Julie Vargas, PhD
Chair, Archival Committee, B. F. Skinner Foundation
A teacher goes to a student who has finished her work and says “Good work, Mary.” She tells you, “I reinforced Mary for working.”
The teacher’s statement to you is not correct. Why? The contingencies are wrong. A contingency is a relation between an action and its immediate consequence.
“Good work” may please Mary, but it will not strengthen working because the timing is wrong. If “Good work” is a reinforcer, it will strengthen whatever Mary was doing when she heard it. You can reward people, but you can reinforce only behavior.
It is hard to remember not to talk of reinforcing people. B. F. Skinner made that mistake many times. In a personal note in 1982, he wrote “It took me a long time to stop saying that a person, rather than behavior is reinforced.”