Praise's magic reinforcement ratio: Five to one gets the job done.

All behavior analysts, teachers and parents can use praise as a reinforcer. Experimental and applied behavior analyses have established that praise, attention, and affection do in fact function as reinforcers. Social interaction is both a primary and a conditioned reinforcer. Contingent social interaction can shape operant behavior (lever pressing) of rats and maintain responding on fixed ratio schedules that does not differ significantly from behavior shaped and maintained with food reinforcement (Evans, Duvel, Funk, Watson, & Neuringer, 1994). Rats can be shaped to lever press when the only reinforcement is being petted and praised ("good girl') by a human (Davis and Perusse, 1988). As the term "starved for affection" suggests, social approval and affection function as reinforcers for humans as well. When adult affection is contingent on vocalization, infant vocalization increases and when infant vocalization no longer produces adult attention, vocalizations decrease (extinction; Rheingold, Gewirtz, & Ross, 1959). Just as deprivation and satiation of food alter food's effectiveness as a reinforcer, establishing operations such as deprivation and satiation of approval systematically alter the effectiveness of approval as a reinforcer. When children are deprived of approval, approval's effectiveness as a reinforcer increases. Conversely, when children are satiated with praise and admiration, approval's effectiveness as a reinforcer decreases (Gewirtz & Baer, 1958). When adult eye contact and smiling are contingent upon infant smiling, smiling is reinforced (increases) and crying, fussing and frowns decrease (Etzel & Gewirtz, 1967). In fact, attention and praise are so well established as reinforcers that their use is seldom questioned in applied behavior analysis. Attention is regularly identified as a reinforcer in functional analyses (e.g. Berg, Peck, Wacker, Harding, McComas, Richman, & Brown 2000; Durand & Carr; 1991; Meyer, 1999). Praise and recognition are recognized as effective motivators by some in the business world. "There are two things people want more than sex and money," according to Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics, "recognition and praise" (Nelson, 1994, p. 9). Accordingly, Robert Preziosi, President of Management Associates argues that "there never seems to be enough recognition. After a brutal day, walk up to employees and say 'you were great. I'm so glad about what you did today.' You'll be surprised how far a simple gesture will go" (Nelson, 1994, p. 137). As a free, virtually always available reinforcer, praise is a very pragmatic reinforcer for behavior analysts, educators, parents, clinicians, coaches and social workers. When teachers of students with "emotional and behavioral disorder" (EBD) are taught to increase their rate of behavior-specific praise, students' rates of on-task behavior increase (Sutherland, Wehby, & Copeland, 2000). College students who receive verbal praise for doing homework spend more time completing their homework assignments (Hancock, 2000). When parents of young children with "behavioral problems" were taught to praise their children's compliance and task engagement, the resulting increased praise produced improved compliance and decreased inappropriate behavior (Greene, Kamps, Wyble, & Ellis, 1999). The "prompt, pause and praise procedure" is an effective and recommended remedial technique for children making slow progress in reading (Merrett, 1998). Unfortunately, despite praise's proven effectiveness as a reinforcer and it's free cost, praise is vastly underutilized. In an analysis of studies conducted in the U.S., U.K., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and St. Helena, Robyn Beaman and Kevin Wheldall of Macquarie University in Sydney Australia found that "there is little evidence to suggest that teachers, universally, systematically deploy contingent praise as positive reinforcement in spite of the considerable literature testifying to its effectiveness. …