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. 1980 Sep;34(2):219–238. doi: 10.1901/jeab.1980.34-219

Economic concepts for the analysis of behavior

Steven R Hursh
PMCID: PMC1332999  PMID: 16812188

Abstract

A review of the relationship between schedule of reinforcement, response rate, and choice suggests that certain unifying concepts from economics can contribute to a more complete science of behavior. Four points are made: 1) a behavioral experiment is an economic system and its characteristics—open or closed—can strongly determine the results; 2) reinforcers can be distinguished by a functional property called elasticity; 3) reinforcers may interact as complements as well as substitutes; 4) no simple choice rule, such as strict matching, can account for all choice behavior.

Keywords: economics, demand, elasticity, response rate, choice, matching

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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