III. SHAPING
as of 10/17/17

A. ISSUES AND DAILY LIFE ILLUSTRATIONS:

1. Sayings and Proverbs, and the principle of Shaping.
“People should learn to live as they should learn anything else–from very small beginnings.” – Samuel Butler
a. You can build big things with a brick at a time.
b. A very good place to start is at the very beginning.
c. Great oaks from little acorns grow.
d. One must walk before one runs.
e. First things first.
f. Even God took six days to build the world.
g. Little strokes for little folks.
h. The most difficult problem in the world could have been solved when small.
i. This is the first day of the rest of your life. Make the most of it today.

2. This principle is metaphorically like the children’s game, “Hide the thimble,” where the person who is “it” is guided to the hiding place by calls of “You’re getting warm” (i.e. reinforcement).

B. DEFINITION OF SHAPING PRINCIPLE
The process of shaping makes possible the building of a new response. Building of new responses results from making reinforcements contingent upon successive approximations of the final behavior. Each succeeding response must be a closer approximation of the sought-after behavior than the preceding response was or reinforcement does not follow.

Q-1. Although it is necessary for one to wait for a behavior to occur before reinforcing it, it is possible to generate behavior by reinforcing gradual approximations of the final behavior.

Answer. (SHAPING)
By shaping, or successive approximation, we mean that we reinforce a response only when it more closely resembles the final behavior. By differential reinforcement we mean that we reinforce certain behaviors and do not reinforce others.

Q-2. One need not wait for near-perfect form before reinforcing behavior. One should use the principles of differential reinforcement and successive approximation to good form.

Answer. (SHAPING)

Q-3. In learning complex skills, the most effective method is to use gradual steps, changing the criterion for each response to be reinforced, so that it more closely resembles the complex response. This process is called ____.

Answer. (SUCCESSIVE APPROXIMATION)

Q-4. By gradually increasing the height at which the bar is cleared, the high jumper is ___ jumping behavior.

Answer. (SHAPING)

Q-5. When we use the method of approximations we _______.
a. reinforce only those responses that represent progress
b. ZAP
c. measure operant extinction
d. punish

Answer. (a)

Q-6. Shaping a pigeon to the key-peck response might include all of the following. Number these possible successive approximations in the order in which they would be reinforced (using “1” for the last to be reinforced):

A. moving within 1 inch of the key (2)
B. moving within 6 inches of the key (3)
C. moving within 12 inches of the key (4)
D. touching the key with his beak (1)

Q-7. A child’s verbal behavior contains all the sounds of all languages. Parents only _______ certain response products (sounds), and consequently only the parents’ language develops. (see Osgood, 1953)

Answer. (REINFORCE)
Q-8. As a child becomes older, increasing accuracy is required for verbal responses. A parent who requires successively more accurate verbal responses is using the _______ principle.

Answer. (SHAPING)

Q-9. In acquiring the behavior to bowl, specific body movements have to be shaped. The falling pins serve as a _______ for the bowling behavior.

Answer. (REINFORCER)
Q-10. In learning bowling, there is a relatively long period of _______ between the ball leaving the bowler’s hand and the ball reaching the pins.

Answer. (TIME)
Q-11. When “feedback” from the bowler’s body becomes a conditioned reinforcer, it immediately _______ bowling behavior.

Answer. (REINFORCES)
Q-12. Eventually, stimulation from successful movements of the bowler’s body becomes a conditioned _______ through being paired with falling pins.

Answer. (REINFORCER)

Below is the mnemonic SHAPE which stands for the features of the shaping process.

S.H.A.P.E.
Start at the person’s current level of behavior.
Hierarchical arrangement of complexity is needed.
Approximations of the terminal behavior lead to reinforcement.
Performance of responses at successively higher levels must occur.
Effects of reinforcement maintain all the previous behavior.

Q-13. A mnemonic device we use to summarize features of shaping is _______.

Answer. (S.H.A.P.E.)

