M01 malo9495 07_se_c01

C h a p t e r

1
The Reinforcer
(Positive Reinforcer)
Behavior Analyst Certification Board 4th Edition Task List1
D-01. Use positive and negative reinforcement. Page 02

FK-10. Behavior, response, response class.

Page 06

G-04. Explain behavioral concepts using nontechnical
language.2
Throughout
FK-09. Distinguish among conceptual analysis of
behavior, experimental analysis of behavior, applied
behavior analysis, and behavioral service delivery.

Page 07

FK-11. Environment, stimulus, stimulus class.

Page 03

Introduction
Many of you are taking this course to fill some silly
requirement or other; you roll your eyes and say,
“Whatever.” But watch out, because this course with this
book is liable to sneak up from behind and grab you
when you’re not looking. By the end of this course and
this book, some of you are going to say, “Wow, this has
really turned my head around. When I started to read
Chapter 1, I had no idea what behavior analysis was
and could care less. But now I know what it is, and I
want to do it—for the rest of my life—maybe. I want to
become a professional behavior analyst.” But right now
you skeptics are saying, “Yeah, right; give me a break!”
Well, be careful; and remember, we warned you.
1
Many of the concepts and terms on the task list will be used
throughout this book. We’ll list them at the start of any chapter that
discusses something new about that topic. But they will often pop
up in other chapters, so we highly recommend reading through
the whole book to gain a thorough understanding of all the basic
p
rinciples of behavior analysis.
2
Most of this book is devoted to explaining behavioral concepts sing
u
everyday language. We’ve found that by the time students finish
r
eading it, they’re able to discuss complex behavioral principles in
a way that anyone can understand, not just a few behavior-analyst
nerds. But don’t worry, you’ll also become fluent in behavior-analysis
nerd speak.

We’ve written this book to turn you on to the principles of behavior and behavior analysis; we’ve written it
so you’ll understand all the principles of behavior, we’ve
written it so you’ll be able to understand how the behavioral world, our psychological world, works, we’ve
written it so you can get ready to use the principles of
behavior to build a better world, and we’ve written it so
you, if you want, can take the next step toward becoming a professional behavior analyst; and some of you
will want to take this next step.
Others of you already know you want to become
professional behavior analysts; and that means if you
want to become a behavior-analyst practitioner, you’ll
probably want to become a Board Certified Assistant
Behavior Analyst (BCaBA) when you get your bachelor’s degree or even a Board Certified Behavior Analyst
(BCBA) when you get your master’s degree. And a few
of you may end up getting your doctorate degree and
your BCBA-D!
Well, to become certified, at whatever level, you’ll
need to pass the certification exam; and you’ll need
to really know the principles of behavior to pass that
exam. But you’re in luck; not only is this book an outstanding introduction to the principles of behavior, we
1

M01_MALO9495_07_SE_C01.indd 1

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2

Chapter 1 • The Reinforcer (Positive Reinforcer)

think it’s all you’ll need to pass major sections of that
exam, the Foundational Knowledge sections. People
who studied for the exam, and people who teach people studying for the exam, have said this book is the
best esource available. Therefore, starting with the
r
7th edition of Principles of Behavior, we’re making our
book even more certification-exam friendly, so that you

can easily find the sections relevant to each of the tasks
listed in the Foundational Knowledge Fourth Edition
Task List.
Not interested in becoming a certified behavior
analyst? No problem; our cues for the certification exam
tasks are unobtrusive; you can ignore them and keep
right on reading.

Fundamentals
Example of Reinforcer
Behavioral Child and Family Counseling

know, Dawn, I think you increase Rod’s crying each time
you pay attention and cuddle him when he cries.”4

Family Life—Part I3
The baby’s scream sounded like someone’s fingernail
scraping over a chalkboard. Sid Fields pounded his fists
on the battered computer, jumped up from his desk, and
ran into the nursery.
Fortunately, Dawn got there before him. She picked
up their crying baby, hugged him, rocked him, cooed,
and then said to her husband, “Sid, calm down. Rod will
be asleep in a minute.”
“That kid’s driving me crazy,” Sid said. “I’m having enough trouble getting my PhD dissertation written
without having to put up with Rod’s constant crying.”
“Sid, he’s just a baby,” Dawn said.
“He’s going to be a baby with an unemployed
father if I don’t get my dissertation written. You know
the chair of our department said he couldn’t rehire me if
I don’t finish my dissertation and get my doctoral degree
by the end of this year.”
“You’ll get your doctoral dissertation written, Sid.
I know you will.” Dawn put her right arm around Sid’s
waist, while she continued to cradle Rod in her left arm.
“Shhh, Rod’s asleep now,” Dawn said as she gently
laid their baby back in his crib.
Dawn took Sid’s hand and both smiled as they
looked down on their sleeping son. Then they started
to leave the room as quietly as they could. But before
they’d reached the door, Rod started whimpering. So
they sat on the floor of the nursery, waiting for their son
to fall asleep again. Their smiles had disappeared.

Before
Rod has no
attention from
Dawn.

Behavior
Rod cries.

After
Rod has
attention from
Dawn.

“I think Rod cries because we pay attention to him
every time he does. We run into his room every time he
even whimpers.”5
Before

Behavior

After

Rod is alone.

Rod
whimpers.

Rod is not
alone.

“What about my giving you a hug when you were
so upset about your dissertation? Is that why you’re
always complaining?” Dawn smiled and took Sid’s hand.
Before
Sid has no
hug.

Behavior

After

Sid whines.

Sid has a
hug.

“I wasn’t complaining about my dissertation; I was
stating a fact.”

4

Concept
Reinforcer (Positive Reinforcer) (D-01)
As Sid Fields and Dawn Baker sat on the floor of their
son’s nursery, they began talking in low voices. “You

3
Based on Williams, C. D. (1959). The elimination of tantrum
behavior by extinction procedures. Journal of Abnormal and
Social Psychology, 59(2), 269.


Student tip 1: If you want to nail these diagrams and the owerful
p
conceptual understanding that lies behind them, you need our
C
ontingency Diagramming Checklist. Just visit DickMalott.com, where
you’ll find it for free.

5
These contingency diagrams will be explained in detail throughout
the book. For now, notice the lines between the boxes. A dashed
line indicates a temporal relationship (what’s in the first box, before,
occurs before the behavior in the second box). A solid line with an
arrow indicates that the behavior causes what comes after. In this
case, Rod has no attention before he cries; and his crying behavior
causes the after condition of his receiving attention. And for those
of you who already have some familiarity with behavior analysis, our
before condition is not the same as the more traditional antecedent
condition of the antecedent 1 behavior 1 consequence (ABC) model.
For example, before condition doesn’t include discriminative stimuli,
which we deal with separately in Chapter 12.

