The Selector in Behavior Selection.

Decades of research show how what we know about learned reinforcers, as the selectors of behavior, constitutes a significant advancement in behavior analysis. I describe how the learning of new reinforcers results in new operants including verbal operants and verbal developmental cusps, as well as the potential to build still other reinforcers. The lack of particular types of reinforcers, or a limited community of reinforcers, is the root source of many problems in applied work and sources of complex relations in the basic science. In cases where the relevant reinforcers are present, building behavior is the solution; however, when the relevant reinforcers are not present, the use of prosthetic reinforcers does not solve the real problem. In the latter case, the solution is to build new reinforcers, behaviors will follow. I cite decades of work in food preferences, musical taste, social reinforcers, and the identification and establishment of verbal developmental cusps that shows how identifying and building new reinforcers expands what our science can do. The establishment of a rich community of socially significant positive reinforcers is life-altering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]