C. APPLICATION.
1. Shaping Behavior in Psychotic Patients: Mertens and Fuller (1963), in the journal of clinical psychology, demonstrated the use of shaping in a group of chronic psychotic patients. This study involved teaching chronic psychotic patients to shave. Various levels of shaving proficiencies existed in this group, e.g. some would pick up the razor, while others could shave themselves somewhat. For the former group, at first, just picking up the razor was reinforced. By small steps more complex shaping responses were reinforced, until eventually a shaving response was established.
2. Shaping Verbal Behavior: Parents reinforce approximations for the word water such as Wahwah Wahda Wata Watah Water
3. Anorexia: In the case of a person diagnosed as an anorexic, a person who does not eat but who has the physical capacity to eat, when the patient would lift her fork moving towards a piece of food, the experimenter, the therapist, would talk to the patient about something which they found interesting. The criterion was then successively increased to lifting food toward their mouth, chewing, etc. Thus just spearing a piece of food wasn’t enough to reinforce the patient. Next it was necessary for the patient to move their food toward their mouth, eventually to get it into the mouth, then to be chewed, and then swallowed. It is unfortunate to think that any human being can get to the stage where one would have to be this mechanistic in approaching something as basic as eating behavior, and yet the patient’s weight loss is testimony to the fact that therapy was needed.
4. Withdrawal: Some Possible Shaping Steps For A Patient With Withdrawal In An Institution:
a. Reinforce the patient as the patient enters the therapy room.
b. Reinforce sitting together in big circle with other people.
c. Throws ball to another person. [Cooperative responses need to get reinforcer.]
d. Verbalizes with others.
e. Participates in a small way with cooperative efforts or activities such as square dancing, community singing, sharing bingo cards, volleyball, dances, relay races, and games.
f. “Look, how fast we can clean up when we work together.”
g. Works for the good of the group.
5. Shaping Pigeon Ping Pong Players: Pigeons have been shaped to play ping pong. (See film “Learning and Behavior”). Pigeons generally have a high operant level to peck at objects. It was therefore possible to
a. Shape food into small round pellets much smaller than a ping pong ball, and place these pellets on the table used for the ping pong game. Teach the pigeon to consistently peck at these small “pellet” balls.
b. Roll the pellets toward the pigeon, letting him/her eat the food if he/she pecks the ball before it rolls off the table.
c. Increase the size of the pellet, and continue as in (b) above.
d. Substitute a real ping pong ball, feeding the pigeon whenever he/she pecks the moving ball.
e. Reinforce the pigeon only when the ball pecked rolls off the opposite end of the table.
f. The pigeon is now ready for the game, and all we need to do is put another pigeon who has been similarly trained on the other side of the table. When one pecks the ball so that it rolls off the other
side of the table, she is fed, and the result is a ping pong game.
This has all been done as a class demonstration in a class period.
6. Child Games: Small children have been taught games by shaping the various responses involved, e.g. reinforcing standing on a mark on the floor, running to the next spot, and so on, doing only small segments of the total behavior required in the game.
7. Architect Training: There has been a training program developed by Frank Lloyd Wright, architect, in which an early step in the training program was to design and build a hut to live in, while in the training program. As the Trainee could accomplish this task, he/she learned a segment of the problems confronted by the user of his/her product.
8. Shaping Walking Behavior: For nine years of her life, one girl had not walked, but instead had scooted around on her rump. Reinforcement had been given for the child’s behavior. No one was successful in treating the child. A couple of graduate students remembered some techniques from the laboratory. They found that when they came into the room with an ice cream cone, the girl would scoot over to them. They required that in order to get the ice cream she pull herself up on a chair. Next, chairs were placed back to back about thirty inches apart. She was placed on the floor between the chairs, and a student stood behind each chair. She was shown how to get to her feet and then grasp the back of the chair. When she was standing, the student behind the other chair would say, “Mary, come over here.” If this response occurred, she was provided with ice cream as a consequence, i.e. a positive reinforcer.
After moving from chair to chair, the distance between the chairs was very gradually increased until it was impossible for her to move from one chair to the other while holding on to one chair. She was able for a second to release one chair with one hand and, while unsupported, lean over until she held onto the second chair with the other hand. As the distance between the chairs increased it was necessary for her to take unsupported steps. Gradually more steps were added. The distance between the chairs was forty-five inches by the seventh session.
Next the chairs were removed and a student held out her hand while the other student held out the reinforcer. After a few steps the first student removed his hand and the second student walked backwards. Later the procedure changed to placing the second student across the room.
(This study was described by Lee Myerson, Nancy Kerr, and Jack Michael in “Behavior Modification in Rehabilitation” in Child Development Readings in Experimental Analysis by Bijou and Baer.)
9. Shaping and Delinquency: Schwitzgebel, in a program for delinquents, used the shaping principle in a complex, real-life situation. This program illustrates how the principle has been applied to problems of society today.
a. Taking the child at his current level. Schwitzgebel found that the delinquent had to be dealt with at his own level. “Unreachable” delinquents did not cooperate with established programs; it was necessary to meet them on the street corner, in the pool room, or wherever they spent their time.
b. The Contact Problem: Anti-social behavior is a defining characteristic of those who are traditionally called delinquents. The reinforcers society usually offers are not adequate to get the job done. Schwitzgebel’s first step was not to put on the front of a treatment program. The agency was not staffed by “bug doctors,” “head shrinkers,” or “do gooders,” because the agency paid money, ran experiments, and worked on the street corner. At first this was done on the delinquent’s home ground, not in a hospital, clinic, or church. The electronic equipment and rats in the room were not what you see in the “bug doctor’s” office. These made the experimental activities appear “scientific” rather than “therapeutic.”
