Thread: Shaping
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Old 03-30-2006, 03:49 PM   #1
wolf
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Join Date: Jul 2001
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Shaping

There is a concept in behavioral psychology called shaping. By offering rewards for the preferred behavior, and ignoring the undesirable behavior, incidences of the preferred behavior increase. Say for example the purpose of the experiment was to increase the (unknowing) subject’s use of the word “the.” The experimenter would smile every time the subjected said “the” and remain straight-faced otherwise. Over even a short period of time, the use of the target word (or other desired behavior, such as looking to the right rather than at the examiner) should increase in frequency.
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