02/09/13 7:05 PM


Dawn thought, even if the shoe fits, Sid refuses to
wear it. She said, “I have a PhD in behavior analysis, and
you will too, before long . . .”
“Let’s hope!”
“I earn my living using behavior analysis to help
other people,” Dawn continued. “And yet, why can’t I
use behavior analysis to help my own family? Surely we
can figure out how to use behavior analysis to help Rod
stop crying and causing such a fuss. Surely we can figure out how to help him stop making life so hard for all
three of us.”
“What about a little help on my dissertation, too?”
“OK, we’ve also got to figure out how to help
you get over your so-called ‘writer’s block’ and finish
your dissertation so you can keep your job in the psych
department.”
Two hours later, Rod was sleeping soundly enough
that his parents could finally slip out of his nursery without his starting to cry again, but now Sid was too tired to
work on his dissertation.
If the behavior analysts, Sid and Dawn, had known
you’d be reading their conversation, they would have
used the technical term reinforcer when talking about
the attention that Rod got when he cried and Sid got
when he complained.

So, by “response” we mean “behavior” or “activity,” and
we tend to use those three terms interchangeably.7
A Stimulus by Any Other Name (FK-11)
A reinforcer is a stimulus; and a stimulus is any physical
change, like a sound or light or pressure or temperature. Stimuli might come from events, like the sights and
sounds and tastes and smells of a party. Or stimuli might
be the sounds and feelings coming from an activity, like
the sound coming from playing the guitar or the feel of
touching a sweaty opponent while playing basketball.
(Stimuli is just the plural of stimulus. And you’ll sound
so cool and impress your friends when you use it correctly and don’t say stimuluses.)
So to keep it as simple as possible, we mean stimulus in a very inclusive sense; by stimulus, we include
events, activities, and conditions. So a reinforcer could
be any of the following:
• Stimuli (restricted sense)—a beautiful sunset, the
taste of a fruit smoothie, or a friendly smile.
• Events—a stock-car race or a Coldplay concert,
things in which our participation is more or less
passive.
• Activities—playing the guitar or shooting hoops.
• Conditions—being hot or cold, tired, or the condition (feeling) of happiness and bliss we experience
when watching that beautiful sunset, while sitting
on the top of a majestic mountain, with our best
friend (though methodological behaviorists will
squirm in their seats when we talk about feeling,
happiness, and bliss in a semi-technical context)
[see Chapter 26].

Definition: Concept
Reinforcer (Positive Reinforcer)
• A stimulus that increases the frequency of a
response it follows.

For example, Dawn and Sid’s attention and comfort immediately followed Rod’s response of crying and
increased the frequency of his crying. So attention and
comfort are a reinforcer for Rod’s behavior.6 And there’s
a good chance that Dawn’s immediate attention and comfort when Sid whined was a reinforcer that increased the
frequency of his whining.
Here’s another example: It might be a big reinforcer for you to see the crucial concepts in this book
highlighted in yellow. If so, now’s the time for you to
make the response of picking up that yellow highlighter
and the response of highlighting those crucial concepts.

6
The infant’s crying raises an interesting problem—the cry-wolf
p
henomenon. The infant’s crying is a functional escape response
b
ecause it will bring a watchful parent to the rescue when the
d
iapers are wet. Watchful parents will also reinforce crying when the
child is hungry. But crying can become dictatorially dysfunctional,
when arents unintentionally reinforce crying with attention and
p
comfort every time it occurs. It’s not always easy for the outsider to
d
iscriminate between functional and dysfunctional crying, though
many parents learn that discrimination. And also, it’s not always easy
to be a parent.


3

I used to include events, activities, and conditions
in the formal definition, but that seemed too clumsy; so I
paired it down, with the hope that you’ll remember that
stimulus includes all of those.
Question
1.
Reinforcer—define it and give an example of atten-

tion as a reinforcer. (When we ask for examples,
we will normally be happy with examples from
the text. We won’t mean original examples, unless
we say so. But your instructor might want original
examples; better check.)

7

Student tip 2: If you want to nail the concepts and principles in this
book (boxed definitions), you need flash cards. And, if you want to
nail the tests over this book, you need flash cards, depending on how
rigorous your teacher’s tests are. However, making your own flash
cards for the 200+ definitions in this book would be a real hassle. And
your teacher may not love you enough to make the flash cards for
you. But, Uncle Dickie loves you. So just go to DickMalott.com, click
on the picture of this book; and you’ll be able to find ’em there—free.

02/09/13 7:05 PM

4


How Quickly Should the Reinforcer
Follow the Response?
If the reinforcer is to reinforce a particular response, it
must follow the response within about 60 seconds or
less. We don’t have experimental data on this for human
beings, but the research with nonverbal animals suggests that a minute or two pushes the limit (even 30
seconds is hard8). And most behavior analysts working
with nonverbal children agree. They’d quit their jobs, if
they had to wait 60 seconds before delivering each reinforcer to children. Such a delay is a good way to ensure
that no learning will occur, even with people—at least
not the intended learning. (By the way, when we say
we reinforced a response, we mean we gave a reinforcer
soon after the response and that response occurred more
frequently in the future.)
So, if you’re trying to reinforce a response, don’t
push that 60-second limit; push the 0-second limit. The
direct effect of reinforcers drops off quickly as you
increase the delay, even to 3 or 4 seconds. And even a
1-second delay may reinforce the wrong behavior. If you
ask an active child to look at you and then give the reinforcer 1 second after that response, you’re liable to reinforce looking in the opposite direction. So, one problem with delayed reinforcement is that it may reinforce
the wrong response—the one that occurred just before
the delivery of the reinforcer. Roughly, a reinforcer must
be delayed no longer than 1 second to be considered
immediate reinforcement and the closer to 0 seconds,
the better; between 1 and about 60 seconds should be
considered delayed reinforcement. If the reinforcer is
delivered after 60 seconds, it probably won’t reinforce
the response and might be called delayed delivery of
a reinforcer.
Questions
1. get the best learning, how quickly should you
To

give the reinforcer when reinforcing a response?
2.
And roughly, what’s the greatest delay you could

have between the reinforcer and the response, to
get any learning?
3.
How immediate is immediate?

Example of Reinforcer?

doesn’t mean it will work as one. Another way to put it
is: Will she more frequently help you with future homework? Will the gold star on her forehead help you to
become a star pupil in class? If it does, then you probably have a reinforcer on your hands, or at least on her
forehead.

