You walk up to a soda machine and put in a dollar, and are rewarded with a bottle of root beer. When you put in another dollar, you get another soda. Assuming that the machine has a limitless supply of root beer, which kind of reinforcement schedule does this machine operate on?

As the name states, the behavior will be reinforced every time it takes place. By placing the dollar in the machine, you get a root beer and since every time you place a dollar you get a bottle, this will make you want to put more dollars in in order to get more, thus reinforcing this behavior.

This is the same example as Skinner's box in which a rat pulls a plank and gets a pellet every time it does this.

lyndalau86 lyndalau86 · Answer 2 · 2019-10-22T22:48:14+02:00

Answer:

Continuous reinforcement schedule

Explanation:

First, there are two different types of reinforcement:

Positive
Negative

The positive reinforcement applies a stimulus to increase the frequency of the desirable variable. The negative reinforcement removes a stimulus to increase the frequency of the desirable variable.

In this example, you are getting a positive reinforcement because you are getting a root beer as a reward.

However, the positive reinforcement divides itself in different types:

Continuous
Partial

A continuous reinforcement schedule gives us a reinforcement every time we engaged in the desired conduct.

On the other side, the partial reinforcement schedule gives us a reinforcement after a fixed (or not fixed) amount of desired conducts.

In this case, the machine has a limitless supply of root beer so it will give you a can EVERY TIME you put in a dollar in the machine.

Therefore, we are talking about a continuous reinforcement schedule.