Sheryl makes pleasant small talk and pays her boss a compliment before asking for a day off, because such a strategy was successful with a few of her previous bosses. This example most clearly illustrates:

Question

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The example described in the question suggests that Sheryl's behavior (making small talk and paying compliments) was successful with a few of her previous bosses, and she repeated the behavior with her current boss expecting similar positive results. This is an example of stimulus generalization - the tendency to respond to stimuli that are similar to the original stimulus used in conditioning. In this case, the behavior of making small talk and paying compliments became associated with getting time off from work, and Sheryl generalized this behavior to other situations (with different bosses) in the hope of achieving the same outcome.

Sheryl Makes Pleasant Small Talk and Pays Her Boss a Compliment