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understanding of behavior unless we know the *meaning* of the reinforcement to the individual or organism. meaning ? What is that? In behavioral terms, a reinforcement is simply that which causes a behavior to increase in frequency. That is the sole meaning of reinforcer . Perhaps you meant meaning of the 'stimulus' to the organism , except that in behavioristic terms that meaning is solely as a reinforcer or punisher (i.e., as encouragement or dissuassion). Now, I agree with you that any reinforcer is actually reinforcing a number of behaviors and that pure external behavior isn't adequate to explain why certain behaviors are being reinforced that we can't see being reinforced. Thus thinking , which Skinner explained in terms of internal behaviors of perception and re-perception and verbal behavior. Or, as he put it, human thought is a product of a verbal society . How can a reinforcement reinforce behavior? It can only strengthen behavior to the extent that it is evaluated positively by the organism or has some relation to the organism's motives, goals, beliefs, values, etc. But this implies that one must go inside of the organism to build an explanation of behavior. No. One merely sees whether the stimulus increases or decreases the behavior's occurance. If it increases the behavior, it is a reinforcer. If it decreases the behavior, it is a punisher. No need to refer to motives , goals , beliefs , or values . Now, motives , goals , beliefs , and values are good catch-all words for describing complex sets of conditioned behaviors (some of which are undoubtedly covert or internal behaviors, cognitive behaviors so to speak). But they can all, in the end, be explained in terms of behavior
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