ABSTRACT
Antecedent Control Because our behavior of responding to various antecedent stimuli (people, places, words, smells, sounds, etc.) has been reinforced, punished, or extinguished, those stimuli exert control over our behavior whenever they occur. Before designing a lengthy behavior modification program involving procedures like shaping and chaining, it’s important to ask, “Can I capitalize on existing forms of stimulus control?” Susan’s sport psychologist did not go through a lengthy shaping process. Instead, the psychologist capitalized on Susan’s reinforcement history of responding to instructions. Treatment packages that focus on the manipulation of antecedent stimuli-also called antecedents-fall into the categories of rules, goals, modeling, physical guidance, situational inducement, and motivation. We discuss the first two categories in this chapter and the others in the next two chapters. (For additional discussion of antecedent interventions for problem behavior, see Smith, 2011.)
Rules In behavioral terminology, a rule describes a situation in which a behavior will lead to a consequence. Speaking loosely, it is a statement that a specific behavior will “pay off” or have a bad outcome in a particular situation. When we were infants, rules were meaningless. As we grew older, we learned that following rules often led to rewards (e.g., “If you eat all your vegetables, you can have dessert.”) or enabled us to avoid punishers (e.g., “If you’re not quiet, I’ll send you to your room.”). Thus, a rule can function as an SD-a cue that emitting the behavior specified by the rule will lead to the reinforcer identified in the rule, or a cue that not following the rule will lead to a punisher (Skinner, 1969; Tarbox, Zuckerman, Bishop, Olive, & O’Hora, 2011; Vaughan, 1989). (As described in the next section and in Chapter 19, rules can also function as motivating operations.)
Sometimes rules clearly identify reinforcers or punishers associated with the rules, as illustrated in the foregoing examples. In other cases, consequences are implied. A parent saying to a child in an excited voice, “Wow! Look at that!” looking in the indicated direction will likely enable the child to see something interesting. Reinforcers are also implied for rules stated in the form of advice. For example, the advice “You should get a good education” typically implies that doing so will lead to favorable consequences such as a well-paying job. On the other hand, rules given in the form of a command or a threat imply that noncompliance will be punished. For example, the command “Don’t touch that vase” implies that touching it will lead to an unpleasantness such as a reprimand.
