Some weaknesses of a response-strength account of reinforcer effects

Abstract

ABSTRACT The idea that reinforcers control behaviour because they alter behaviour’s strength has been key to both research and practice in behaviour analysis. Yet despite substantial research, the duration, magnitude, and target of reinforcer strengthening is not clearly set out by existing theories of behaviour. In fact, this research has generated more questions than answers, prompting some behaviour analysts to call for novel approaches to understanding the transaction between behaviour and environment. This article considers three key questions a response-strength approach to understanding behaviour has failed to answer, and then explores how we might understand behavior in terms of control by correlations, affordances, and dispositions, instead of control by strengthening. Ultimately, the data suggest that the transaction between behaviour, organism, and environment is best described without any reference to the hypothetical construct of response strength.