The Essentials of Conditioning and Learning by Michael Domjan

Author:Michael Domjan
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: American Psychological Association

RESPONSE DEPRIVATION AND THE LOCUS OF REINFORCEMENT EFFECTS

In addition to avoiding the problems involved in computing response probabilities, the response deprivation hypothesis shifted the locus of the explanation of reinforcement. In earlier theories, reinforcement was explained in terms of factors that were outside the instrumental conditioning procedure itself. With drive-reduction theory, the external factor involved procedures that established a drive state. With Premack’s principle, the external factor involved the differential baseline probabilities of the reinforcer and instrumental responses. In contrast, with the response deprivation hypothesis, the locus of reinforcement rests with how the instrumental conditioning procedure constrains the organism’s activities. This was a new idea. Never before had someone suggested that reinforcement effects are determined by the response restrictions that are an inherent feature of all instrumental conditioning procedures.

The response deprivation hypothesis moved our understanding of reinforcement forward in that it avoided some of the problems of Premack’s principle. However, just like Premack’s principle, the response deprivation hypothesis only provided an answer to the question “What makes something effective as a reinforcer?” The answer to the other major question, “How does a reinforcer produce an increase in the probability of the reinforced response?” had to await examining how instrumental conditioning changes how individuals distribute their behavior among various response options.

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