ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how new responses occur for the first time without instruction, demonstration, or guidance. Once a new response occurs, schedules of reinforcement come into play to determine the rate at which it occurs and its rate patterns and variations. The chapter examines ways in which an operant response first comes to be generated and how subsequent patterns of reinforcement affect its overall and moment-to-moment probability of occurrence. The process of behavioural shaping a simple operant response consists of reinforcement of closer and closer approximations to the response while extinguishing previously reinforced approximations. Thus, another name for behavioural or response shaping is the method of successive approximations. There are two general approaches to analyzing the effects of schedules of reinforcement on responding: molar analysis and molecular analysis. The chapter examines how different movement patterns develop under different reinforcement schedules can help to understand how these schedules generate their characteristic rates and patterns of responding.