Example of Reinforcer
Behavioral School Psychology9
Eric’s Classroom Tantrum—Part I10
Eleven-year-old Eric sat quietly in Latoya’s classroom,
cute enough to be on an old Norman Rockwell cover of
the Saturday Evening Post. Middle America’s stereotype
of the American kid—unruly red hair, freckles, dimples,
worn Converse shoes, the back of his plaid shirt pulled
out of his Levis, his fly half unzipped. Then he started
glancing around the room, at first on the sly, and then
twisting his whole body in the process, a bit disruptive,
but still cute. He wrinkled his face and began making
soft noises—less cute. The soft noises quickly became
sniffles, then cries, then shouts, “I hate it! I hate it! I
want out! Let me out! I hate you!” The American-kid fists
began pounding the desk. Eric fell out of his seat and lay
on his back, now pounding the floor with his fists and
kicking with his sneakers. As he had often done before,
he was shouting and crying with more intensity than
seemed possible from his small, trembling body, “Hate
it! Hate it! Hate it!”
And, as other teachers had often done before,
Latoya sprang from her desk when Eric hit the floor.
Now what? She paused an instant, unprepared. Then she
ran to Eric and tried to pick him up, but his body went
rigid and he started pounding on her stomach. She withdrew in pain.
“Eric, Eric, what’s the matter?” she asked, with as
much of a calming tone as she could achieve.
“Hate it! Hate it! Want out!”
And as other classes had often done before,
Latoya’s class fell apart immediately. For the other kids,
this was better than reality TV. They stared at Eric and
ignored their studies.
But, Eric stopped more than this classroom; his
shouts and pounding paralyzed the whole school, as all
the teachers and staff ran into Latoya’s room to give the
new teacher their support. And Latoya stood there, her

You’re the Star!
You tell your friend you’ll paste a gold star on her forehead as a reinforcer every time she gives you the answer
to one of your homework questions. But that may not do
the trick. Just because you call the gold star a reinforcer

8

Lattal, K. A., & Gleeson, S. (1990). Response acquisition with delayed
reinforcement. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior
Processes, 16, 27–39.


9
We will use the terms behavioral school psychology and behavioral
special education somewhat synonymously, though the traditional
approaches to these two areas are quite different. Traditional
school psychology concentrates on performing psychological tests
of students, largely to determine whether they should go into a
special education classroom, but behavioral school psychology and
behavioral special education both concentrate on using behavioral
techniques to improve classroom teaching, especially for students
with difficulties.
10
Based on Zimmerman, E. H., & Zimmerman, J. (1962). The alteration of behavior in a special classroom situation. Journal of the
Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 5, 59–60.

02/09/13 7:05 PM

arms dangling at her sides, helpless, embarrassed, and
ashamed. Her first day on the job and already a failure.
She felt better when Bob went over to Eric, with all
the confidence his senior status and experience justified,
but he, too, had to retreat from the pounding Eric gave
him. If Bob couldn’t handle Eric, then who could expect
her to?
The staff settled for long-distance psychotherapy,
being careful to stay out of Eric’s reach. “It’s OK, Eric.”
“Do you want your mommy, Eric?” “What’s the matter,
Eric?” And with firm finality, “All right now, Eric; enough
of this nonsense. Get back in your seat and settle down.”
Followed quickly by a guilty, “We love you, Eric.”
Also consultation: “What’s the matter with this poor
child?” “Just an extreme anxiety attack.” “Fear of failure.” “Probably dyslexic.” “School phobia.” “Frustrated.”
“He’s expressing a deep-seated insecurity.” “The kids
tease him.” “We do not,” shouted a defender of juvenile
morality.
Analysis
While Eric was throwing his tantrum in the school
building, Dr. Mae Robinson was parking her Prius
in the school’s parking lot. She got out, still thinking
about the meeting she had just left with the principal
of West James Elementary School. She felt flattered that
last week he had referred Eric to her school, the Rosa
Parks Academy. The principal thought that maybe she
could help Eric, after the West James school psychologist
and special education teachers had given up on the boy.
She smiled as she wondered if it bothered them to ask
for the professional expertise of an African-American11
woman and the youngest principal in the school district.
Maybe they were just dumping Eric on her, getting rid
of a problem, with no hope that she could help the poor
boy. Educators sometimes grow cynical after years of
disillusion. She had to force herself to stop thinking that
way. She had to give them a chance, like they seemed to
be giving her. But still. . . .
As for Eric, well, she would just have to see. But
she thought she knew what caused his problem. No

11

Question to two of my African-American alumna, while editing the
7th edition: What’s cool, African-American woman, woman of color,
or Black woman? For later reference in the book, it’s important to
establish Mae’s identity. Thanks, Malott
Reply: My first choice is African-American woman; second
choice is Black woman. Either way, I think it is completely relevant to
include it in her description. In this paragraph, you’re hitting on the
racial dynamic of superiority that your students may not be familiar
with yet and one they may not read about in other classes. Woman of
color is used to generically refer to a woman from any number of cultural/ethnic backgrounds—it doesn’t seem appropriate in this context
and it doesn’t make your point.
As a side note, I specifically remember identifying with “Mae”
and I’m glad to see she has made it to the 7th edition!
—Felicia
Reply: I prefer African-American woman; however, my publishers often insist that I change to Black woman. Sometimes I win,
sometimes I lose.
—Helen



5

internal demon expressed itself through his tantrums.
No warped perception separated Eric from reality. He
acquired his obnoxious, pitiful, disruptive behavior
because of its consequences. And the way they described
Eric’s problem, it sounded like he got plenty of reinforcing consequences. He was getting more attention
in 5 minutes of tantrums than most people get all day.
Attention is a social reinforcer. Attention is contingent
on (attention results from) Eric’s tantrums. The attention probably reinforces his tantrums. He may throw a
lot more tantrums than he would if no one attended to
those tantrums.
This analysis seemed simple to her, though neither
the principal, the school psychologist, nor the special
education teacher had suggested it. She thought she
knew the cause, but what about the cure? She’d have to
think about that.
Mae walked across the gravel parking lot to the
80-year-old, two-story, brick school building. She had
saved it from the demolition crew to house her new special school. As she approached, Eric’s shouts gradually
caused her to stop thinking about Eric’s conference and
to start thinking about Eric’s reality. She quickened her
pace, hurrying to the entrance of the shabby old building. Then she bounded up the inside stairs to the second
floor and into Latoya’s classroom.
Mae stood a minute, amazed. By this time, spectators had packed the room; not only were the teachers
from the other classroom watching and giving advice,
but so were their students. This was no time to speculate
further about the causes of poor Eric’s problems. Mae
had to act. She had to solve the problem.
What will she do? Will she succeed? Or would we
be so devious as to include studies that are failures?
Hold tight, dear readers; only future chapters will tell.
Question
1.
Give a classroom example of the way tantruming

might result from social reinforcers. Notice that we
say, “Might be,” because we have not experimentally shown that social reinforcement is maintaining Eric’s tantruming. So far, all we have is Mae’s
educated guess.

Examples and Nonexamples
Reinforcer
Here’s a list of questions with our answers. Now, would
it be naive of us to ask you to think through your answer
to each question before you look at ours? We know
thinking is harder than just reading, but give it a shot
anyway.
Question
What’s your guess? Would a gold star on your friend’s
forehead normally act as a reinforcer?

