Schedules of Reinforcement

Description of the Strategy

Schedules of reinforcement describe the rules for arranging reinforcers. Reinforcers are stimuli (physical events) that strengthen behaviors that precede and typically produce them. Behaviors that are strengthened by reinforcement are termed operant, because they operate on the environment to produce an important change. The response-strengthening effects of reinforcement typically involve an increase in the future rate or probability of operant behavior under similar circumstances in the future, although other changes in behavior (e.g., a decrease in latency or increase in amplitude) can also be indicative of reinforcement.

Schedules of reinforcement may specify temporal requirements, response requirements, or both. A huge variety of schedules can be arranged in controlled settings. Although several variables influence performance under a given schedule, basic research makes it clear that rates and temporal patterns of responding are strongly influenced by the way in which reinforcers are arranged. Schedules of reinforcement also influence choice and resistance of behavior to disruption (e.g., by extinction). Exposure to one kind of schedule may influence subsequent patterns of responding under another schedule. Finally, schedules of reinforcement play an important role in establishing control of behavior by antecedent discriminative stimuli.

Although the distinction is not particularly useful, it is convention to distinguish between positive and negative reinforcement. Schedules of positive reinforcement specify the requirements for adding something, termed a positive reinforcer, to the environment. If, for example, a therapist regularly praises a depressed client for making positive statements and more such statements are made as a result, then praise is functioning as a positive reinforcer and the therapist has arranged a schedule of positive reinforcement for making positive statements.

Schedules of negative reinforcement specify the requirements for removing something, termed a negative reinforcer, from the environment, or for postponing or presenting the delivery of such a reinforcer. It is standard practice to distinguish escape behavior, which is evident when responding is strengthened because it terminates or reduces the intensity of a stimulus, from avoidance behavior, which is evident when responding is strengthened because it prevents or postpones the presentation of an otherwise forthcoming stimulus. If, for example, a baby cries each night unless allowed to sleep in her parents' bed, her parents may move the baby to their bed after it cries as escape behavior, or before it cries as avoidance behavior. In both cases, the baby's crying is a negative reinforcer. “Negative” in this sense does not refer to the value of the increase in behavior produced by reinforcement or to the ethical or practical value of a particular reinforcement procedure. Neither negative nor positive reinforcement automatically produces desired or undesired changes in behavior, and although the majority of clinical applications involve positive reinforcement, both can be used to therapeutic advantage. Although negative reinforcement frequently is confused with punishment, which weakens behavior, it is important to recognize that both positive and negative reinforcement strengthen the designated operant response.

Because of their powerful effects on behavior, schedules of reinforcement potentially are of great clinical importance. By arranging appropriate schedules of reinforcement, it frequently is possible to increase appropriate responding. In general, people fail to behave in desired ways because they do not know how to do so or because their everyday [Page 502]environment does not arrange sufficient reinforcement to maintain appropriate behavior. For example, a woman with severe cognitive impairments may fail to make her bed because she has not been taught to make it or because there are no significant consequences (reinforcers or punishers) regardless of whether or not her bed is made. In the former case, contrived schedules of reinforcement could be used as part of a training program involving shaping and chaining. In the latter, contrived schedules could be used to engender and maintain appropriate responding. For example, each time her bed was made by 8 a.m., the woman might receive praise and have a magnetic star attached to the metal headboard of her bed. When five stars were earned, they could be exchanged for a desired object or activity. Failing to make her bed by 8 would result in the loss of a star. This arrangement, which could be construed as a schedule of reinforcement, might well lead to consistent bed making.

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