Transferring Behavior to New Settings and Making It Last: Generality of Behavior

Change

Chapter 16

Generality

• Trained behavior transfers form training situation to natural environment

• Training leads to development of new behavior that has not been specifically trained

• Trained behavior is maintained in the natural environment over time

Stimulus Generalization

• Behavior becomes more probable in the presence of the stimulus or situation as a result of having been reinforced in the presence of another stimulus or situation– Physical similarity– Stimuli in common-element class– Stimuli in equivalence class

Response Generalization

• Behavior more probable in the presence of a stimulus or situation as a result of another behavior having been strengthened in the presence of that situation– Considerable physical similarity of responses– Minimal physical similarity of responses– Functionally equivalent responses

• Different responses that produce the same consequences

– Cooking dinner – different methods, food produced• Behavioral momentum – as a result of

reinforcement, probability of other functionally equivalent responses increases

Programming

• Two important situations:– Training situation– Target situation – where we want the

generality to occur

• The more physically similar the training and the target situations are, the more stimulus generalization will occur

Programming Operant Stimulus Generalization

• Train in the target situation– Want the final stages to be in a

situation as close to target as possible– Best way train in target situation

• Vary the training conditions– Greater variety of stimuli during

training means there is greater probability that the stimuli will be present in target situation

Programming Operant Stimulus Generalization

• Program Common Stimuli– Use stimuli that are present in both the

training and target settings

• Train Sufficient Stimulus Exemplars– Training occurs in large number of

situations and to large number of stimuli

– General case programming

Programming Operant Response Generalization

• Train sufficient response exemplars– Star, stars– Apple, apples, plant, plants

• Vary the acceptable response during training– Creativity

Programming Operant Behavior Maintenance

• Want behavior to last• Depends upon whether behavior

will continue to be reinforced• Behavioral Trapping

– Design program so it matches the contingencies available in natural envinronment

– Behavior will be trapped – maintained – by natural environment

Programming Operant Behavior Maintenance

• Change the behavior of people in the environment– Work with people in environment to teach

them to reinforce appropriate behaviors

• Intermittent schedules of reinforcements in target situation

• Give control to individual– Assess and reinforce own generalized

behavior– Recruit a natural community of reinforcement

• Feedback from people around

Pitfalls of Generality

• Some behaviors should not be generalized– May be inappropriate in some

situations

• Sometimes learning fails to be generalized