Practice question · Multiple choice
A trainer wants a rat to press a lever it has never touched. Waiting for the press and reinforcing it could take forever. What does shaping do instead?
Hints
- Reinforcement can only act on behaviour that happens. Ask what the rat is already doing.
- The target is rare. What nearby behaviour is common?
Show the answer
A. Reinforces successive approximations toward the target
Why
Reinforcement can only strengthen what occurs, so shaping manufactures the occurrence: reward whatever is closest, then raise the bar. It is how animals are trained, how physiotherapy progresses, and why teaching a hard skill means finding the version of it the learner can already do.
Practise Operant Conditioning
The app has 5 more questions on this lesson, and keeps your place in the course. Psychology I is free to start.
More questions on Operant Conditioning
- Match each real-world example to the reinforcement schedule it illustrates.
- A gambler at a slot machine and an office worker paid every second Friday are both on reinforcement…
- Order the steps of shaping a rat to press a lever it has never touched.
- Sort each consequence by whether it makes the behavior MORE likely (reinforcement) or LESS likely…