Patterns of Human Behavior 175 



To this formal structuring of contexts, we can apply the language 

 which invokes contingency. We shall then say, for example, that 

 the animal which has undergone recurrent classical Pavlovian 

 experimentation will expect his universe to be so structured that 

 reinforcements are contingent only upon stimuli, not upon his re- 

 sponses. If his universe is totally structured in this way, all he can 

 do is to prepare for the coming reinforcement, e.g., by autonomic 

 measures such as salivation. He can predict but he cannot control. 



Note that a subject, acting in terms of this philosophy or in 

 terms of any philosophy of this order, will, in general, have such 

 experience of his universe as will validate his philosophy. If he 

 does not believe it is worthwhile to behave instrumentally, he 

 will never engage in behavior which would disprove or test the 

 philosophy. And, conversely, if he has had past experience only 

 of instrumental contexts, he will have learned to behave instru- 

 mentally and will encounter, as it seems to him, a universe in 

 which instrumental behavior is appropriate. Attempting to make 

 a reinforcement come, he will try out various courses of action; 

 and when the reinforcement does come, he will believe that the 

 action which immediately preceded it was an effective instru- 

 mental action. His experience of his universe will validate his 

 theory of instrumental magic, even though the causal contin- 

 gencies assumed by this magic may be mythological or delusory. 



Let me now extend what I have said about individual learning 

 to what would superficially seem to be much more complex 

 phenomena— those of interpersonal exchange. To do this, we 

 have only to personify the experimenter as well as the learning 

 subject and to see the learning experiment as a small segment 

 of an interchange between two persons: A, the experimenter, 

 provides the stimulus; B, the subject, responds to the stimulus; 

 and A follows B's response with a reinforcement. 



Notice that these categories {stimulus, response, and reiti for cement) 

 which we are putting upon the behaviors cannot be empty. If 

 the experimenter does not provide a reinforcement, this in itself 

 is a reinforcement; and, if the subject does not respond to the 

 stimulus, this failure to respond represents the subject's response 

 to the stimulus. Notice also that if there were no stimulus, this in 

 itself would be the stimulus to which the subject responded. In 



