Continuous Versus Intermittent Reinforcement

• It’s behavior suppressing powers usually disappears when the threat of punishment is removed.
• It often triggers a fight-or-flight response and renders us aggressive if escape is not an option.
• It inhibits the ability to learn new and better responses, oft...

• Rewarding the behavior immediately may take time away from the behavior’s continuation.
• It’s cheaper not to reward every instance of a desired behavior.
• By making the rewards unpredictable, you trigger excitement and thus get an increase in response witho...

• Stopping rewards to an undesirable behavior while rewarding desirable behaviors.
• Positively reinforcing a less preferred activity with a more preferred activities.
• Giving a prompt, a stimulus that encourages the desired behavior. Then reinforcing any app...

Scheduling the rewards on intermittent reinforcement can be used on various schedules, each with its own degree of effectiveness and situations to which it can be appropriately applied. Some of the schedules are:

• Fixed-ratio: used to reward based on the amount of work don...