title: Louis Riel

text: On 11 February 1885, a response to the petition was received. The government proposed to take a census of the North-West Territories, and to form a commission to investigate grievances. This angered a faction of the Métis who saw it as a mere delaying tactic; they favoured taking up arms at once. Riel became the leader of this faction, but he lost the support of almost all Anglophones and Anglo-Métis, and the Catholic Church. He also lost the support of the Métis faction supporting local leader Charles Nolin. But Riel, undoubtedly influenced by his messianic delusions, became increasingly supportive of this course of action. Disenchanted with the status quo, and swayed by Riel's charisma and eloquent rhetoric, hundreds of Métis remained loyal to Riel, despite his proclamations that Bishop Ignace Bourget should be accepted as pope, and that "Rome has fallen".


title: Louis Riel

text: The Provisional Government of Saskatchewan was declared at Batoche on 19 March, with Riel as the political and spiritual leader and with Dumont assuming responsibility for military affairs. Riel formed a council called the Exovedate (a neologism meaning "those who picked from the flock"). On 21 March, Riel's emissaries demanded that Crozier surrender Fort Carlton. Scouting near Duck Lake on 26 March, a force led by Gabriel Dumont unexpectedly chanced upon a party from Fort Carlton. In the ensuing Battle of Duck Lake, the police were routed and the North-West Rebellion was begun in earnest.


title: Louis Riel

text: The near-completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway allowed troops from eastern Canada to quickly arrive in the territory. Knowing that he could not defeat the Canadians in direct confrontation, Dumont had hoped to force the Canadians to negotiate by engaging in a long-drawn out campaign of guerrilla warfare; Dumont realized a modest success along these lines at the Battle of Fish Creek on 24 April 1885. Riel, however, insisted on concentrating forces at Batoche to defend his "city of God". The outcome of the ensuing Battle of Batoche which took place from 9 to 12 May was never in doubt, and on 15 May a disheveled Riel surrendered to Canadian forces. Although Big Bear's forces managed to hold out until the Battle of Loon Lake on 3 June, the rebellion was a dismal failure for Indigenous communities.


title: Louis Riel

text: Several individuals closely tied to the government requested that the trial be held in Winnipeg in July 1885. Some historians contend that the trial was moved to Regina because of concerns with the possibility of an ethnically mixed and sympathetic jury. Prime Minister Macdonald ordered the trial to be convened in Regina, where Riel was tried before a jury of six Anglophone Protestants. The trial began on 20 July 1885.


title: Louis Riel

text: Riel delivered two long speeches during his trial, defending his own actions and affirming the rights of the Métis people. He rejected his lawyers' attempt to argue that he was not guilty by reason of insanity. The jury found him guilty but recommended mercy; nonetheless, Judge Hugh Richardson sentenced him to death on 1 August 1885, with the date of his execution initially set for 18 September 1885. "We tried Riel for treason," one juror later said, "And he was hanged for the murder of Scott." Lewis Thomas notes that "the government's conduct of the case was to be a travesty of justice".


title: Louis Riel

text: Boulton writes in his memoirs that, as the date of his execution approached, Riel regretted his opposition to the defence of insanity and vainly attempted to provide evidence that he was not sane. Requests for a retrial, petitions for a commuted sentence, and an appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in Britain were denied. John A. Macdonald, who was instrumental in upholding Riel's sentence, is famously quoted as saying "He shall hang though every dog in Quebec bark in his favour" (although the veracity of this quote is uncertain).


title: Louis Riel

text: Before his execution, Riel received Father André as his spiritual advisor. He was also given writing materials and allowed to correspond with friends and relatives. Louis Riel was hanged for treason on 16 November 1885 at the North-West Mounted Police barracks in Regina.


title: Louis Riel

text: ... [Riel's] last words were to say good-bye to Dr. Jukes and thank him for his kindness, and just before the white cap was pulled over his face he said, "" meaning "Thank Mrs. Forget".