02/09/13 7:05 PM

6


Our Guess
Probably not, not unless your friend is about 3 years
old, or into punk fashions, or both. Of course, we’re just
guessing, based on our experience. You’ll only know for
sure if you try it and see if she helps you more frequently
in the future because of her star-spangled forehead. (Of
course, whether something is an effective reinforcer or
not depends on many things, such as the person whose
behavior you are trying to reinforce and the specific
response you’re trying to reinforce.)

More Concepts than You’d Care to Know
Here are a few concepts of a semi-technical, semi-obvious
nature. Still it may help to discuss them, so they won’t
cause trouble later.
Behavior (FK-10)
What is behavior? My students find the following rule
helpful in answering that question:
Definition: General Rule

Question
What about other things on her face—like mascara on
her eyelashes, eye shadow on her eyelids, rouge on
her cheeks, and lipstick on her lips? Might they act as
reinforcers?

Dead-man test
• If a dead man can do it, it probably isn’t
behavior.

Our Answer
It usually depends on what her female friends paint on
their faces. But if she paints her face, then the paint on
the face is probably a reinforcer for the act of putting it
there. And if she pays cold cash for the stuff, then owning it must be a reinforcer for such consumerism.
Question
Mae thought that all the attention Eric got for his tantrums probably acted as a reinforcer that caused the
tantrums to occur. At least that reinforcer probably kept
the tantrums going once they got started. But what reinforcer maintained the giving of that attention; what was
the reinforcer for staring at poor Eric?
Our Answer
I’d guess it’s the sight of the disruptive spectacle.
Remember, behavior such as looking at or attending to something occurs because that attending
has been reinforced. So if they’re attending to Eric’s
tantruming, the spectacle is probably the crucial reinforcer. And even though the teachers in the Rosa Parks
Academy were becoming expert behavior analysts, they
still had a little way to go, in some cases; they still
weren’t sensitive enough to the possibility that their
attention to Eric’s tantruming was the reinforcer for
that behavior, was causing the problem behavior. It
ain’t easy.
Keep the following in mind: In the examples of this
section, we’re just guessing about what the reinforcers
might be. You’d have to do an actual experiment to be sure.

However, we find the dead-man test most helpful
in deciding what isn’t behavior. Without it, we’d often
end up analyzing the wrong thing—nonbehavior. For
example, for each chapter I ask my students to bring in
original examples of the main concepts and principles of
that chapter.12 And without careful use of the dead-man
test, they often bring in examples like this: Mr. K. Lutz
is a horrible dancer, so his wife reinforced his not dancing in order to protect her feet. And my dog used to be
really loud, but then I reinforced his not barking, and
now he’s quiet. Of course both of these “behaviors” are
things that dead men (or dogs) are capable of, so they
fail the dead-man test; they’re not the “behaviors” we
should be analyzing.
So, dead men don’t dance, and dead dogs don’t
bark. But this is just a rough, general rule; don’t get bent
out of shape if you find an exception now and then.
But, apply the dead-man test only to behavior, not
to reinforcers. For example, sometimes silence is the
golden reinforcer, without a living soul around but you.
So don’t apply the dead-man test to the reinforcer of
silence.
And here’s a corollary to the dead-man test: If a
dead man can’t do it, then it probably is behavior. So,
behavior is anything a dead man cannot do. Like scratch
his nose. Talk. Smile. Cry. Think. Dream. Behavior may
even be the firing of a neuron in the nervous system.
Behavior is anything an animal (including the human
animal) does.

Questions
1.
Give an example of something that is probably a

reinforcer for some people and not for others. Also,
while you are at it, explain it.
2.
Give a few examples where the sight of something
probably reinforces the behavior of looking at it.


12

Student Tip 3: If you want to get skilled at doing your own
behavior analyses, you may want to get our Principles of Behavior Conceptual Homework. So, once again, just go to DickMalott.
com—again, free. In fact, why don’t you just go ahead and make
DickMalott.com your home page, ’cause you know that’s where the
action is. No? Then how about just bookmarking it on your web
browser?

02/09/13 7:05 PM

7


And here’s a more common definition of behavior:
Definition: Concept
Behavior
• A muscle, glandular, or neuro-electrical ctivity.
a
So a rat pressing a lever or you turning your steering
wheel are both muscle activities, and both are obviously
behavior. Your adrenal gland releasing adrenalin into your
system during a particularly scary scene in a movie is a
glandular activity; so it’s also a type of behavior. However,
I make greater use of the dead-man test than the more
formal definition of behavior because I consider all of
the following to be behavior; thinking, dreaming, closing
your eyes and seeing the image of your boyfriend or girlfriend, and hearing tunes when your iPod is shut off. And
I’m not sure those activities involve muscle or glandular
activities, though they do involve neuro-electrical activity
(but as we’ll see in Chapter 26, methodological behaviorists would argue that since we can’t see these events, we
should not try to analyze them). Furthermore, I suspect
reinforcers can increase the frequency of those activities; so that’s even more reason to consider them behavior. And yes, not only can environmental events, such as
the presentation of reinforcers, influence or control the
obvious activities of the muscles; similar environmental
events can also influence or control glandular and neuro-
electrical activities. And even further out, environmental
events, such as the presentation of reinforcers, might possibly also influence or control biological processes like
digestive activity; so we might even be able to consider
some of those processes to be behavior—not sure.
Here’s something that confuses many students:
Behavior analysts use response and behavior almost
interchangeably. So we might say Rod’s crying is
behavior, and we might say it’s a response. But saying Rod’s crying is a response doesn’t necessarily mean
it’s a response to some stimulus, like a wet diaper. He
may just be crying because crying has been reinforced
with attention, even when he didn’t have a wet diaper
and wasn’t hungry. In other words, we don’t necessarily
restrict response to mean a reaction to something, like a
reaction to a wet diaper.
Behavior = Response
And, here are some other words that mean more or
less the same as behavior or response: act, action, movement, and reaction. When we speak of behavior, we
don’t restrict its meaning to “comportment” or “manners.”
For example, our technical use of the term wouldn’t
include “I want you to be on good behavior” or “she was
ill-behaved.” This means that Principles of Behavior is


not about how to avoid getting a scolding from Mommy
for being rude or for talking with your mouth full.
Note: Some of this discussion of behavior, the
dead-man test, dreaming, and so on is a little on the
edge; so your teacher might not agree with it all; and
you’ll probably hear about it, if that’s the case.
Behavior Analysis
Behavior analysis is the study of the behavior of human
beings and other animals. And that’s what this book is
about.
Definition: Concept
Behavior Analysis
• The study of the principles of behavior.

