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Thorndhike's law of effect
The law of effect means that the approximately simultaneous
occurrence of a response and environmental events increase the probability
that responses of the same sort will occur again.
According to him, those responses are retained which are
positively reinforced. The response will not be conditioned if it goes
without positive reinforcement. He says that positive reward strengthens
the S-R bond. Thorndhike established the law of effect by providing the
PRIMARY reinforcement. Primary reinforcements are defined as direct &
actual rewards which give satisfaction to the subject. The further
investigations concentrated on two modified reinforcements, namely,
SECONDARY reinforcement and DELAY of reinforcement.
The SECONDARY reinforcement refers to the reward which is
not actual & direct. Rather, it is a reward which leads to get primary
reward, e.g., if a monkey performs a certain action it would be given a
token which can be inserted into a machine to get a banana. In this case
the token is a secondary reinforcement and banana is a primary
reinforcement. It is found through the experiments that a strong
association can be established between secondary & primary reinforcement.
Of course, a secondary reinforcement will gradually lose its power if it
is repeatedly unaccompanied by primary reinforcement.
Delay of reinforcement: a reinforcer becomes less
and
less effective the longer its presentation is delayed after the response
is made. It is called the gradient of reinforcement if effectiveness of
reinforcement declines due to delay.
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