title: Louis Riel

text: The cap was pulled down, and while he was praying the trap was pulled. Death was not instantaneous. Louis Riel's pulse ceased four minutes after the trap-door fell and during that time the rope around his neck slowly strangled and choked him to death. The body was to have been interred inside the gallows' enclosure, and the grave was commenced, but an order came from the Lieutenant-Governor to hand the body over to Sheriff Chapleau which was accordingly done that night.


title: Louis Riel

text: Following the execution, Riel's body was returned to his mother's home in St. Vital, where it lay in state. On 12 December 1886, his remains were interred in the churchyard of the Saint-Boniface Cathedral following the celebration of a requiem mass.


title: Louis Riel

text: The trial and execution of Riel caused a bitter and prolonged reaction which convulsed Canadian politics for decades. The execution was both supported and opposed by the provinces. For example, conservative Ontario strongly supported Riel's execution, but Quebec was vehemently opposed to it. Francophones were upset Riel was hanged because they thought his execution was a symbol of Anglophone dominance of Canada. The Orange Irish Protestant element in Ontario had demanded the execution as the punishment for Riel's treason and his execution of Thomas Scott in 1870. In Quebec, the politician Honoré Mercier rose to power by mobilizing the opposition in 1886.


title: Louis Riel

text: Historians have debated the Riel case so often and so passionately that he is the most written-about person in Canadian history. Interpretations have varied dramatically over time. The first amateur English language histories hailed the triumph of civilization, represented by English-speaking Protestants, over savagery represented by the half-breed Métis who were Catholic and spoke French. Riel was portrayed as an insane traitor and an obstacle to the expansion of Canada to the West.


title: Louis Riel

text: By the mid-20th century academic historians had dropped the theme of savagery versus civilization, deemphasized the Métis, and focused on Riel, presenting his execution as a major cause of the bitter division in Canada along ethnocultural and geographical lines of religion and language. W. L. Morton says of the execution that it "convulsed the course of national politics for the next decade": it was well received in Ontario, particularly among Orangemen, but francophone Quebec defended Riel as "the symbol, indeed as a hero of his race". Morton concluded that some of Riel's positions were defensible, but that "they did not present a program of practical substance which the government might have granted without betrayal of its responsibilities". J. M. Bumsted in 2000 said that for Manitoba historian James Jackson, the shooting of Scott—"perhaps the result of Riel's incipient madness—was the great blemish on Riel's achievement, depriving him of his proper role as the father of Manitoba."


title: Louis Riel

text: The Catholic clergy had originally supported the Métis, but reversed themselves when they realized that Riel was leading a heretical movement. They made sure that he was not honored as a martyr. However the clergy lost their influence during the Quiet Revolution, and activists in Québec found in Riel the perfect hero, with the image now of a freedom fighter who stood up for his people against an oppressive government in the face of widespread racist bigotry. He was made a folk hero by Métis, French Canadian and other Canadian minorities. Activists who espoused violence embraced his image; in the 1960s, the Quebec terrorist group, the Front de libération du Québec adopted the name "Louis Riel" for one of its terrorist cells.


title: Louis Riel

text: Across Canada there emerged a new interpretation of reality in his rebellion, holding that the Métis had major unresolved grievances; that the government was indeed unresponsive; that Riel had chosen violence only as a last resort; and he was given a questionable trial, then executed by a vengeful government. John Foster said in 1985 that "the interpretive drift of the last half-century ... has witnessed increasingly shrill though frequently uncritical condemnations of Canadian government culpability and equally uncritical identification with the "victimization" of the "innocent" Métis". However, a leading specialist Thomas Flanagan reversed his views after editing Riel's writings: he found that "the Métis grievances were at least partly of their own making", that Riel's violent approach was unnecessary given the government's response to his initial "constitutional agitation", and "that he received a surprisingly fair trial".