c. Perform Behaviors which are Reinforcing: Schwitzgebel got across the concept that he was interested in studying teenagers, especially those who have been in trouble. “We are not trying to ‘straighten out’ anybody. If you want to straighten out, you will have to do that on your own” (p. 19). The work in the experiments and talking into a tape recorder were presented as a means to understand teenagers. “We want to know why kids foul up and why they do the other things they do . . . We figure you may help us find some of the answers. We have two rules around here: First, nobody has to do anything if they do not want to do it. Second, nobody gets paid for anything they do not do. In general, if you want to know anything, ask one of the older guys who has been around longer. We do try to help the boys and you probably know some of the guys we helped to get jobs and in other ways. We don’t want to help anybody though. And nobody needs to take the help who doesn’t want it.” (19).
d. Shape Into Lab: In certain cases the boys were met at geographical locations successively closer to the laboratory location. The first two meetings with two boys were at an amusement center in downtown Boston. The next meeting was outside a subway station after the toll gate, then outside the subway station at Harvard Square, and then finally inside the laboratory. When a boy arrived at a proper place – however early or late – his arrival was immediately reinforced by the experimenter. Most often the reinforcer was a cigarette or a part of a candy bar. Sometimes it was money (when the experimenter put a token in the toll gate for a boy) or the announcement of something particularly interesting planned for the day (p. 17). The attempt was made to ensure that the boy did not respond to the situation as welfare or charity. It is customary to offer a friend a cigarette while having one yourself.
“Whether the boy came to the laboratory by himself or was met on the street first by the experimenter, his arrival at the laboratory was immediately rewarded or reinforced with soft drinks, fruit, or sandwiches. At the end of the hour, the boy was paid in cash for his work” (p. 17).
e. Find a Behavior Level Likely to be Reinforced: In Schwitzgebel’s program, a delinquent could talk into a tape recorder for pay. If a boy was unable to come up with something to talk about, he would be told that it was his job to talk about any topic. Any topic would be all right. If the boy still was unable to come up with something, the experimenter might suggest a topic that would very gradually guide the boy to talk about his own behavior as a delinquent. For this the boy would be paid one or two dollars an hour. The objective was to design a therapeutic job which would be so “incredibly” easy that the delinquent could not fail to respond and succeed in it. The kids considered the experimenters were “academic nuts” because that would be the only reason for giving away money for such stuff. The kids were paid in cash, and could quit whenever they wanted.
“We’re trying to find out how come kids get into trouble and what to do about it. You just talk into the tape recorder about anything you want, but mostly about yourself. You can get up to two dollars an hour. You don’t get rich cause you only work a couple of hours a week, but it’s good pocket money” (Schwitzgebel, p. 16).
The delinquents began to invite their friends to the laboratory to wait for them while they talked into the tape recorder. These friends generally gathered in a small room, where they listened to music and played cards. Thus another individual was being shaped as a part of the procedure.
f. Attending Sessions: If a boy failed to attend it was interpreted to mean that the laboratory situation was not attractive to him, or he had not yet learned to keep appointments. The solution to this was to increase the reinforcer for attendance, to set a time for another meeting, and to inform each boy that no matter how many meetings he missed he was still welcome.
In one particular case, an experimenter and a project assistant, an attractive blonde girl, drove in a Thunderbird convertible to the boy’s home in a low-rent housing project. The boy and his friends immediately came along to the laboratory just for the ride. Afterwards, the boy commented, “It was just like out of the movies when you drove up” (Schwitzgebel, p. 19).
g. Being on Time: The time for the meetings was set at the boy’s convenience. Therefore, most of the meetings were held at night or early in the morning after the bars closed. Gradually, a time was set that was somewhat more convenient for the experimenter. The nearer a boy’s arrival corresponded to his appointment time, the more likely he was able to work for the full hour and obtain full pay. Boys were paid only for the work they completed. If, for example, a boy arrived late, he might be allowed to work forty-five minutes instead of his usual hour. Thus, it was to his financial advantage to arrive on time.
The boys were occasionally given bonuses when they arrived on time. These bonuses were often money but sometimes they were gifts, for example, tickets to a baseball game. The bonus was given immediately on the boy’s arrival, and it was explained to him that it was for his prompt arrival (20).
10. Verbal Behavior in a Mute Patient in a State Hospital: An interesting example utilizing shaping verbal behavior is a study by Wayne Isaacs and others. The patient was a single male at Anna State Hospital in Illinois. He had been there for 19 years, the past 12 years as a mute patient who was withdrawn and who exhibited little motor activity. In a group therapy situation with other more verbal patients this patient did not talk. When cigarettes were furnished by the therapist the patient would not accept any. At one session, when the therapist removed cigarettes from his pocket a pack of gum came out with them. The patient refused a stick when offered one, but he did look at it.
Arrangements were made to see the patient three times a week individually. The following procedures were introduced: Week 1 and 2, gum was held before the patient. When he looked at it, the gum was given to the patient. At the end of the week, he moved his lips when the gum was held before him. Weeks 3 and 4, the gum was now held before him until he made a sound. Again, this took about a week. Week 5, the therapist now said, “Say gum. Gum,” holding up the gum. The gum was given to the patient whenever he made a sound approximating the word. Week 6, this procedure continued and eventually the patient said, “Gum, please,” following the therapist. At the end of this week the patient began answering questions regarding his age and name.
Three months later the patient spoke first to the therapist when the therapist entered the group therapy room. He would answer questions in the group session. At this time generalization procedures were introduced, e.g. a nurse was present during the private session (Isaacs, et al.).

