ABSTRACT
The search for a law that governs molar operant behavior has been a partial success. The matching law in its continuous pressure version or equivalent is true and useful. But it leaves us short of any real understanding of the learning process and the effect of stimuli—reinforcers and others—on it. What has been gained is some understanding of the role of competition among behaviors in determining choice. To a first approximation, the level of an activity, be it pecking, eating, or sexual violence, is a sort of electoral, winner-take-all competition between the stimuli activating a response and the competing activities, covert as well as overt, that tend to inhibit it. The importance of competition among activities, covert as well as overt, is one simple lesson afforded by behavioral contrast and the matching law.