title: Louis Riel

text: An article by Doug Owram appearing in the "Canadian Historical Review" in 1982 found that Riel had become "a Canadian folk hero", even "mythical", in English Canada, corresponding with the designation of Batoche as a national historic site and the compilation of his writings. That compilation consisted of three volumes of letters, diaries, and other prose writings; a fourth volume of his poetry; and a fifth volume which contained reference materials. Edited by George Stanley, Raymond Huel, Gilles Martel, Thomas Flanagan and Glen Campbell, this work "ma[de] it possible to think comprehensively about Riel's life and his achievements", but was also criticized for some of its editorial decisions. In a 2010 speech, Beverley McLachlin, then Chief Justice of Canada, summed up Riel as being a rebel by the standards of the time but a patriot "viewed through our modern lens".


title: Louis Riel

text: The Saskatchewan Métis' requested land grants were all provided by the government by the end of 1887, and the government resurveyed the Métis river lots in accordance with their wishes. However, much of the land was soon bought by speculators who later turned huge profits from it. Riel's worst fears were realized—following the failed rebellion, the French language and Roman Catholic religion faced increasing marginalization in both Saskatchewan and Manitoba, as exemplified by the controversy surrounding the Manitoba Schools Question. The Métis themselves were increasingly forced to live in shantytowns on undesirable land. Saskatchewan did not become a province until 1905.


title: Louis Riel

text: Riel's execution and Macdonald's refusal to commute his sentence caused lasting discord in Quebec. Honoré Mercier exploited the discontent to reconstitute the Parti National. This party, which promoted Quebec nationalism, won a majority in the 1886 Quebec election. The federal election of 1887 likewise saw significant gains by the federal Liberals. This led to the victory of the Liberal party under Wilfrid Laurier in the federal election of 1896, which in turn set the stage for the domination of Canadian federal politics (particularly in Quebec) by the Liberal party in the 20th century.


title: Louis Riel

text: Since the 1980s, numerous federal politicians have introduced private member's bills seeking to pardon Riel or recognize him as a Father of Confederation. In 1992, the House of Commons passed a resolution recognizing "the unique and historic role of Louis Riel as a founder of Manitoba and his contribution in the development of Confederation". The CBC's "Greatest Canadian" project ranked Riel as the 11th "Greatest Canadian" on the basis of a public vote.


title: Louis Riel

text: In 2007, Manitoba's provincial government voted to recognize Louis Riel Day as a provincial holiday, observed on the third Monday of February.


title: Louis Riel

text: Two statues of Riel are located in Winnipeg. One of these statues, the work of architect Étienne Gaboury and sculptor Marcien Lemay, depicts Riel as a naked and tortured figure. It was unveiled in 1971 and stood in the grounds of the Manitoba Legislative Building for 23 years. After much outcry (especially from the Métis community) that the statue was an undignified misrepresentation, the statue was removed and placed at the Université de Saint-Boniface. It was replaced with a statue of Louis Riel designed by Miguel Joyal depicting Riel as a dignified statesman. The unveiling ceremony was on 12 May 1996, in Winnipeg. A statue of Riel on the grounds of the Saskatchewan Legislative Building in Regina was installed and later removed for similar reasons.


title: Louis Riel

text: In numerous communities across Canada, Riel is commemorated in the names of streets, schools, neighbourhoods, and other buildings. Examples in Winnipeg include the landmark Esplanade Riel pedestrian bridge linking old Saint-Boniface with Downtown Winnipeg, and the Louis Riel School Division. The student centre at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon is named after Riel, as is the Louis Riel Trail. There are schools named after Louis Riel in four major Canadian cities: Calgary, Montreal, Ottawa and Winnipeg.


title: Louis Riel

text: Portrayals of Riel's role in the Red River Resistance include the 1979 CBC television film "Riel" and Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown's acclaimed 2003 graphic novel "Louis Riel: A Comic-Strip Biography". An opera about Riel entitled "Louis Riel" was commissioned for Canada's centennial celebrations in 1967; it was written by Harry Somers, with an English and French libretto by Mavor Moore and Jacques Languirand.


