132k views
4 votes
Sieta wants to teach her daughter to say "Please" when she asks for something, so she decides to only comply with her daughter's request for something when her daughter says "Please." Thus, Sieta's compliance to her daughter's request is

a. a token
b. a negative reinforcer
c. response-contingent
d. the CS

1 Answer

5 votes

Final answer:

Sieta's decision to comply with her daughter's requests only when she says "Please" is an application of response-contingent reinforcement, which is a form of operant conditioning intended to reinforce polite behavior.

Step-by-step explanation:

The compliance of Sieta to her daughter's request upon hearing "Please" is best described as c. response-contingent. This term refers to the fact that the mother's compliance is contingent on the daughter's response of saying "Please". It is a form of operant conditioning, where Sieta is trying to strengthen the desired behavior of politeness in her daughter by only complying with requests that are politely made.

In the context of behavioral psychology, when a behavior is followed by a favorable outcome, the behavior is more likely to occur in the future. In Sieta's case, the daughter learns that saying "Please" results in getting what she requests, which reinforces this polite behavior. This approach, widely used by parents and educators, relies on positive reinforcement. The compliance isn't a token, as it is not an exchangeable item for a reward, nor is it a negative reinforcer since it doesn't remove an aversive stimulus. It also isn't the conditioned stimulus (CS) as it doesn't elicit the conditioned response without prior learning.

User Amit Das
by
8.0k points