When four-year-old Aileen goes to the store with her dad and whines for candy at the checkout, she gets the candy. But when she goes with her mom, whining never ends up getting her a candy. Before long, Aileen only whines when she is at the store with her dad. This is called:
A) continuous reinforcement.
B) successive approximation.
C) stimulus discrimination.
D) stimulus generalization.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

Stimulus discrimination occurs when an organism learns to respond differently to various stimuli that are similar but not identical. In this case, Aileen has learned to discriminate between the stimuli of being at the store with her dad and being at the store with her mom, and she only whines with her dad because she has learned that it is more likely to result in getting candy.

When Four-Year-Old Aileen Goes to the Store with Her Dad