Reinforcement- What Is It?

     When we teach our dog a new trick, we want them to remember it don't we? But how do we ensure that this occurs? The idea of reinforcement is to strengthen a desired behavior or action by an encouragement or reward. There are many techniques to ensure reinforcement, a theory that I believe to be the most beneficial in the act of reinforcement was the Response Deprivation Hypothesis. 

    This hypothesis simply states that a behavior can serve as a reinforcer when the access to the behavior is restricted and as well as when the frequency begins to fall below the desired level of occurrence. The baseline is considered when the animal is able to freely engage in the activity. When the animal is deprived of its basic need it begins to fall into a state of deprivation in regards to the task desired. For example, if a dog gets to roam freely in a field everyday for an hour, but then begins to be limited to fifteen minutes a day, the dog will begin to fall into a state of deprivation in regards to roaming freely. When such incidents occur this causes the dog or animal to now have the drive to work in order to obtain more roaming time.

        This hypothesis and the response to this hypothesis are crucial demonstrations of why contingencies of reinforcements are truly effective, because they create a condition in which an organism is confronted with the possibility of a specific desire and baseline requirement of their day falling below the threshold. In order to get the desired behavior the organism craves, they will be willing to complete the desired behavior or task asked of them.