donahoe, J. W., Palmer, D. C., & Burgos, J. E. (1997) The S-R issue: Its status in behavior analysis and in Donahoe and Palmer’s Learning and Complex Behavior. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 67, 193-211.

The central focus of this essay is whether the effect of reinforcement is best viewed as the strengthening of responding or the strengthening of the environmental control of responding. We make the argument that adherence to Skinner’s goal of achieving a moment-to-moment analysis of behavior compels acceptance of the latter view. Moreover, a thoroughgoing commitment to a moment-to-moment analysis undermines the fundamental distinction between the conditioning processes instantiated by operant and respondent contingencies while buttressing the crucially important differences in their cumulative outcomes. Computer simulations informed by experimental analyses of behavior and neuroscience are used to illustrate these points.

Key words: S-R psychology, contingencies of reinforcement, contiguity, discrimination learning, reinforcement, respondent conditioning, computer simulation