shaping: a standalone construct

In behaviour analysis and teaching, shaping builds a new behaviour by reinforcing successive approximations to it: responses that come a little closer to the goal are rewarded while earlier, cruder ones are no longer reinforced, so the behaviour is gradually sculpted into its final form. Skinner's Science and human behavior set out the method, likening the teacher or experimenter to a sculptor working the raw material of behaviour. The referent is the differential reinforcement of closer and closer tries toward a target response, measured by movement of the response toward criterion, and it is a different construct from regulating the rate of network traffic.[1]

Unit

The progress of a response toward a target through reinforced approximations

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Tracked by the changing form of the response and the criterion required for reinforcement at each step