Self-inhibiting effects of reinforcement

Author/Creator

Date

1973-05

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

Catania, A. Charles. “Self-Inhibiting Effects of Reinforcement.” Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior 19, no. 3 (May 1973): 517–26. https://doi.org/10.1901/jeab.1973.19-517.

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Abstract

The reinforcers produced by one response reduce the rate of other, concurrently reinforced responses. An analysis of the logical and empirical implications of the relation indicates that one reinforcer must have this effect on responses maintained by other reinforcers even when all reinforcers are produced by the same class of responses. A quantitative expression of the relation leads to a formulation, mathematically equivalent to Herrnstein's (1970), in which the rate of a reinforced response is a joint function of (1) an excitatory effect of the reinforcers produced by that class of responses, and (2) an inhibitory effect of the total reinforcers produced both by that class and by other classes of responses.