This is actually sort of an addendum to Part 4 of this series, some thoughts I had quite a bit after writing the original series.
Random Reinforcement is Not Reinforcing Randomly
This is just one of those little pedantic notes both to illustrate a different concept and to make sure that I didn’t give people the wrong idea about what I meant by writing confusingly. In Because We Let Them Part 1, I talked about how, once a behavior is established, moving to a random reinforcement schedule tends to reinforce it further. Basically, you end up teaching that it’s worth doing the behavior ‘just in case’ a reward is coming.
And, again, you do this only after reinforcing a behavior (such as “sit” with a dog or whatever you’re trying to get a human to do) consistently enough for it to become a normal behavior (so you reinforce the absolute hell out of it initially).… Keep Reading