Why Your Distant Reinforcers Aren't!: The Myth, The Madness and The Fix!

Event Description

In the laboratory, if a pigeon receives food more than a few seconds after pecking an illuminated disc, it will never learn to key peck to get food. This is a characteristic of reinforcement. It’s instantaneous when it occurs as a natural phenomenon. When we set up artificial long-term reinforcement contingencies, IT’S NOT THE SAME THING! “Do your homework now, and you’ll get video games later tonight” describes a reinforcement contingency, but behavior motivated by this description is rule-governed behavior with a special learning history. The thrust of the presentation is that rules describing reinforcement contingencies is NOT the same as real-time reinforcement and the stimuli that maintain problem behavior ARE real-time reinforcement.

CEUs: 1.5 CE

REGISTER

Learning Objectives:

1. Participants will be able to describe the role of language in the use of distant reinforcers
2. Participants will be able to explain WHY distant reinforcers are not technically reinforcers at all
3. Participants will be able to describe how to determine if a conditioned reinforcer truly has any power to move behavior
4. Participants will be able to describe the 2 critical features of reinforcement. It must be both ________ and ________
5. Participants will be able to explain to staff WHY knowledge of a contingency is not the same as real-time reinforcement

Register Now, watch later on BehaviorLive!

This event will be recorded and available on-demand for existing registrants. Register now, and access it live or on-demand for CEUs.