Intermittent ReinforcementReinforcement is a fundamental concept in Applied Behavior A... is a schedule of reinforcement in which a behaviorBehavior refers to any activity or action that living o... is only reinforced some of the time it occurs, rather than after every instance of the behavior. This approach is used to make behaviors more resistant to extinctionExtinction is an effective technique used to reduce unwanted..., as the individual does not know when reinforcement will happen, thereby maintaining or increasing the behavior over time. Intermittent reinforcement can take various forms, such as fixed or variable ratio and interval schedules.
Example
A teacher is helping a student named Mark learn to raise his hand before speaking in class. At first, the teacher uses continuous reinforcement, giving praise every time Mark raises his hand. Once Mark consistently raises his hand, the teacher switches to intermittent reinforcement, praising him only after every third or fourth hand raise. Mark continues to raise his hand, even though reinforcement (praise) does not occur every time, because he has learned that the behavior sometimes leads to reinforcement. This intermittent schedule helps the behavior persist over time, even without constant reinforcement.