Behavior Analyst (FK-09)
If you know what behavior analysis is, the following
shouldn’t come as a major shock: A behavior analyst
is a person who studies or explicitly uses the principles of behavior.
Generally, behavior analysts are experimental
behavior analysts, doing research, often with animals,
studying the basic principles of behavior. Or they are
theoretical behavior analysts, doing paper-and-pencil,
keyboard, or headwork, to understand the principles
and concepts of behavior analysis, how those principles
and concepts relate to each other, and how those principles and concepts relate to the rest of the world. Or
they are applied behavior analysts, doing research,
usually with human beings, studying applications of the
principles of behavior to socially significant problems.
Or they are service providers (practitioners) using the
principles of behavior to solve socially significant problems. Or, of course, they may be any combination of the
preceding.
Many behavior analysts are psychologists. Many are
not. They might be special ed teachers, social orkers,
w
nurses, or business or other organizational managers—
anyone explicitly dealing with the effects of behavioral
procedures.
Behavior analysts often work as performance managers. Performance managers include all sorts of people
trained in the principles of behavior—teachers, parents,
coaches, supervisors, clinicians, social workers, nurses,
business managers, animal trainers, and those who manage their own personal performance (though managing
your own behavior is no easy trick13). Of course, most
13

See Malott, R. W., & Harrison, H. (2005). I’ll stop procrastinating
when I get around to it. Kalamazoo, MI: Behaviordelia. Available on
DickMalott.com.

02/09/13 7:05 PM

8


teachers, parents, and so forth are not performance managers (as we use the term) because they are not knowledgeably using the principles of behavior.
We slightly prefer performance manager or behavior manager to behavior modifier. Why? Because a
manager may have the goal of supporting an already
s
atisfactory performance with no need to modify it. Said
another way, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it—don’t modify
it. Behavioral engineer is another acceptable term that
means about the same thing—though for some people,
it implies that we’re working with machines and not
people or, worse yet, treating people as machines.
Whatever label we use, keep in mind that we’re
talking about using the principles of behavior, like the
principle of reinforcement, to manage performance.
We’re not talking about brain surgery or drugs when we
speak of managing performance or modifying behavior.
You might consider the behavior therapist to be a
behavior analyst who specializes in working with abnormal behavior, traditionally the kind seen in a psychiatric
hospital or mental health clinic. Behavior therapists are
often clinical psychologists or social workers, though not
always. Normally you wouldn’t apply the term behavior
therapist to a behavior analyst who sets up reinforcement procedures to improve productivity in a factory.
Repertoire
Your repertoire is your bag of tricks. If you’ve gotten
this far in the English version of this book, then your
repertoire must include reading English. Or else, you’re
quickly becoming an expert on Google Translate. By the
time you finish this book, we hope your repertoire will
also contain the use of behavior analysis. Dancing may
be in your repertoire. Perhaps playing baseball, or at
least talking about playing baseball, is also in your repertoire. Or if you can’t throw a baseball, can you at least
throw a tantrum, like Eric? Is tantruming part of your
repertoire?
The reinforcement of novel behavior puts that
behavior in your repertoire—you learn it. Reinforcement
of established behavior maintains that behavior in your
repertoire. You learn Spanish, and then you practice it
or else you lose it. You learn behavior analysis, and then
you practice it or lose it from your repertoire. “Use it or
lose it” is a good folk principle of behavior.
But: Repertoire is not a thing. You don’t have a
repertoire that holds all your tricks. It’s just a way of
speaking, a risky convenience. Your repertoire is just the
total collection of things you can do. It’s not a warehouse from which you retrieve your stored tricks.

Definition: Concept
Repertoire
• A set of skills.


A repertoire is what a person or animal can do.
If, by the end of this book, you can pronounce
repertoire correctly and with grace, you’ll be ahead of
most people. Reper is no big problem. You don’t get
much credit for that part. Except you pronounce re as
in represent, not as in repeat. So try it: reper. Remember,
don’t say it like reaper, as in the grim reaper. The hard
part: toire. Like twar, as in car, not like as in war. Now
say the whole thing: repertoire. Not bad; but keep
practicing.
Behavioral Intervention
By behavioral intervention, we mean the use of a behavioral procedure. We don’t mean a military intervention.
For example, Mae plans to intervene in Eric’s classroom
tantruming. But don’t think we use behavioral interventions just to stop or decrease behavior. Mae might also
use a behavioral intervention to increase the amount
of time Eric studies. (We don’t want to make such a
big deal of behavioral intervention as to require you
to memorize a formal definition. We just want you to
tune in.)
We prefer to stay neutral and say the behavior analyst intervenes on behavioral or performance problems.
We tend not to talk of “treating” behavior problems,
because we don’t want to imply a medical model (see
Chapter 2 to read our rants on the evils of the medical
model myth).
Reinforcer Assessment: Make Sure Your
Assumed Reinforcer Really Reinforces
Remember how we define reinforcer? A stimulus that
will increase the future frequency of a response it has
followed. We do things that will get us reinforcers.
And also, we stop doing things that cost us reinforcers.
For example, we might get reinforcers, like smiles and
approval, by being halfway decent to people. And we
might lose those reinforcers by being halfway nasty to
them; so we could stop losing those reinforcers by stopping our nastiness.
Still we don’t know for sure if someone’s smile is
a reinforcer for us, at least not until we find ourselves
doing things that produce that smile or no longer doing
things that cause us to lose that smile.
Before
You don’t see
her pleasant
smile.

Behavior
You visit her
office.

After
You do see
her pleasant
smile.

For example, a crocodile smile might not be a reinforcer, unless you’re another crocodile.
We all tend to use the term reinforcer to describe
stimuli whose reinforcing value we have not shown.
We tend to assume that something will reinforce a

02/09/13 7:05 PM


particular response of a particular person just because
it has reinforced other responses of other people in the
past or just because we think it would if we were that
person. It’s OK to start that way, though it’s risky business if you don’t check out your assumed reinforcer
before going any further. Many so-called failures to
modify behavior are often just failures to use a true
reinforcer.

Definition: General Rule
Check the assumed reinforcer first
• Before spending much time trying to reinforce behavior,
• make sure you have a true reinforcer.

For example, suppose you plan to use raisins to
reinforce a mentally impaired girl’s talking. Make sure
the girl will eat the raisins first. Does the taste of the raisins reinforce her response of picking up one and putting it in her mouth?

Will this reinforce eating raisins?
Before
The girl has
no sweet
taste of a
raisin.

Behavior
The girl eats
a raisin.

After
The girl has
the sweet
taste of a
raisin.