title: Graham Phillips (actor)

text: Graham David Phillips (born April 14, 1993) is an American actor, filmmaker and singer. Beginning his acting career at the age of nine, Phillips is known for a variety of film, stage and television roles; as Evan Goldman in the Broadway musical "13", Ben Tennyson in the film "", Zach Florrick on the CBS television series "The Good Wife", as well as other leading roles in independent films like "Staten Island Summer". More recently, he has appeared in films like "Blockers" and "XOXO" and in the recurring television roles of Nick St. Clair in "Riverdale" and Nate in "Atypical". He made his feature film directorial debut in 2019 with "The Bygone".


title: Graham Phillips (actor)

text: Phillips was born on April 14, 1993, in Orange County, California. His father is Layn R. Phillips, an attorney and former U.S. district court judge. He was raised Episcopalian, and during his K-12 school years, attended St. Margaret's Episcopal School in San Juan Capistrano, California. He dated singer Ariana Grande from 2008 to 2011.


title: Graham Phillips (actor)

text: Phillips entered Princeton University in the fall of 2012, majoring in history while maintaining his acting career. His undergraduate thesis was on indigenous marginalization and resistance in the U.S. He graduated in 2017.


title: Graham Phillips (actor)

text: Phillips starred as Evan Goldman in the musical comedy "13" on Broadway at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre which opened October 5, 2008 and closed January 4, 2009. It was directed by Jeremy Sams, choreographed by Christopher Gattelli, and its music and lyrics were by Jason Robert Brown and book by Dan Elish and Robert Horn.


title: Graham Phillips (actor)

text: Prior to his role in "13", Phillips played the title role in "The Little Prince" with the New York City Opera at Lincoln Center. The "New York Times" critic called Phillips' performance in the title role "smashing." From there Phillips went directly into the world premiere of "An American Tragedy" at the Metropolitan Opera where he played the part of Young Clyde, both opening and closing the opera with a solo.


title: Graham Phillips (actor)

text: Phillips' other professional stage credits include "A Christmas Carol: The Musical" on Broadway performed at Madison Square Garden where he sang the role of Tiny Tim to Jim Dale's Scrooge; "" with Val Kilmer at the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles.


title: Graham Phillips (actor)

text: Phillips, at ten years old, was the second youngest person to sing the National Anthem to open a Los Angeles Dodgers baseball game (behind 9-year-old Jessica Tivens in 1990). He has also debuted original songs composed by Martin Charnin and John Kander in New York. He appeared twice on "The Today Show" as a soloist. Phillips recorded a solo composed by Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz for the film "Noel" starring Robin Williams and Susan Sarandon. He also was a soloist on Meat Loaf's 2006 album "".


title: Graham Phillips (actor)

text: Phillips had a co-starring role as Jordan Baxter, the middle son, in the feature film "Evan Almighty", starring Steve Carell, Morgan Freeman and Lauren Graham, which premiered June 22, 2007. In the fall of 2007 he completed working on the feature film "Stolen Lives" starring Josh Lucas. Phillips also played the lead role in "". His television credits include "The Good Wife", "Crossing Jordan", "Judging Amy", "The King of Queens", "White Collar", and the Hallmark film "Love's Long Journey".


title: Graham Phillips (actor)

text: Phillips, along with the rest of the cast of "The Good Wife", has received three Screen Actors Guild Award nominations for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series. He has also received three Young Artist Award nominations; Best Performance By a Leading Young Actor in a TV Movie, Miniseries or Special for his role in "", Best Performance by a Supporting Young Actor in a Feature Film for his role in "Evan Almighty", and Best Supporting Young Actor in a TV Series for his role in "The Good Wife". He also plays Roger in the go90.com series "Guidance".


title: Graham Phillips (actor)

text: Phillips played Nick St. Clair in the second season of the teen drama television series "Riverdale". In 2019, Phillips played Prince Eric in ABC's "The Little Mermaid Live!"


title: Graham Phillips (actor)

text: In 2014, Phillips co-founded a small production company Grind Arts Co. with choreographer-actor Eamon Foley. Foley, who co-starred with Phillips in "13", also was attending Princeton. With Grind, Phillips produced and acted in experimental adaptions of "" and "The Last Five Years", and directed a short film titled "Color + Light". Phillips also directed a Princeton production of the musical "Once" in 2016.


