ABSTRACT
In this chapter the author approaches the topic of operant–Pavlovian interactions by examining the role of second-order conditioned reflexes. He suggests that second-order conditioning has received unjustified “bad press” and cannot simply be dismissed as the weaker version of first-order conditioning. The author offers compelling evidence for its stability and resistance to a change by a variety of key independent variables. He then suggests a number of ways in which experimental operations performed within the context of instrumental conditioning may yield effects that are actually mediated through the establishment of second-order conditioning. Together with the belief that second-order conditioning is weak and difficult to demonstrate has gone the impression that it is so transient and unstable as to be of only minor interest. There is a second kind of decremental operation to which second-order conditioned responses are surprisingly insensitive.
