Primary and Secondary Reinforcement

[Ready for Fall 2026]

Modified: 2026-08-03 11:22 AM CDST

• Primary reinforcers are biological.
  • Food, drink, and pleasure are the principal examples of primary reinforcers.
• But, most human reinforcers are secondary, or conditioned.
  • Examples include money, grades in schools, and tokens.

• Secondary reinforcers acquire their power via a history of association with primary reinforcers or other secondary reinforcers.
  • For example, if I told you that dollars were no longer going to be used as money, then dollars would lose their power as a secondary reinforcer.
• Here's an example of how a secondary reinforcer is established.
  • Let's train a dog to sit.
    • First we would introduce the discriminative stimulus, the word "sit."
      • We could just say "sit" and when the dog sits, we would give it some food.
    • The food would be the primary reinforcer.
      • Immediately after we gave it the food we would say, "good dog."
    • "Good dog" is our secondary reinforcer of praise.
      • We would then repeat the process many times.
    • Gradually, we would give the food less often, but the dog would continue to sit when we told it to.
      • The words "good dog" gradually became a secondary reinforcer.
• Another example would be in a token economy.
  • Many therapeutic settings use the concept of the token economy.
  • Remember, a token is just an object that symbolizes some other thing.
  • For example, poker chips are tokens for money.
    • In New York City, subway tokens used to be pieces of metal that could be inserted into the turnstiles of the subway.
    • Small debts were often paid off using tokens in New York because of the token's value of one subway ride.
  • However, attempting to pay off debts elsewhere using NYC subway tokens would not be acceptable.
• In a token economy, people earn tokens for making certain responses; then those tokens can be cashed in for privileges, food, or drinks.
  • For example, residents of an adolescent halfway house may earn tokens by making their beds, being on time to meals, not fighting, and so on.
  • Then, being able to go to the movies on the weekend may require a certain number of tokens.
• Poker chips in a poker game are also tokens.
  • Can you see why?
    • (The chips only act as money inside the game.)