A boy is teaching his younger sister how to make her bed. At first, he tells her she did a good job if she gets the bedspread pulled up, even if the sheets are still rumpled. Each following day, he encourages her to be a little neater before telling her she did a good job. The boy may not know it, but he is using

Question

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The boy is using shaping by successive approximations, a technique in operant conditioning where behaviors are gradually guided toward a desired behavior by rewarding closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior. In this case, the boy rewards his sister for making the bed, gradually requiring neater outcomes for the same praise.  Shaping reinforces each increment in the behavior that leads to a particular goal behavior.

A Boy Is Teaching His Younger Sister How to Make