title: Graham Phillips (actor)

text: Since 2014, Phillips has run the independent film production studio Phillips Pictures with his brother Parker Phillips. As a writer-director team – billed as Graham & Parker Phillips – they have worked on a number of projects together. They released the original short film "The Mediator" in 2014. In 2019, the Phillips brothers made their feature filmmaking debut with "The Bygone". The film was distributed by Netflix. The brothers are currently signed to direct "Rumble Through The Dark", a film based on "The Fighter" by Michael Farris Smith.


title: Gale Sayers

text: Gale Eugene Sayers (May 30, 1943September 23, 2020) was an American professional football player who was both a halfback and return specialist in the National Football League (NFL). In a relatively brief but highly productive NFL career, Sayers spent seven seasons with the Chicago Bears from 1965 to 1971, though multiple injuries effectively limited him to five seasons of play. He was known for his elusiveness and agility and was regarded by his peers as one of the most difficult players to tackle.


title: Gale Sayers

text: Nicknamed the "Kansas Comet", Sayers played college football for the Kansas Jayhawks football team of the University of Kansas, where he compiled 4,020 all-purpose yards over three seasons and was twice recognized as a consensus All-American. In Sayers' rookie NFL season, he set a league record by scoring 22 touchdowns—including a record-tying six in one game—and gained 2,272 all-purpose yards en route to being named the NFL's Rookie of the Year. He continued this production through his first five seasons, earning four Pro Bowl appearances and five first-team All-Pro selections. A right knee injury forced Sayers to miss the final five games of the 1968 season, but he returned in 1969 to lead the NFL in rushing yards and be named the NFL Comeback Player of the Year. An injury to his left knee in the 1970 preseason as well as subsequent injuries kept him sidelined for most of his final two seasons.


title: Gale Sayers

text: His friendship with Bears teammate Brian Piccolo, who died of cancer in 1970, inspired Sayers to write his autobiography, "I Am Third", which in turn was the basis for the 1971 made-for-TV movie "Brian's Song".


title: Gale Sayers

text: Sayers was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1977 at age 34 and remains the youngest person to have received the honor. He is one of four players in the Super Bowl era to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame without ever playing a postseason game. He was named to the NFL's 75th Anniversary Team as a halfback and kick returner, the only player to occupy two positions on the team. In 2019, he was named to the NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team. For his achievements in college, Sayers was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame the same year. His jersey number is retired by both the Bears and the University of Kansas. Following his NFL career, Sayers began a career in sports administration and business and served as the athletic director of Southern Illinois University from 1976 to 1981.


title: Gale Sayers

text: Gale Eugene Sayers was born to Roger Earl Sayers and Bernice Ross in Wichita, Kansas, and raised in Omaha, Nebraska. His father was a mechanic for Goodyear, farmed, and worked for auto dealerships. Sayers' younger brother, Ron, later played running back for the San Diego Chargers of the American Football League. Roger, his older brother, was a decorated college track and field athlete. Gale graduated from Omaha Central High School, where he starred in football and track and field. A fine all-around track athlete, he set a state long jump record of 24 ft 10 in (7.58m) as a senior in 1961.


title: Gale Sayers

text: Sayers was recruited by several major Midwestern colleges before deciding to play football at the University of Kansas. While being interviewed during a broadcast of a Chicago Cubs game on September 8, 2010, Sayers said he had originally intended to go to the University of Iowa. Sayers said that he decided against going to Iowa after the Iowa head coach, Jerry Burns, did not have time to meet Sayers during his one campus visit. During his Jayhawks career, he rushed for 2,675 yards and gained a Big Eight Conference-record 4,020 all-purpose yards. He was three times recognized as a first-team All–Big Eight selection and was a consensus pick for the College Football All-America Team in both 1963 and 1964.


