Final answer:
Response-outcome contingency is the actual relationship between behavior and environmental outcomes, central to operant conditioning where a behavior's consequences influence its frequency.
Step-by-step explanation:
The correct answer to the student's question is d. Response-outcome contingency. This term refers to the actual, objective relationship between a person's behavior and the outcomes that result in the environment due to that behavior.
In operant conditioning, a type of associative learning, the focus is on this relationship: a behavior is followed by a consequence which then affects the likelihood of the behavior occurring in the future. If the consequence is perceived as positive (reinforcement), the behavior is more likely to be repeated, and if it is perceived as negative (punishment), the behavior is less likely to occur again.
In contrast, stimulus-response association is more aligned with classical conditioning, where a reflexive (involuntary) behavior is elicited by a conditioned stimulus. A reinforcement schedule pertains to the rules that govern the delivery of reinforcement in operant conditioning. Finally, behavior modification is a broader term that refers to techniques used to change behaviors, which may include various types of conditioning and reinforcement strategies.