Greg has terrible study habits. Whenever he is given an assignment to be done either in class or at home, he doesn't begin the assignment until he has been repeatedly nagged by either you (his teacher) or his parents. Furthermore, Greg seems unable to complete assignments without constant prodding to stay on task. Explain how you might use instrumental conditioning to help Greg develop better

Question

study habits. Be concrete and specific in your explanation of what you would do, and be sure to include each of the following in your description:

a. The baseline
b. The terminal behavior
c. A secondary reinforcer you might use
d. Shaping
e. Some means of preventing extinction

Answer 1

Answers to the separate parts of the question are as follows:
a. Greg's baseline for completing his assignments without reinforcement is quite low, as he rarely if ever completes them.
b. The desired terminal behavior is doing homework on a regular basis without being prodded.
c. Possible secondary reinforcers include praise, feedback, favorite activities, checkmarks or other tokens that can be traded in for something special, and so on. (Any reasonable secondary reinforcer is acceptable here.)
d. Descriptions of a shaping procedure will vary; the response should describe reinforcing a series of steps that become increasingly more similar to the desired terminal behavior.
e. Extinction can be prevented by continuing to reinforce Greg on an intermittent basis after the terminal behavior has been reached. It can also be prevented by continuing to provide an extrinsic reinforcer until such time as Greg finds studying behavior intrinsically reinforcing.