100 Things Every Presenter Needs to Know About People

30. People’s Behavior Can Be Shaped

There is a story that makes the rounds in psychology classes about how a class of students at a college used the behaviorist idea of shaping to get the professor to leave the classroom in the middle of his lecture: The students arranged this among themselves ahead of time, before class started. When the professor came in to start the class, the students ignored him (no reinforcement) unless he looked toward the door. At some point in the lecture, he randomly looked toward the door. When he did, the students looked attentively at him for a moment. Every time he looked toward the door, they would look up attentively (looking up attentively was the reinforcement). Before too long, the professor was looking at ...