Despite being a cornerstone of the science of behavior, we’ve gone nearly 300 episodes without ever really delving into the details of the matching law. Maybe it’s because it involves too many equations. Maybe it’s because a lot of the research seems to focus exclusively on choice in basketball shots. In any case we’re getting every up to speed on the basics of the matching law and its importance in studying choice. Plus, Rob has spicy hot takes. Sweet sassy mo-lassy!

This episode is available for 1.0 LEARNING CEU.

Articles discussed this episode:

Reed, D.D. & Kaplan, B.A. (2011). The matching law: A tutorial for practitioners. Behavior Analysis in Practice, 4, 15-24. doi: 10.1007/BF03391780

Alferink, L.A., Critchfield, T.S., Hitt, J.L., & Higgins, W.J. (2009). Generality of the matching law as a descriptor of shot selection in basketball. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 42, 595-608. doi: 10.1901/jaba.2009.42-595

Morris, S.L. & Vollmer, T.R. (2022). The matching law provides a quantitative description of social time allocation in children with autism. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 55, 934-957. doi: 10.1002/jaba.934

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