Chapter 19 – Antecedent Control

Rules and Goals

Mary, a 13-year-old figure skater, was standing beside her sport psychologist and coach just off the ice surface, waiting for her turn to skate her short program in a Provincial Figure Skating Championship. Treatment packages that focus on the manipulation of antecedent stimuli—also called antecedents—fall into the categories of rules, goals, modeling, physical guidance, situational inducement, and motivation. Sometimes rules clearly identify reinforcers or punishers associated with the rules. In other cases, rules specify a behavior and consequences are implied. Rules are also classified according to the source of the reinforcement or punishment for following or not following the rule. If the source is the rule giver, the rule is called a ply. Contingency-shaped behavior involves immediate consequences. Knowledge of rule-governed behavior allows us to more fully explain applications we presented earlier that involved indirect effects of reinforcers.