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. 2004 Fall;27(2):171–188. doi: 10.1007/BF03393178

Dynamic changes in reinforcer effectiveness: Satiation and habituation have different implications for theory and practice

Frances K McSweeney
PMCID: PMC2755409  PMID: 22478427

Abstract

Reinforcers lose their effectiveness when they are presented repeatedly. Early researchers labeled this loss of effectiveness as satiation without conducting an experimental analysis. When such an analysis is conducted, habituation provides a more precise and empirically accurate label for the changes in reinforcer effectiveness. This paper reviews some of the data that suggest that habituation occurs to repeatedly presented reinforcers. It also argues that habituation has surprisingly different implications than satiation for theory and practice in behavior analysis. For example, postulating that habituation occurs to repeatedly presented reinforcers suggests ways for maintaining the strength of an existing reinforcer and for weakening the strength of a problematic reinforcer that differ from those implied by an account in terms of satiation. An habituation account may also lead to different ways of conceptualizing the regulation of behavior. For example, habituation may be a single-process contributor to the termination of behaviors that are usually attributed to satiation (e.g., ingestive behaviors such as eating and drinking), fatigue (e.g., energetic behaviors such as running), the waning of attention (e.g., cognitive behaviors such as studying), and pharmacodynamic factors (e.g., drug taking).

Keywords: within-session patterns of responding, reinforcer effectiveness, habituation, satiation

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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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