If it doesn’t, you may be in for many long, tedious,
so-called reinforcement sessions with no progress when
you try to use raisins to reinforce talking. Failure to use
this general rule may account for much wasted time of
behavior analysts and their clients.14 Once I was working with a child with serious academic problems. So I
was giving him an M&M™ candy every time he read
a sentence correctly. After his mouth and pockets were

9

bulging with the candies, he said, “Look, I’ll keep reading the damned sentences; but please stop giving me
those M&Ms.”
Remember we define reinforcers in terms of their
effect on behavior, not in terms of what people say. The
people may not know, or they may lie. For example,
“Boys, would looking at dirty pictures be a reinforcer for
you?” “Oh, no, Mother!”
In recent years, behavior analysts have become
much more tuned into making sure their assumed reinforcer really reinforces, even to the point of making sure
their assumed reinforcer is the most effective reinforcer
available. They’ve developed a set of procedures called
reinforcer assessment procedures, some for verbal
clients and some for nonverbal clients.15 For example,
to find an effective reinforcer for nonverbal preschool
autistic children, we will show a child a set of toys to
play with and note the one he or she selects. And we’ll
repeat that procedure a few times to make sure the child
has a consistent preference.
But a more formal procedure is the forced choice
method of reinforcer assessment:16 We allow the student
to select one of two potential reinforcers chosen from
the set. Then we repeat that a few times with those two
stimuli to reliably assess the child’s preference between
those two. And then we do the same thing with each of
the other possible pairs of stimuli, which allows us to
rank the stimuli to determine the most preferred, and
therefore, presumably the most effective of those reinforcers. We then use those most highly preferred reinforcers, when working with the child. Warning: You may
need to do reinforcer assessments often, because the
child’s preference may shift considerably from day to
day or even hour to hour or even within a single session;
and the most preferred reinforcer will lose its reinforcing value.
Questions
1.
State the “Check the reinforcer first” general rule

and then give an example of where and how you
should use that general rule.
2.
Give an example of reinforcer assessment.

14

Various terms have been used to designate the recipient of the
services of the psychologist and, more generally, the behavior analyst.
In the classroom, the term student has done the trick and continues to do so. But in other settings, the appropriate designation has
proven more evasive: Originally, the term patient dominated, but that
term implies a medical cause when the problem may have been the
learning of dysfunctional behavior or the failure to learn functional
behavior; so client seemed more appropriately neutral. Now, however,
consumer is in the ascendancy; so in preparing the fourth edition of
this book, I did a search-and-replace, replacing client with consumer.
But it started getting too weird; so I checked with users of this book
and other professionals and students, and almost everyone said to
stick with client or some such term and to bag consumer. So I did
a reverse search-and-replace and am pretty much hanging in with
c
lient, at least for a while longer.


15

Roscoe, E. M., Iwata, B. A., & Kahng, S. (1999) Relative versus absolute reinforcement effects: Implications for preference assessments.
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 32, 479–493.

16

For example, http://www.interventioncentral.org/index.php/
developmentally-disabled/125-forced-choice-reinforcer-assessmentguidelines and Berg, W. K., Wacker, D. P., & Steege, M. W. (1995). Best
practices in assessment with persons who have severe or profound
handicaps. In A. Thomas & J. Grimes (Eds.), Best practices in school
psychology-III (3rd ed., pp. 805–816). Washington, DC: National Association of School Psychologists.

02/09/13 7:05 PM

10


Autism Enrichment17
“This is how Jimmy spends most of his day. It’s so
depressing . . .”
“I’m so sorry, Mrs. Lewis, I know it can be difficult
to be the parent of a child with autism.”
Jimmy Lewis had been given the diagnosis of autism
at the age of two; he was now three. At the moment, he
was sitting in the middle of the living room floor.
As his mother and the new occupational therapist
watched, Jimmy engaged in a mix of arm flapping, head
rolling, eye squinting, and full-body rocking. This complicated but seemingly pointless behavior was quite
painful for his parents to watch day after day. Like many
children with autism, Jimmy’s repertoire included a
variety of self-stimulatory behaviors—behaviors that are
automatically reinforced by the sensory stimuli from that
behavior, like singing or twirling. Also, skills children
normally have by the age of three were conspicuously
absent from his repertoire. Jimmy didn’t make eye contact, talk, or play with toys the way most kids do. Instead
of rolling cars down the ramp, he would hold them in
front of his face and simply stare and stare at the spinning wheels.
“The occupational therapist we had worked with
told us that he has a sensory processing disorder,” Amy
Lewis said, “And that’s why he has to do this type of
behavior.”
“Did your former therapist say what a sensory processing disorder was, Mrs. Lewis?” asked Kate, the newly
referred occupational therapist (OT) who had just gotten
her MA from Big State University last year, and was the
newest BCBA in town.
“Well, kind of, but I was a little confused. I’m no
neurologist after all.”
“I might have a simpler explanation for why your
son does his self-stimulatory behaviors so often,” Kate
said. “And you might be surprised at how useful this
explanation will be.”
Having studied behavior analysis as well as occupational therapy, Kate was a master of the basic principles
of behavior. So, rather than relying on the hypothetical
concept of sensory processing disorder (an explanatory
fiction) to explain Jimmy’s behavior, she told Amy about
the concept of reinforcers. Many stimuli arose when
Jimmy flapped his hands and engaged in all his other
stereotypic behaviors. He could see his hands moving
quickly in front of his face. He could feel the air on his
face. Rolling his head repeatedly led to some interesting
sensations of dizziness. These stimuli arose every time
Jimmy engaged in his repetitive behaviors. And Jimmy

kept stimming18 and stimming. Kate suspected that
because these stimuli had greatly increased the stereotypic behaviors they followed, they were probably functioning as reinforcers for those stereotypic behaviors.
“So you’re saying there’s nothing wrong with my
son’s sensory processing?” Amy said.
“I’m saying there’s a much simpler way to explain
his behavior,” Kate said, “and I’ve seen this and the
other principles of behavior at work with all my clients.
Actually, not just my clients, but myself and all living
things.”
“But if these reinforcers affect everyone, then why
aren’t we all stimming like Jimmy?” Amy said.
“Oh we are!” Kate said. “I’ve been tapping my foot
nonstop since we sat down. And you’ve been twirling
your hair off and on as well.”
“That’s just because I’m nervous, and those innocent behaviors are nowhere near as bad as my son’s.”
“That’s true, but they probably would be, except
you and I are very aware of how other people regard
us. For our whole lives, we’ve gotten social disapproval
from those around us for stimming in an obvious way.
But our subtle behaviors have kept up just as much
as Jimmy’s more obvious ones. That’s the power of
reinforcers.”
Of course Kate was jumping ahead to Chapter 4,
but we won’t hold that against her, will we? Suffice it
to say, Kate understood the power reinforcers have to
increase behavior, and she was going to do her best to
harness that power to help Jimmy reduce his inappropriate behaviors and increase the appropriate ones. Stick
with us as we follow Jimmy’s journey throughout the
rest of the book.
The Label “Autistic”
Because behavior analysis is the most effective approach
to helping children with autism, and because many of
you readers will end up using behavior analysis with
such children, we’re putting more emphasis on these
applications of behavior analysis (but don’t worry, we’re
covering everything else too). Therefore, let’s say a few
words about “autism” and “autistic.”
Children vary greatly in terms of the quantity and
variety of adaptive and maladaptive behaviors they
exhibit. Some may exhibit a high frequency of adaptive
behaviors and a low frequency of maladaptive, dysfunctional, inappropriate behaviors. But some may exhibit
almost no adaptive behaviors and almost all maladaptive, dysfunctional, inappropriate behaviors. Children

17

MacDonald, et al. (2007). Stereotypy in young children with utism
a
and typically developing children. Research in Developmental
Disabilities, 28(3), 266–277.


