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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