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Further, such examples focus on environmental variables, change over time, the distinction between the environment and behavior, and the distinction between observable and unobservable variables. These descriptions and the examples used to support them demonstrate the kinds of systematic, analytic practices that behaviorists use to solve problems. Finally one might add that sometimes the behavior removes a consequence by avoiding it and sometimes by escaping from it. Moving on, one might point out that some of those changes in consequences that increase behavior involve the removal of a consequence and others involve the presentation of a consequence. After establishing the priority of selection by consequences, one then shows that some of the changes in consequences can increase behavior and some can decrease behavior. ![]() Then one might move to a description of environmental changes that occur before and after behavior. A behavior analyst might start by pointing out the distinction between behavior and environment. The distinction, and particularly the examples many teachers provide, help to focus students on the detailed analyses of the kinds of variables that may control behavior. I suspect that the distinction serves a heuristic purpose in teaching others about behavior analysis. So as one representative member of a potential survey of teachers, my comments are directed toward how the distinction between positive and negative reinforcement might be useful in teaching behavior analysis. No one who met either would argue with their skills as teachers. After all, according to both Baron and Galizio (2005) and Michael (1975), the distinction that is maintained by behavior analysts is the one ascribed to Keller and Schoenfeld (1950). How many of us actually teach the distinction as a technical distinction, and if we do, how do we do so? Maybe teaching the distinction serves a useful function. This could involve either a thorough analysis of behavior-analytic textbooks or a direct survey of those who teach behavior analysis. Perhaps such an analysis involves conjecture, but maybe we can go beyond simple conjecture by surveying the field (a form of group conjecture, if you will, or intersubjective truth). ![]() What the article does not provide, though, are any strong insights into why the distinction has been maintained for 30 years after Michael published his analysis of these terms. I agree completely with the conclusion that one cannot attribute different processes to positive and negative reinforcement nor can one attribute control by one and not the other in any given situation. Their argument is logical, scholarly, and precise. Their article examines advances in behavior-analytic research since Michael and finds no new compelling reason to maintain a technical distinction between these terms. Baron and Galizio (2005) iterate an argument attributed to Michael (1975) that there is no reason to distinguish between positive and negative reinforcement.
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