title: Gale Sayers

text: As a sophomore in 1962, his first year on the varsity team, Sayers led the Big Eight Conference and was third in the nation with 1,125 rushing yards. His 7.1 yards-per-carry average was the highest of any player in the NCAA that season. Against Oklahoma State, he carried 21 times for a conference single-game-record 283 yards to lead Kansas to a 36–17 comeback victory. In 1963, Sayers set an NCAA Division I FBS record with a 99-yard run against Nebraska. He finished the year with 917 rushing yards, again leading all rushers in the Big Eight. He earned first-team All-America recognition from the American Football Coaches Association (AFCA), the Football Writers Association of America (FWAA), the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA), "The Sporting News", and United Press International (UPI), among others. In 1964, his senior year, he led the Jayhawks to a 15–14 upset victory over Oklahoma with a 93-yard return of the game's opening kickoff for a touchdown. He finished the year with 633 rushing yards, third most among Big Eight rushers, and also caught 17 passes for 178 yards, returned 15 punts for 138 yards, and returned seven kickoffs for 193 yards. He earned first-team All-America honors from each of the same selectors as in the previous year, in addition to the Associated Press (AP), among others.


title: Gale Sayers

text: Sayers was drafted by the Chicago Bears in the first round, fourth overall, in the 1965 NFL Draft, and was also picked fifth overall by the Kansas City Chiefs of the American Football League in the AFL draft. After consulting his wife, he decided he would rather play in Chicago, signing with George Halas's Bears. In his rookie year, he scored an NFL-record 22 touchdowns: 14 rushing, six receiving, and one each on punt and kickoff returns. He gained 2,272 all-purpose yards, a record for an NFL rookie, with 1,371 of them coming from scrimmage. Sayers averaged 5.2 yards per rush and 17.5 yards per reception. His return averages were 14.9 yards per punt return and a league-high 31.4 yards per kickoff return.


title: Gale Sayers

text: Against the Minnesota Vikings on October 17, Sayers carried 13 times for 64 yards and a touchdown; caught four passes for 63 yards and two touchdowns; and had a 98-yard kickoff return touchdown in the 45–37 Bears victory. He was the last NFL player to score a rushing, receiving, and kickoff return touchdown in the same game until Tyreek Hill accomplished the feat over 50 years later, in 2016. Bears coach Halas lauded Sayers after the game, saying, "I don't ever remember seeing a rookie back who was as good," and deemed his talents equal to former Bears greats Red Grange and George McAfee. "And remember," said Halas, "we used to call George 'One-Play McAfee'." On December 12, Sayers tied Ernie Nevers' and Dub Jones' record for touchdowns in a single game, scoring six in a 61–20 victory over the San Francisco 49ers that was played in muddy conditions at the Chicago Cubs' Wrigley Field. He accounted for 326 yards in the game: 113 rushing, 89 receiving, and 134 on punt returns. Sayers was the consensus choice for NFL Rookie of the Year honors from the AP, UPI, and NEA.


title: Gale Sayers

text: In his second season, Sayers led the league in rushing with 1,231 yards, averaging 5.4 yards per carry with eight touchdowns, and becoming the first halfback to win the rushing title since 1949. He also led the Bears in receiving with 34 catches, 447 yards, and two more touchdowns. He surpassed his rookie season's kick return numbers, averaging 31.2 yards per return with two touchdowns. He also supplanted his all-purpose yards total from the previous season, gaining 2,440 to set the NFL record. The first of his kickoff return touchdowns that season came against the Los Angeles Rams, as he followed a wedge of blockers en route to a 93-yard score. Against the Minnesota Vikings in the Bears' final game of the season, and the first of Sayers' pro career with his parents in attendance, he carried 17 times for a franchise-record 197 yards after returning the opening kickoff 90 yards for a touchdown. Sayers was named to All-Pro first-teams by the AP, UPI, the NEA, "The Sporting News", and the Pro Football Writers Association, among others. Starring in his second straight Pro Bowl, Sayers carried 11 times for 110 yards and was named the back of the game. The Bears finished the season with a 5–7–2 record, and the "Chicago Tribune" tabbed Sayers as "the one bright spot in Chicago's pro football year."


