Self-inhibiting effects of reinforcement

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Links to Files

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16811682/

Permanent Link

https://doi.org/10.1901/jeab.1973.19-517
 http://hdl.handle.net/11603/35859

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UMBC Faculty Collection
UMBC Psychology Department

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Author/Creator ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0507-8707

Date

1973-05

Type of Work

journal articles
Text

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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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Subjects

reinforcement
excitatory effect
responses

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.