18

Stimming is the behavior-analysis cute way of saying “engaging in
self-stimulatory behaviors.”

02/09/13 7:05 PM

Chapter 1 • The Reinforcer (Positive Reinforcer) 11

who exhibit a very high frequency of maladaptive
behaviors and a very low frequency of adaptive behaviors, especially verbal behavior (language), are often
labeled “autistic.”19
Examples of Appropriate Behaviors: eye contact,
social interaction with others, and age-appropriate
talking.

Examples of Inappropriate Behaviors: excessive crying, tantruming, aggression, hand-flapping, teethgrinding, nonsensical talking, and toe-walking.
Children whose repertoires are sufficiently dysfunctional for them to be labeled “autistic” rarely show
improvement unless they participate in an intensive
behavior-analysis training program.

Basic Enrichment
The Fundamentals vs. The Enrichment
Sections
We’ve divided this and the other chapters into two main
sections. We call the second section the Enrichment section. We call all the subsections that come before it the
Fundamentals section. You need to master all the issues,
concepts, procedures, analyses, and examples in the
Fundamentals section to understand the Fundamentals
sections of the following chapters. The Fundamentals
are the bare bones.However, you don’t need to master
the material in the Enrichment sections to understand
the Fundamentals in later chapters. But many professors
and students think the Enrichment sections are the best
part of this book. Your professor may agree and may
wish to include parts or all of the Enrichment sections
on your quizzes as well. He or she probably will let
you know. We’ve also divided the Enrichment sections
of many chapters into two levels—basic and intermediate, and even an occasional advanced section. I’ve tried
to keep the basic level on the same level of difficulty
as the Fundamentals sections. The intermediate level
is more difficult, though it assumes no knowledge of
behavior analysis before you read this book; and the
occasional advanced sections are very difficult (to see
more Advanced Enrichment sections, go to DickMalott.

com and click on the icon showing the cover of this
book). Over the years we’ve also had to remove some
content from the book as we added new sections. And
we always come up with more we want to discuss but
just don’t have the space to do so. Luckily, we’ve found
a home for all the content that falls into these categories, and it’s at DickMalott.com. So just head to the
Principles of Behavior page of DickMalott.com, and
click on online enrichment, to be as cool as we know
you are.
Why Just A Behavioral View?20
Sid’s Seminar
Max: I’ve been reading ahead, and it looks as if
this book deals mainly with behavior analysis.
It doesn’t say much about other approaches
to psychology. Why not psychoanalysis, Freud,
Piaget, information processing, cognitive psychology, humanistic psychology?
Joe: What do you expect? The title of the book is
Principles of Behavior.
Tom: That may be the title of the book, but shouldn’t
we be getting a broader view of the various psychological theories in this class?
Sid: An interesting point. Psychology sure isn’t
short on theories. We have Freud, Jung, Piaget,
cognitive psychology, humanistic psychology,
gestalt psychology . . .
Joe: The people in California produce a new pop
theory almost every week.
Sid: Here’s what I’ve found in teaching this course.
I tried to cover all the theories, but the students

19

Many people, including me, are uncomfortable with applying
labels to people, such as saying, Jimmy is autistic. It would be more
accurate to say, Jimmy has an autistic repertoire. Recently some
people have begun to use the expressions, with autism and with
retardation. And while I think the desire to stop labeling people is
a noble one, I’m afraid such expressions as with autism cause even
more problems. It suggests that autism is a thing, like a disease, like
a cold, that a person has caught. But, as we will see in Chapter 2,
inferring a causal entity from a person’s behavior is the illogical form
of analysis called reification, which results from circular reasoning:
Why does Jimmy act strangely? Because he has autism. How do you
know he has autism? Because he acts strangely. Why does he act
strangely? Because he has. . . .
And around in the circular argument
you go. Better just to say he has autistic behaviors and then to look
independently for the causes—for example, in the child’s past and
present reinforcement and escape contingencies. However, in the real
world, it might not hurt for you to add with autism to your active
verbal repertoire.


20

At the risk of shameless self-promotion, let me tell those of you who
find yourselves falling in love with Sid, Dawn, Mae, Juke, Rod, and the
gang, you can learn more about their history as college students like
you (well not Rod) in Malott, R. W. & Whaley, D. L. (1976). Psychology.
Kalamazoo, MI: Behaviordelia, available on DickMalott.com.

02/09/13 7:05 PM

12


were shortchanged. They didn’t learn enough
about any one theory to really understand it,
let alone make use of it. At best, they learned
a few clichés they could use in making small
talk. They didn’t appreciate or understand the
theories. They gained no solid knowledge. They
learned no useful skills. On the other hand,
when I devote a whole course to a single approach, the students understand and appreciate that approach—both its strengths and its
weaknesses.
Tom: OK, but why behavior analysis? Why not
Freud?
Sid: Because I’m a professional behavior analyst.
Behavior analysis is what I teach best. However,
I used to assign a chapter on Freud that I was
excited about but my students couldn’t get
into Freud. (To see the Freud chapter, go to
DickMalott.com.)
Joe: Also, behavior analysis has more scientific
data supporting it and can be applied to more
areas than any other approach.
Sue: Professor Harper said if you want to study
Freud, you have to go to the English department. He said almost no major psychology department in North America takes Freud too seriously any more.
S id : Here’s one more reason I concentrate on
behavior analysis, rather than an eclectic approach. With a bachelor’s degree in general
psych, there’s almost no job you can get using
what you’ve learned about psychology. But, if
you’ve had some training in behavior analysis,
like what you’ll get in this course, you can
get a job as soon as you graduate, using applied behavior analysis, if you’re willing to
go where the jobs are; and they’re all around
the country and starting to be all around the
world. Most of these bachelor’s jobs involve
working with children classified as autistic,
people classified as mentally impaired, and
people with brain injuries. (To find more
about behavior-analysis job opportunities,
go to DickMalott.com.) And we’ll study more
about working with these clients throughout
this course.

How To Use The Study Questions
Now we’re starting to roll. But before we start rolling
so fast that we get out of control, let’s take a brief break
and spend the next two sections discussing how to use
this book. Then we can really get up to speed. We interrupt now because you may need this information to
most effectively reread this chapter and read the remaining chapters.