title: Gale Sayers

text: In Halas's final season as an NFL coach, Sayers again starred. Sharing more of the rushing duties with other backs, such as Brian Piccolo, Sayers gained 880 yards with a 4.7-yard average per carry. His receptions were down as well. He had three kickoff returns for touchdowns on 16 returns, averaging 37.7 yards per return. Only rarely returning punts—he returned three all season—Sayers still managed to return one for a score against the San Francisco 49ers, a game in which he also returned the opening kickoff 97 yards for a touchdown and scored a rushing touchdown on a rain-soaked field in San Francisco's Kezar Stadium. "It was a bad field, but it didn't stop some people," said 49ers coach Jack Christiansen of Sayers' performance. Christiansen said that after Sayers' kickoff return, he ordered that all punts go out of bounds. But Sayers received the punt and ran 58 yards through the middle of the field for the score. In a November game against the Detroit Lions, a cutback by Sayers caused future hall of fame cornerback Lem Barney to fall over, after which Sayers sprinted for a 63-yard gain. Later in the game he returned a kickoff 97 yards for a touchdown. After the season, Sayers was chosen for his third straight Pro Bowl, in which he returned a kickoff 75 yards and scored a three-yard rushing touchdown and again earned player of the game honors. Chicago finished in second place in the newly organized Central Division with a 7–6–1 record.


title: Gale Sayers

text: Sayers had the most productive rushing yardage game of his career on November 3, 1968, against the Green Bay Packers, during which he carried 24 times for 205 yards. His season ended prematurely the following week against the 49ers' Kermit Alexander, when he tore several ligaments in his right knee including his anterior cruciate ligament, his medial collateral ligament, and his meniscus cartilage. Garry Lyle, the teammate nearest Sayers at the time, said, "I saw his eyes sort of glass over. I heard him holler. I knew he was hurt." Sayers had again been leading the league in rushing yards through the first nine games, and finished the year with 856 yards. After surgery, Sayers went through a physical rehabilitation program with the help of Piccolo, who had replaced him in the starting lineup. Despite missing the Bears' final five games, he earned first-team All-Pro recognition from several media outlets, including the AP, UPI, and NEA.


title: Gale Sayers

text: In the 1969 season, after a slow start and despite diminished speed and acceleration, Sayers led the league in rushing once again with 1,032 yards. He averaged 4.4 yards per carry and was the only player to gain over 1,000 rushing yards that year. He moved into second place on the Bears' all-time rushing yards list, passing Bronko Nagurski. Sayers was recognized as the NFL's Comeback Player of the Year by United Press International. The Bears, long past the Halas glory years, finished in last place with a franchise-worst 1–13 record. In his fourth and final Pro Bowl appearance, Sayers was the West's leading rusher and its leading receiver. For the third time in as many Pro Bowl performances, he was named the "Back of the Game".


title: Gale Sayers

text: In the 1970 preseason, Sayers suffered a second knee injury, this time bone bruises to his left knee. Attempting to play through the injury in the opening game against the Giants, his production was severely limited. He sat out the next two games and returned in Week 4 against the Vikings, but he was still visibly hampered, most evidently when he was unable to chase down Vikings defensive lineman Alan Page during a 65-yard fumble return. Sayers carried only six times for nine yards before further injuring his knee. He underwent surgery the following week and was deemed out for the remainder of the season. He had carried 23 times for 52 yards to that point. During his off time, Sayers took classes to become a stockbroker and became the first black stockbroker in his company's history. He also entered a Paine Webber program for 45 nationwide stockbroker trainees and placed second highest in sales.


title: Gale Sayers

text: After another knee operation and rehabilitation period, Sayers attempted a comeback for the 1971 season. He was kept out of the first three games after carrying the ball only twice in the preseason, as Bears head coach Jim Dooley planned to slowly work him back into the rotation. His first game back was against the New Orleans Saints on October 10, in which he carried eight times for 30 yards. After the game, he told reporters he was satisfied with his performance and that his knee felt fine. The following week, against the 49ers, he carried five times before injuring his ankle in the first quarter, an injury that ultimately caused him to miss the remainder of the season. He was encouraged to retire but decided to give football one last try. Sayers' final game was in the 1972 preseason in which he fumbled twice in three carries; he retired from professional football days later.


