Urcuioli's differential‐outcomes research: Implications for our behavioral units
Treat reinforcers as schedule-bound team members, not lone items.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Catania (2025) wrote a theory paper. He asked: what if our basic unit of behavior is bigger than response plus reinforcer?
He built on Urcuioli’s work with pigeons. The birds got different rewards for the same peck. The reward type told them what to do next.
Catania says the reward is not just a thing. It is part of a consequence class. The class is shaped by the schedule it sits in.
What they found
The paper does not give new data. It gives a new lens.
Reinforcers are members of groups. These groups get their power from the schedule rules, not from the item itself.
If you change the schedule, you change the class. The same candy can work differently under new rules.
How this fits with other research
Embregts (2000) first named consequence classes. Catania (2025) grows that seed into a full plant. He adds schedule contingencies as the soil and water.
Jimenez-Gomez et al. (2025) tested kids and adults. They showed that reinforcers guide choice because they signal what comes next, not because they make the response stronger. Catania’s idea needs that signal power to hold.
Green et al. (1993) looked at reinforcers as substitutes. Catania agrees items can swap, but says the schedule decides if the swap works. Same item, new schedule, new class.
Why it matters
Next time you write a program, list the reinforcers in a column. Then list the schedule rules next to them. If the rule changes, check if the reinforcer still belongs to the same class. You may find you need a new item, not more of the old one.
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Join Free →Pick one client. Write the schedule rule above the reinforcer list. Ask: does this rule keep the item in the same consequence class? If not, pick a new item or change the rule.
02At a glance
03Original abstract
Our behavioral units include stimulus classes and response classes. Peter Urcuioli's differential-outcomes research implies they should extend to the third term of the three-term contingency. Classes of consequences come in several varieties (e.g., conditional reinforcers, tokens), but our vocabulary does not coherently organize them. They are differentiated not only by physical properties such as type, location, and duration but also by the schedule contingencies in which they participate. We consider units ranging from the physical and chemical sciences to those based on the particular history of life on earth. The latter include biology, sociology, linguistics, and our own behavior analysis. Scientific units are typically nested (e.g., atoms within molecules, cells within organs, organisms within species). Comparing our units with those from other taxonomies raises questions about their emergence and evolution and their shared properties across levels of nesting (e.g., species within genus, subclasses within higher order operants, phonemes within words). Emergence necessarily occurs when higher order units have functions that are not shared with their lower order constituents. These nested and multileveled behavior classes challenge single-level views, such as metaphorical accounts of behavior as a totality contained within a pie, with slices corresponding to behavior classes matched to their outcomes.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 2025 · doi:10.1002/jeab.70018