy an existing behavior that is an approximation of the target behavior (starting behavior)

• Reinforce the starting behavior so the person starts to exhibit the behavior more often

2. Then, you stop reinforcing the behavior and as a part of the extinction burst, new behaviors begin to appear

3. Start reinforcing a novel behavior that is a closer approximation to the target behavior

• Person exhibits the new behavior more often and the previous behavior less often

4. Process of differential reinforcement (reinforcement of a closer approximation and extinction of a previous approximation continues until the person exhibits the target behavior)

Explain shaping for laboratory rats in Skinner’s experiment

Shaping was used to get rats to press the lever in an experimental chamber

• Choose the starting behavior or the first approximation (choose to deliver pellet of food when the rat steps to the side of the chamber where lever is located)

• Deliver a pellet of food when rat is facing the lever, other behavior on extinction

• Deliver food when the rat is close to the lever

• Deliver food when rat touches lever

• Deliver food when rat presses the lever

Shaping allows you to begin by reinforcing a behavior that the rat engages in frequently (standing on one side of the chamber) and ending up with getting the rat to enagage in a behavior it’s never performed (pressing the lever)

Why is the timing of the reinforcer important during shaping?

The timing of the reinforcer is important and you want to deliver the reinforcer at the exact instant that the correct approximation occurs, or you might accidentally reinforce a different behavior

• Make sure conditioned reinforcer, to avoid satiation

What does shaping involve starting with?

Shaping involves starting with a simple behavior that the person was already engaging in and building up to the target behavior in small steps (successive approximations)

• Allows the person to engage in a new target behavior or a target behavior that they previously refused to do

What are the three ways that shaping is used?

Shaping is used to:

1. Generate a novel behavior (language in a young child, lever-pressing in the laboratory rats, tricks from a dolphin)

2. Reinstating a previously exhibited behavior (ex. walking)

3. Changing some diemsion of an existing behavior

Target behavior is novel in that the person isn’t currently engaging in that particular behavior

What are the steps in the process of shaping?

The steps in the process of shaping are:

1. Defining the target behavior

2. Determining whether shaping is the most appropriate procedure

• Shaping is not used for a behavior a person engages in ocassionally, used for new behaviors, different dimension of a behavior, or to reinstate a behavior)

3. Identify the starting behavior (must be a behavior that the person already engages in, at least ocassionally)

4. Choose the shaping steps (each step must be a closer approximation to the target behavior than the previous step)

5. Choose the reinforcer (needs to be delievered immediately, contingent to the behavior and not satiate easily)

6. Differentially reinforce each successive approximation (reinforce the behavior until it occurs reliably, then reinforce the next approximation and no longer reinforce the previous approximation)

7. Move through the shaping steps at a proper pace (can tell people what they need to do)

How may problem behaviors be developed intentionally through shaping?

Probelm behaviors can be developed intentionally through shaping, if successive approximations of a behavior that isn’t benefitical to the person is reinforced

Example of shaping of problem behavior:

• Mom is working and her son disrupts her to play with him and she does

• She tries to ignore him, but he screams and she plays with him

The mom was attempting to use extinction by not reinforcing a previously reinforced behavior, so it stops

• However, negatively reinforced the behavior of playing with him when he screamed, extinction burst (strengthen behavior by removing an aversive stimulus)

What are sucessive approximations (or shaping steps)?

Successive approximations or shaping steps are behaviors that are increasingly more similar to the target behavior

When is reinforcement and extinction occuring in shaping?

Reinforcement and extinction happen in shaping when successive approximations to the target behavior are reinforced and previous approximations are put on extinction

How may shaping be used to unintentionally develop problem behaviors?

Shaping might be used to unintentionally develop problem behaviors

• When a mild problem behavior is put on extinction and the problem worsens during an extinction burst, the parent reinforces the worse behavior

• If the process continues a number of times, the problem behavior might become progressively worse, through the process of differential reinforcement of worse and worse instances of the behavior

• Behavior might become more intense, frequent, or longer

Differential Reinforcement

The process of reinforcing a behavior and not all other behaviors in one particular situation

• Only 1 behavior is reinforced in a situation