Shaping Success: Understanding the Procedure and its Dynamic Duo

Question: What are the two defining features of a shaping procedure?

Answer: Successive approximations and differential reinforcement.

Shaping is a strategy in which you systematically and differentially reinforce successive approximations to a terminal response or a terminal goal for your client. When you’re trying to determine if a test question is referring to shaping, you’re looking for: differential reinforcement. That’s within the procedure. There will be evidence of reinforcing those responses within a response class that meet a specific criterion. All the other responses that do not, in the response class, are then placed on extinction; they’re not reinforced.

You also want to look for successive approximations. This will be described as a sequence of new response classes that emerge during the shaping process as a result of the differential reinforcement. Each successive approximation is closer in form to the terminal behavior than the previous response class it’s replacing, or as we get closer to the complete form of the behavior that you’re shaping or the behavior that is being shaped. For example, shaping the behavior of using the full sentence, “I want more, please.” You would include the successive approximations of first teaching “more,” then teaching “want more,” then teaching “I want more,” and finally, “I want more, please.”

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