Interventions Based on Operant Conditioning Flashcards
Interventions based on operant conditioning involve
increasing a desirable behavior using positive reinforcement or decreasing an undesirable behavior with punishment or extinction.
While positive and negative reinforcement are both useful for increasing the frequency of a behavior, most behavioral interventions rely on ____________ ___________. The effectiveness of ____ ____ is influenced by several factors.
positive reinforcement; Positive Reinforcement
There must be a contingent relationship between the target behavior and the positive reinforcer. In other words, the reinforcer should be available only when the target behavior has been performed.
Contingency
To maximize the benefits of positive reinforcement, the reinforcer should be delivered immediately after the target behavior. This is particularly important when reinforcement is being used to establish a new behavior.
Immediacy
Generally, the establishment of a new behavior is most rapid when reinforcement is applied on a continuous schedule, while maintenance of the behavior (resistance to extinction) is maximized when the behavior is reinforced on an intermittent schedule.
Schedule of Reinforcement
Schedule of Reinforcement consequently though, the best procedure is to begin with a continuous schedule of reinforcement and to change to an ___________ ___________ once the behavior is well-established. The process of reducing the proportion of reinforcements is referred to as ____.
intermittent schedule; Thinning
____: Up to a point, the greater the amount of positive reinforcement, the greater its effectiveness. Past that point, ____ may occur, which means that the reinforcer has lost its reinforcing value.
Magnitude; Satiation
________ are more susceptible to satiation than secondary reinforcers, especially __________ secondary reinforcers; and a __________ is more susceptible to satiation than the intermittent schedules.
Primary Reinforcers; generalized; Continuous Schedule of Reinforcement
The effectiveness of reinforcement is enhanced when the contingent relationship between a behavior and a reinforcer is verbally clarified.
Verbal Clarification
_____: Verbal and/or physical ____ facilitate the acquisition of a new behavior.
Prompt; Prompt
When a prompt signals that the behavior will be reinforced, it’s acting as a ___________ ___________ ___________. For instance, if a father reminds their child to clean their room and always praises the child after they have done so, the father’s reminder is a discriminative stimulus that signals that praise will follow the behavior. The gradual removal of a prompt is referred to as ____.
positive discriminative stimulus; Fading
When using reinforcement to increase a response, it’s necessary to wait for the response to be emitted to reinforce it. Often however, the target behavior is one that rarely or never occurs naturally. In this situation, ____ can be used. ____ involves reinforcing successive approximations to the desired behavior; that is, providing reinforcement only for behaviors that come closer and closer to the desired one.
Shaping; Shaping
An example of shaping is provided by ____ (1966), who used it to teach mute children with autism or schizophrenia to speak. Training began with having the child imitate the trainer’s voice. To encourage imitation. The child was reinforced with food for simple looking at the trainer’s mouth, but when the child accomplished this task, the trainer modeled a sound and reinforced the child only when they made any vocalization. Eventually, the child was reinforced only for imitating the particular sound made by the trainer. Once a sound was mastered. The trainer introduced a new sound, and this procedure was continued until the child was able to say words and then speak in simple sentences.
Lovaas
____: Skinner referred to the sequence of discriminative stimulus-behavior-consequence as the “_______ ______ ___________” and claimed that it accounts for the _________ of most complex behaviors, including “__________ ________” which consist of several distinct responses.
Chaining; three-term contingency; acquisition; Behavior chains
Making a cake is an example of a ____ ____: First, you assemble the ingredients, then you measure and mix the ingredients, then you pour the batter into a pan and put the pan in the oven, and so on until, finally, the cake is baked and frosted, and you get to eat it!
behavior chain
The establishment of a behavior chain is referred to as ____, and the chaining process can be either forward or backward: ______ _______ begins with the first component in the chain and gradually works through the entire chain. When using ________ ________, the components in the chain are established in the reverse order.
Chaining; Forward chaining; backward chaining
Both techniques are used to establish complex behaviors, but only the _________ _______ _______ is of interest in shaping while the ______ ______ __ ________ is important in chaining. In some cases, the establishment of a ______ ______ may require a combination of shaping and chaining with shaping being used to establish each response in the behavior chain.
final (terminal) behavior; entire sequence of responses; complex behavior; Chaining is sometimes erroneously confused with shaping.
When using the ____ ____, a high probability behavior is used to reinforce a low probability behavior.
Premack Principle
A therapist would be using the Premack Principle (Premack, 1965) to increase the amount of time a student spends studying when, after learning that the student frequently watches television, she tells him he can watch TV only after studying for at least one hour. In this situation, watching TV (a high probability behavior) is being used to reinforce studying (a low probability behavior) to increase study time. The Premack Principle is particularly useful when it’s difficult to _______ that would act as a ____ for a particular individual.
dentity a stimulus; reinforcer
____ ____ combines positive reinforcement with extinction and involves reinforcing alternative behaviors while ignoring the target behavior.
Differential Reinforcement
An example of Differential Reinforcement would be: a child who engages in stereotyped hand movements (which are _____-__________) might be reinforced with nickels or tokens for each two-minute period they play with available toys rather than engage in the hand movements. In this situation, playing with toys is being _________, while hand movement are being __________.
self-reinforcing; reinforced; extinguished
There are several varieties of differential reinforcement including
differential reinforcement of incompatible behaviors (DRI), differential reinforcement of alternative behaviors (DRA), and differential reinforcement of other behaviors (DRO).
The use of ____ involves applying or withdrawing a stimulus following a behavior to decrease that behavior.
Punishment
The effectiveness of punishment is influenced by -
Immediacy; Consistency; Intensity; Verbal Clarification; Removal of All Positive Reinforcement; Reinforcement for Alternative Behaviors.
The sooner a punishment is administered, the more successful it will be. Ideally, punishment should be applied at the onset of the behavior; that is, at the beginning of the behavior chain.
Immediacy
To be successful, punishment must be applied on a continuous schedule, i.e., it should follow each performance of the target behavior.
Consistency