Reinforce Performance to Shape Behavior

From the Aubrey Daniels Institute comes the following information on “Shaping” that we found particularly interesting when considering behavior change within employee recognition.  The information comes from previous commentary by Dr. Andy Lattal, the Centennial Professor of Psychology at West Virginia University

While we don’t often hear the terminology, shaping is when a person who has a target response he wants, proceeds to reinforce the “shapee” with approximations of that response in order to change behavior. In this context, “shaping” is one of the most ubiquitous of all behavioral phenomena. An example from Lattal:

“Consider, for example a child who has a skill deficit in, say, making a certain sound. The shaper knows what the sound should sound like, and provides reinforcement for close and closer approximations to the sound until the child eventually produces the sound as it should sound. This is an accurate description of what happens, but it omits an important element in many instances of shaping that involve people in everyday situations: the behavior of the shaper is not immune to the consequences of his or her attempts to shape the behavior of the shapee.”

Shaping relies on positive reinforcement as the results get closer and closer to the target.  When you use a “positive reinforcer” that a person desires, the behaviors will more likely result in a positive outcome.

While we are rarely cognizant of this phenomena, the behavior of the managers in providing recognition is essential to the employee to improve performance.  In addition, the manager is also positively affected by the positive performance of the employee.  They are more likely to provide the recognition when the employee is engaged in the target response. As a result, there is a reciprocal relation for reinforcement for both, a sort of “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” arrangement.

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