There is an old story about a young boy who was left to guard the village sheep.He was instructed to cry "wolf" if he thought the sheep were in danger.Even though there was no danger, the boy enjoyed crying "wolf" over and over, just to see the villagers come running.Then, when a wolf did appear, the disbelieving villagers ignored the boy's cry.The failure of the villagers to respond illustrates the operant conditioning concept called
A) acquisition.
B) stimulus generalization.
C) partial reinforcement.
D) operant extinction.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The failure of the villagers to respond to the boy's cry of "wolf" in the presence of an actual wolf is an example of operant extinction, which occurs when a behavior that has been reinforced (in this case, responding to the boy's cry of "wolf") is no longer reinforced and therefore decreases or stops altogether. The villagers had become desensitized to the boy's cries because he had cried "wolf" so many times when there was no actual danger, and as a result, did not respond when there was actually a wolf present.

There Is an Old Story About a Young Boy Who