Cited by 3,351Behavioral and Psychological StudiesHuman Resource Development and Performance EvaluationAcademic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology

AN IMPLICIT TECHNOLOGY OF GENERALIZATION 1

Open access
Stokes, Trevor F., Baer, Donald M.·1977·Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis

Abstract

Traditionally, discrimination has been understood as an active process, and a technology of its procedures has been developed and practiced extensively. Generalization, by contrast, has been considered the natural result of failing to practice a discrimination technology adequately, and thus has remained a passive concept almost devoid of a technology. But, generalization is equally deserving of an active conceptualization and technology. This review summarizes the structure of the generalization literature and its implicit embryonic technology, categorizing studies designed to assess or program generalization according to nine general headings: Train and Hope; Sequential Modification; Introduce to Natural Maintaining Contingencies; Train Sufficient Exemplars; Train Loosely; Use Indiscriminable Contingencies; Program Common Stimuli; Mediate Generalization; and Train “To Generalize”.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1901/jaba.1977.10-349

Cites

48 of 48 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 13

  1. Baer, D. M. and Wolf, M. M. The entry into natu- ral communities of reinforcement. In R. Ulrich, T. Stachnik, and J. Mabry (Eds), Control of hu- man behavior: Volume II. Glenview, Illinois: Scott, Foresman, 1970. Pp. 319-324.
  2. Bolstad, 0. D. and Johnson, S. M. Self-regulation in the modification of disruptive behavior. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1972, 5, 443-454.
  3. Buell, J., Stoddard, P., Harris, F. R., and Baer, D. M. Collateral social development accompanying rein- forcement of outdoor play in a preschool child. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1968, 1, 167-173.
  4. Garcia, E., Baer, D. M., and Firestone, I. The devel- opment of generalized imitation within topo- graphically determined boundaries. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1971, 4, 101-112.
  5. Glynn, E. L., Thomas, J. D., and Shee, S. M. Behav- ioral self-control of on-task behavior in an ele- mentary classroom. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1973, 6, 105-113.
  6. Graubard, P. S., Rosenberg, H., and Miller, M. B. Student applications of behavior modification to teachers and environments or ecological ap- proaches to social deviancy. In E. A. Ramp and B. L. Hopkins (Eds), A new direction for educa- tion: behavior analysis. Lawrence, Kansas: Sup- port and Development Center for Follow Through, 1971. Pp. 80-101.
  7. Kazdin, A. E. and Polster, R. Intermittent token re- inforcement and response maintenance in extinc- tion. Behavior Therapy, 1973, 4, 386-391.
  8. Risley, T. R. and Hart, B. M. Developing corre- spondence between the nonverbal and verbal be- havior of preschool children. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1968, 1, 267-281.
  9. Schumaker, J. and Sherman, J. A. Training genera- tive verb usage by imitation and reinforcement procedures. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1970, 3, 273-287.
  10. Solomon, R. W. and Wahler, R. G. Peer reinforce- ment control of classroom problem behavior. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1973, 6, 49-56.
  11. Stokes, T. F., Baer, D. M., and Jackson, R. L. Pro- gramming the generalization of a greeting re- sponse in four retarded children. Journal of Ap- plied Behavior Analysis, 1974, 7, 599-610.
  12. Walker, H. M. and Buckley, N. K. The use of posi- tive reinforcement in conditioning attending be- havior. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 1968, 1, 245-250.
  13. Yates, A. J. Behavior therapy. New York: John Wiley and Sons, 1970. Received 22 December 1975. (Final acceptance 3 June 1976.)

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Stokes, T. F., & Baer, D. M.
Affiliations
University of Kansas (US)
Corresponding author
Stokes, Trevor F.
Venue
Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis
Publisher
Wiley
Published
1977-06
Volume
10
Issue
2
Pages
349-367
ISSN
  • 0021-8855 (ISSN-L)
  • 1938-3703
OpenAlex
W1998493215
Cited by
3,351
References
48
Citations by year
2026: 54 · 2025: 88 · 2024: 72 · 2023: 106 · 2022: 101 · 2021: 102 · 2020: 106 · 2019: 106 · 2018: 108 · 2017: 108 · 2016: 91 · 2015: 97 · 2014: 120 · 2013: 71 · 2012: 84
FWCI
63.00
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis (publishedVersion)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Behavioral and Psychological Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Applied Psychology › Human Resource Development and Performance Evaluation
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › General Psychology › Academic and Historical Perspectives in Psychology
Keywords
generalization, discrimination, stimulus control, stimulus equivalence, stimulus generalization

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review