Question:
What are the main questions of the previous sections?
What are the main points? What are the main goals?
What are the main questions your professor might ask
you on your next quiz?
Answer:
The questions listed under the “Questions” headings.
(Your professor will probably tell you what, if any, relation there is between our questions in the book and his
or her questions on quizzes and exams.)
Whenever you finish a section or so, you should
be able to answer those questions placed at the end of
those sections. If you can’t, then give the section another
shot. Whenever you finish a chapter, you should still be
able to answer those questions. So review it quickly to
be sure. Whenever you take a quiz or exam, you should
still be able to answer the questions. So take at least a
half hour or more to review the questions for each chapter before each quiz.
But there’s more to life than study questions. You
also should read the sections to which the study questions refer. For one thing, it may be tough trying to
memorize answers that don’t make sense. A quick skim
won’t be enough. Carefully reading the relevant sections
should put more sense into the questions, the answers,
and you. For another thing, if I were your professor, we’d
probably ask you a few more questions that weren’t in
the list of questions, just to keep you sharp. Or from a
more long-range view: The questions list only the main
points, not all the points. But there’s more we hope you
get from this book than we can test you on—for example, an appreciation of the field of behavior analysis.
In Defense of Easy Questions
and Tedious Memorization
My view of the level of these study questions may shock
you. They require no more intellectual skills than you’ll
find in your average turnip. Yet memorizing their answers
requires more work than we should ask of a self- especting
r
college student. The study questions don’t require you to
think; just memorize every concept, principle, and general
rule, word for word. (It doesn’t have to be word for word,
just perfect; but word for word is the safest.)
Why? Because of a surprising report from our best,
most thoughtful, and most creative students. Over the
years, they’ve reported that it helped them to memorize everything first. Like memorizing the vocabulary
for your Spanish course. Memorize our concepts and
you’ll use them with greater ease; and use them you
must! Then, as a result of using the concepts and principles awhile, you’ll understand them. You no longer
will need to worry with your memorized definitions.
Memorize and you take one small but helpful step
toward enlightenment.

02/09/13 7:05 PM

Chapter 1 • The Reinforcer (Positive Reinforcer) 13

Also, there’s a good chance your instructor will be
a real stickler on the quizzes. You’ll define a term in a
way that looks good to you, but your instructor will say,
“No, you left out a word that changes the whole meaning of the definition.”
“It was just one word!”
“Right, the most crucial word.”
“But I was close.”
“Not close enough.”
“But I meant to include that word; I just forgot.”
“Right. See you in class next week.”
The thing is, even with years of experience in
behavior analysis, we’ve had to spend hours defining
these terms so the definitions would say exactly what
they need to say. (We even had to enlist the help of
many of our friends and colleagues and undergrad students too.) The odds aren’t too high that you can do it
casually if this is your first tour of the land of behavior
analysis. (Remember, you can get our free flash cards at
DickMalott.com.)
Of course, you should check with your instructor
to see the exact relation between these study questions
and the quizzes and tests in your particular course.
And when we ask for examples, you can just tell us
the ones in the book; fine with us! They don’t have to
be original. Here’s why I don’t usually require original
examples on quizzes: By itself, a textbook such as this
can’t get your repertoire to the point where you can reliably discriminate between examples and nonexamples
of concepts, let alone reliably generate correct, original
examples; so we think just remembering our examples
is a step in the right direction. When we use this book,
we supplement it with a workbook, How to Analyze
Behavioral Contingencies (you can get access to it at

DickMalott.com). That workbook trains you to creatively
generate original examples and analyze novel examples
of our concepts. However, whether or not your professor is using this workbook, there’s a good chance he or
she may want you to generate original examples on the
quizzes and not be satisfied with your just repeating the
examples from the book. There’s also a good chance he
or she will tell you in advance, but you know how professors are, so you might want to check up front.
How To Read Textbooks
Follow these guidelines when you’re reading any
textbook:
• Know the title of the book. That may help you
better understand what the book is talking about
while you’re reading it. It may help you keep the
big picture. This is not the big book or the blue
book; it’s Principles of Behavior. We know one professor, Jerry Mertens, who’s so convinced of the
importance of this knowledge that he asks for the
textbook titles on his exams—not a bad idea.
• Know the title of the chapter and section.
Remembering the chapter and section title while
you’re reading a section will help you understand
the purpose of the examples. And remembering
that will help you answer quiz questions such as
What’s Rod’s sleep problem an example of?
• Relate examples to concepts and principles.
Look at the concept and principle defined just
before or just after an example and see how the
example illustrates that concept or principle. Doing
this will also help you better understand what you
read and answer quiz questions.

Intermediate Enrichment
Biological Evolution and Reinforcers
Life is full of stimuli, events, activities, and conditions
that help us (they nourish our body’s cells or help our
population survive). Fortunately, most animals, including the human animal, have evolved so that many of

those biologically helpful stimuli also act as reinforcers.
For example, we tend to repeat acts that produce food,
water, and sex. Eating food and water help us as individuals to survive. Sexual intercourse helps us as a species to survive.

Behavioral Event
Before
Your distant
ancestor had no
reinforcing taste
of food.


Behavior
Your distant
ancestor found
and ate food.

Biological Results
After
Your distant
ancestor had the
reinforcing taste
of food.

Your distant ancestor
was nourished, was
more likely to survive,
and was more likely to
reproduce and continue
the lineage that
produced YOU!

02/09/13 7:05 PM

14


Sex is fun for us as individuals, but it doesn’t help us
as individuals. We have evolved in such a way that food
and water are reinforcers because consuming food and
water has allowed individuals to survive long enough to
produce and raise offspring. The reason we have evolved
in such a way that sexual stimulation is a reinforcer is
that the resulting sexual stimulation has caused individuals to copulate and thus produce offspring.
Unfortunately, not all beneficial stimuli are sufficient reinforcers for many of us. For example, most
adults (and an alarming number of kids) in the United
States fail to find the stimulation from physical exercise much of a reinforcer. So they fail to do the exercise
needed to keep their bodies in good shape.
And, unfortunately, not all reinforcers are good for
us, at least in the quantities many of us now consume.
Salt, simple, processed sugar, and trans fats are examples.

“I’ll have a fudge sundae after I finish these nachos.” Or
you can trash yourself big time by having a cup of coffee
with cream and sugar as you finish off your cigarette.
Harmful reinforcers have become so prominent in our
modern world that I’ve adopted this policy:

If it feels too good, be careful. ’Cause it’ll likely
sneak up from behind and bite your butt.

Question
1.
Please give the following examples:

a. an example of a reinforcer that is helpful for you
b. a helpful stimulus that is not a reinforcer
c. a reinforcer that is harmful

On DickMalott.com
Additional BACB Information
Ch. 1 Advanced Enrichment Section
• PROBABILITY, RATE, AND FREQUENCY
• OPERANT CONDITIONING


02/09/13 7:05 PM

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