IN PURSUIT OF GENERAL BEHAVIORAL RELATIONS

Efforts to develop behavioral technologies from advances in basic rese arch assume that results from studies with nonhuman subjects can, in s ome instances, be applied to human behavior. The behavioral principles likely to be most useful for application are those that represent rob ust general behavioral relations. Basic and applied research on behavi oral momentum suggests that there is a general behavioral relation bet ween the persistence of behavior and the rate of reinforcement obtaine d in a given situation. Understanding the factors that affect behavior al persistence may have important implications for applied behavior an alysts that justify studies aimed at establishing the generality and l imits of the functional relation between reinforcement rate and behavi oral persistence. Strategies for establishing the generality of behavi oral relations are reviewed, followed by a brief summary of the eviden ce for the generality of behavioral momentum.