ABSTRACT
Behaviorists often get sucked into their own similar futile quest. Behaviorists search for the perpetual-behavior intervention: the people modify the behavior, the modified behavior maintains itself, and they never have to deliver another behavioral consequence. Behaviorists often get too desperate in their quest for the perpetual-behavior intervention. The first part of this chapter is about how the people try to do that. Sally's bicycle riding shows performance maintained by the behavior trap. People have often been confused about the maintenance of performance and its transfer to novel settings. Many confuse stimulus generalization and response induction with what the people call the maintenance and transfer of performance. Verbal clients can learn rules in training and then use those rules to govern their behavior in testing settings. Rule control may help the reader maintain their performance in the absence of natural direct-acting contingencies of reinforcement and punishment.
