Jia is a bear trainer at the circus.She wants to teach Barney the bear to ride a unicycle.To do this,Jia first rewards Barney for sitting up.Then she rewards Barney only if he sits on the unicycle seat.Next she rewards him only for sitting on the unicycle seat and raising his paws toward the pedals and so on.By show time,Barney can ride the unicycle.This method is called ____.
A) higher-order conditioning
B) reconditioning
C) shaping
D) latent learning

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The method Jia used to teach Barney to ride the unicycle is called shaping. Shaping involves reinforcing behaviors that are increasingly similar to the desired behavior. In this case, Jia rewarded Barney for sitting up, then for sitting on the unicycle seat, then for raising his paws, and so on until he could ride the unicycle. Higher-order conditioning involves pairing a neutral stimulus with a conditioned stimulus to create a new conditioned stimulus. Reconditioning involves extinguishing a conditioned response and then creating a new one through conditioning. Latent learning involves acquiring knowledge or skills without apparent reinforcement, which is not the case here.

Jia Is a Bear Trainer at the Circus