D. IMPLICATIONS OF SHAPING PRINCIPLE:
1. The Organism is Never Wrong: One statement Skinner made some time ago is that the organism is never wrong. That is, you have to work with the organism wherever he/she is at and shape him/her from that point. Think what this means in a number of settings:
(In Lab) Pigeon or rat is always right. (In Business) Customer is always right. This business format is a good model for many areas. (In Application) Client is always correct. (In Education) The student is always right.
2. Convert: Changing an important position previously held has many possible consequences:
a. “I was wrong X years of my work.”
b. “What will I do for a living if I say I am wrong?”
c. “How embarrassing to explain to everybody that I was wrong.”
d. “Even my social life will be messed up” If this change takes place.
3. Our Shaping of Inappropriate Behavior: How many of us shape the bizarre behaviors in those around us? How much responsibility must all of us take, not only for the tragedy deaths of such people as Martin Luther King, Medgar Evers, John and Bob Kennedy, but also the behavior problems seen in everyday life? This type of question may appear trite, academic, or even nonsensical. Yet, it is important to look at what behaviors each of us shape daily in life. Those who reinforce any “poor” behaviors are contributors to the increase in probability of such tragic types of events. “Tragic” behaviors are shaped by small approximations in “daily life.”
4. Shaping and Total Life Activity: The specific behaviors which we reinforce in others may seem insignificant when compared with the total effect of life activities. Also, it is difficult to get out of a comfortable chair, go to another room, and reinforce a child for performing suitable behavior.

DEFINITIONS:
Terminal behavior
-behavior not in the repertoire or not occurring at the desired frequency; the goal of the intervention.

Initial behavior
-behavior that resembles the terminal behavior along some meaningful dimension and occurs at least with a minimal frequency

Intermediate behaviors
-behaviors that closely approximate the terminal behavior

Shaping with Reinforcement
-the differential reinforcement of only the behavior that more and more closely resembles the terminal behavior