Decreasing Behaviors with Extinction

Question 1

Decreasing Behaviors with Extinction

Answer 1

Operant Extinction: withholding reinforcement from a previously reinforced response in order to elimiate/decrease the response.

1. Consistency:: positive reinforcement must always be withheld…even a single exception can re-establish the behavior and maintain it for a long time. Can be hard to control all forms of postive reinforcement so consistency is hard.
2. _Schedule of Reinforcement: _extinction is faster if the behavior was has been reinfocred on a continuous schedule than if on an intermittent one.
   
   1. if Intermittent: better if fixed or variable interval was used…time better.
3. _Magnitude and Duration of Reinforcement: _greater the magnitude and the longer the duration of the previous reinforcement, the more resistant the behavior to extinction.
4. _Reinforcement for other behaviors: _best when used in conjunction with reinforcement for alternative behaviors.