If someone were to say I want to learn to do a headstand,
you might think of the headstand as some sort of activity
or behavior that they're going to learn
through practicing headstands.
But I want to emphasize a certain word in the sentence,
and that's "learn."
Oftentimes when we think about learning,
we think of things like learning facts.
For instance, if I were to tell you
to learn that the capital of Ohio
was Columbus, if you didn't know that,
you might learn it by writing it down over and over
and say, OK, Columbus, Ohio.
Columbus, Ohio.
Or maybe you'll make a flash card with Ohio
on one side and Columbus on the other.
And that's the type of learning where you're learning facts.
But learning a headstand, there really
isn't any note cards, or flash cards, or notes involved.
It's more a matter of practicing the behavior
of performing a headstand.
But if you're like me, performing a headstand
isn't something that I can do naturally.
Someone who can perform a headstand
typically learned to do it through practice.
And that learning through practice idea
has a specific name in operant conditioning.
And the term for this type of learning is "shaping."
And shaping is something that you are already
very familiar with.
But maybe you've never heard the term before.
The idea of shaping is that you successively or gradually
reinforce behaviors that lead up to
or approximate the target behavior.
So you successively-- or another word for this is "gradually"--
reinforce behaviors that approximate or come close
to the target behavior.
So in other words, shaping isn't just performing a headstand.
It's that process of learning to perform the headstand, which
we're going to go through in a minute.
But the important thing to consider
is what is the target behavior?
Before you can shape a behavior, you
have to determine what's the target behavior.
So in this example, we're going to use the headstand.
So let's say this is you.
Here you are.
And ultimately, your goal or target behavior
is to perform a headstand.
So we're going to learn this successively or gradually
by reinforcing behaviors that lead up to the headstand.
So maybe you're going to like a yoga class to learn this.
And the first thing we want to reinforce
is maybe just showing up to class.
You took the time to block out time in your schedule,
to get dressed and drive over to this yoga studio.
There's a lot of things and factors involved
which is showing up to class.
And showing up to class is, if you
think about it, a very important aspect of learning
to perform a headstand, at least if you're taking a yoga class.
But after a while, that's not going
to be enough obviously as your goal is to perform a headstand.
And just showing up to class isn't
going to make you learn it necessarily.
So eventually, that's not going to be enough.
And so next you want to reinforce maybe
putting your hands on the mat.
And I'm told this position is called a down dog.
So we're going to reinforce putting your hands on the mat.
And of course, there going to be several factors involved here,
like making sure your legs are straight,
and your arms are positioned in the right place,
and your shoulders are positioned in the correct spot.
There's a lot of factors if you think about it
than just contorting your body in this position.
And so you want to learn do this properly
so you don't have any injuries and so you can ultimately
be able to perform your target behavior of doing a headstand.
But again, eventually this isn't going
to be enough because the goal here is to perform a headstand.
So next, you're going to reinforce a behavior that
approximates or comes even closer to a headstand.
And let's say in this case, you're
going to reinforce placing your forearms on the mat.
So now that you're in this position where your feet are
on the mat, and your elbows are down,
and your forearms are on the mat, that's
pretty close to performing a headstand.
At least it's closer than just showing up to class.
But next, you're going to have to reinforce the behavior of,
let's say, lifting your legs up in the air, which
will lead to a headstand.
So eventually the forearms on the mat
are no longer going to be reinforced.
And we'll say you're going to reinforce lifting your legs up
in the air, which will lead to the headstand.
And so this is the behavior you want
to reinforce, lifting legs.
And this is actually the target behavior.
But as you can see, this guy didn't just show up to class
and perform the headstand.
They had to gradually or successively learn
to perform the target behavior.
Now, I've been putting green check marks here
to represent reinforcement.
And reinforcement, it can be a physical object
like money or prizes.
But it can also be something as intangible,
like praise for instance, hearing
the yoga instructor say, great job or you're doing a good job.
Keep it up.
Praise is also a reinforcer.
But I drew this out because I want
to represent the process of shaping.
Shaping isn't just performing the behavior.
It's gradually reinforcing behaviors
that lead up to or approximate the target behavior.
And shaping is a process of learning
that isn't just used in humans.
It's also used in animals.
And that's how animal trainers have a job.
Their whole job revolves around shaping
the behaviors of animals.
So when you see that seal balance a ball on its nose,
it didn't just naturally do that.
It learned it through the animal trainer successively
reinforcing the behaviors that lead up
to balancing a ball on its nose.
The same process has occurred when
you see people who show you their dog, who
can shake hands or roll over on command.
The dog didn't learn it through taking notes or reading
a book on rolling over.
It learned it by being successively reinforced
until it ultimately performed the target
behavior that their owner had in mind.
So this is shaping.