The Matching Law
E851140
The Matching Law is a principle in behavioral psychology stating that organisms distribute their responses among available choices in proportion to the reinforcement they receive from each option.
All labels observed (1)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| The Matching Law canonical | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T10227532 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Matching Law Context triple: [Richard J. Herrnstein, notableWork, The Matching Law]
-
A.
The Structure of Behavior
The Structure of Behavior is a foundational philosophical work by Maurice Merleau-Ponty that critiques both empiricism and intellectualism while developing a phenomenological account of perception and embodied behavior.
-
B.
Sutton's law
Sutton's law is a medical and diagnostic principle that advises focusing first on the most likely cause of a problem, echoing bank robber Willie Sutton’s apocryphal rationale for targeting banks.
-
C.
Sidman avoidance procedure
The Sidman avoidance procedure is a type of operant conditioning paradigm in which an organism learns to avoid an aversive stimulus by responding in the absence of explicit warning signals, illustrating principles of avoidance learning and temporal control.
-
D.
Law of the Maximum
The Law of the Maximum was a French Revolutionary price-control measure that fixed maximum prices on essential goods to curb inflation and protect the urban poor.
-
E.
Fisherian intertemporal choice theory
Fisherian intertemporal choice theory is an economic framework, developed by Irving Fisher, that explains how rational individuals allocate consumption and savings over time to maximize lifetime utility given their income, preferences, and interest rates.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: The Matching Law Target entity description: The Matching Law is a principle in behavioral psychology stating that organisms distribute their responses among available choices in proportion to the reinforcement they receive from each option.
-
A.
The Structure of Behavior
The Structure of Behavior is a foundational philosophical work by Maurice Merleau-Ponty that critiques both empiricism and intellectualism while developing a phenomenological account of perception and embodied behavior.
-
B.
Sutton's law
Sutton's law is a medical and diagnostic principle that advises focusing first on the most likely cause of a problem, echoing bank robber Willie Sutton’s apocryphal rationale for targeting banks.
-
C.
Sidman avoidance procedure
The Sidman avoidance procedure is a type of operant conditioning paradigm in which an organism learns to avoid an aversive stimulus by responding in the absence of explicit warning signals, illustrating principles of avoidance learning and temporal control.
-
D.
Law of the Maximum
The Law of the Maximum was a French Revolutionary price-control measure that fixed maximum prices on essential goods to curb inflation and protect the urban poor.
-
E.
Fisherian intertemporal choice theory
Fisherian intertemporal choice theory is an economic framework, developed by Irving Fisher, that explains how rational individuals allocate consumption and savings over time to maximize lifetime utility given their income, preferences, and interest rates.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
principle in behavioral psychology
ⓘ
quantitative law of behavior ⓘ |
| alsoKnownAs | the law of matching NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
concurrent reinforcement schedules
ⓘ
operant conditioning ⓘ situations with two or more response alternatives ⓘ |
| assumes |
organism has experience with both alternatives
ⓘ
steady-state behavior ⓘ |
| basedOn |
rate of reinforcement
ⓘ
relative reinforcement frequency ⓘ relative response rate ⓘ |
| category | law of effect extensions ⓘ |
| coreIdea | responses are distributed in proportion to obtained reinforcement ⓘ |
| describes |
allocation of responses among alternatives
ⓘ
choice behavior under concurrent schedules of reinforcement ⓘ |
| explains |
preference for richer reinforcement schedules
ⓘ
undermatching and overmatching patterns ⓘ |
| field |
behavior analysis
ⓘ
experimental psychology ⓘ |
| firstDescribedIn | Herrnstein 1961 paper on relative and absolute strength of response ⓘ |
| formalizedBy | Richard J. Herrnstein NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| generalization |
applied to addiction research
ⓘ
applied to consumer choice ⓘ applied to organizational behavior management ⓘ applied to self-control and impulsivity ⓘ |
| generalizedForm | log(B1/B2) = a·log(R1/R2) + log b ⓘ |
| hasExtension | generalized matching law ⓘ |
| hasParameter |
bias parameter (log b)
ⓘ
sensitivity parameter (a or s) ⓘ |
| inBehaviorAnalysis | forms basis for quantitative models of choice ⓘ |
| influencedBy | operant conditioning framework of B. F. Skinner ⓘ |
| mathematicalForm |
B1/(B1+B2) = R1/(R1+R2)
ⓘ
R1/(R1+R2) = r1/(r1+r2) ⓘ |
| originatedIn | 1960s ⓘ |
| predicts |
proportional allocation of behavior to reinforcement
ⓘ
relative response rate equals relative reinforcement rate ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
behavioral economics
ⓘ
concurrent variable-interval schedules ⓘ hyperbolic discounting ⓘ melioration theory NERFINISHED ⓘ |
| testedWith |
concurrent variable-interval fixed-interval schedules
ⓘ
concurrent variable-interval variable-interval schedules ⓘ |
| usedIn |
choice experiments with pigeons
ⓘ
choice experiments with rats ⓘ human operant choice research ⓘ |
| variable |
B1 (response rate on alternative 1)
ⓘ
B2 (response rate on alternative 2) ⓘ R1 (reinforcement rate on alternative 1) ⓘ R2 (reinforcement rate on alternative 2) ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: The Matching Law Description of subject: The Matching Law is a principle in behavioral psychology stating that organisms distribute their responses among available choices in proportion to the reinforcement they receive from each option.
Referenced by (1)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.