Okay, I'll chime in... The purpose of reinforcement is to
increase the occurrence of a behavior. One of the main
principles of ANY learning theory (whether it be classical or
operant conditioning) is that they, for the most part, follow
Aristotle's Laws of Association, of which there are four. Now,
many behaviorists maintain that the laws of similarity and
contrast don't play as major a role in conditioning as do the
other two: the Law of Contiguity and Law of Frequency. Law of
frequency is easy to understand: the higher the frequency in
which two things are linked together, the more likely they are
to be strongly associated. Law of contiguity predicts that
things that occur close together in space and time, will be more
likely to be associated. Now,take these laws and apply them to
learning theory. The more frequently you pair food with a
behavior, the more likely the organism will be to perform the
behavior. Why? Because the behavior has, in the past, brought
about an appetitive consequence. But, you have t