ABSTRACT

This chapter discusses operant behavior is an open economy in which animals are maintained in a constant state of deprivation throughout an experiment. The process of shaping a simple operant response consists of reinforcement of closer and closer approximations to the response while extinguishing previously reinforced approximations. Microeconomics is the study of economics applied to a small group or even a single individual. From a behavioral economic point of view, an individual's operant responses or time spent engaging in operant responding is analogous to the resources of a worker or consumer in an economy. There are two general approaches to analyzing the effects of schedules of reinforcement on responding: molar analysis and molecular analysis. Response generalization is one of two essential ingredients of response shaping, the other essential ingredient being reinforcement. A shaping algorithm is a sequence of shaping steps so precisely specified that a program could be written for a computer to carry them out.