title: Gale Sayers

text: Sayers' ability as a runner in the open field was considered unmatched, both during his playing career and since his retirement. He possessed raw speed and was also highly elusive and had terrific vision, a combination which made him very difficult to tackle. Actor Billy Dee Williams, who portrayed Sayers in the 1971 film "Brian's Song", likened his running to "ballet" and "poetry". Mike Ditka, a teammate of Sayers' for two seasons, called him "the greatest player I've ever seen. That's right—the greatest." Another former teammate, linebacker Dick Butkus, famous for his tackling ability, said of Sayers:


title: Gale Sayers

text: He had this ability to go full speed, cut and then go full speed again right away. I saw it every day in practice. We played live, and you could never get a clean shot on Gale. Never.


title: Gale Sayers

text: On his tendency to escape from tight situations, Sayers once proclaimed, "Just give me 18 inches of daylight. That's all I need." He felt if his blockers created 18 inches of space for him to run through, he could break a run into the open field. This quick acceleration became a hallmark of his running style, although some of it was lost following the injury to his right knee. After the injury, he relied more on tough running and engaging tacklers for extra yards.


title: Gale Sayers

text: Despite the production from Sayers, the Bears as a whole struggled to find success; in games that Sayers played, the team compiled a record of 29 wins, 36 losses, and 3 ties, and failed to reach the postseason. Because of this, Sayers' main focus each postseason was on the Pro Bowl, where he excelled. Showcasing his breakaway talents, throughout his Pro Bowl career he achieved runs of 74, 52, 51, 48, and 42 yards. In the Pro Bowl following his rookie season, he had kickoff returns of 51 and 48 yards, despite limited opportunities due to the East's attempts to punt and kick away from him. In the next season's game, his 10 yards-per-carry average set a Pro Bowl record. He was named the "Back of the Game", an honor he received again in 1968 and 1969, joining Johnny Unitas as the only players to win three Pro Bowl MVP awards. "The Pro Bowl is the time to prove how good you are, playing against the best of your peers," recalled Sayers. "I took it as a challenge. I came into the game in shape, came to play."


title: Gale Sayers

text: In 1967, Sayers and Bears teammate Brian Piccolo became roommates in the NFL. Sayers' ensuing friendship with Piccolo and Piccolo's struggle with cancer (embryonal cell carcinoma, which was diagnosed after it metastasized to a large tumor in his chest cavity), became the subject of the made-for-TV movie "Brian's Song". The movie, in which Sayers was portrayed by Billy Dee Williams in the 1971 original and by Mekhi Phifer in the 2001 remake, was adapted from Sayers' account of this story in his 1970 autobiography, "I Am Third". Sayers and Piccolo were devoted friends and deeply respectful of and affectionate with each other. Piccolo helped Sayers through rehabilitation after injury, and Sayers was by Piccolo's side throughout his illness until his death in June 1970.


title: Gale Sayers

text: Sayers worked in the athletic department at his alma mater, the University of Kansas, for three and half years, before he was named the athletic director at Southern Illinois University Carbondale in 1976. He resigned from his position at Southern Illinois in 1981. From 1985-86, Sayers worked as the athletic director at Tennessee State University in Nashville, TN.


title: Gale Sayers

text: In 1984, Sayers founded Crest Computer Supply Company in the Chicago area. Under Sayers' leadership, this company experienced consistent growth and was renamed Sayers 40, Inc. He was chairman of Sayers 40, Inc., the aforementioned technology consulting and implementation firm serving Fortune 1000 companies nationally with offices in Vernon Hills, Illinois, Walpole, Massachusetts, Clearwater, Florida, and Atlanta. Sayers, along with his wife Ardythe, were also active philanthropists in Chicago. He supported the Cradle Foundation—an adoption organization in Evanston, Illinois, and founded the Gale Sayers Center in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago. The Gale Sayers Center is an after-school program for children ages 8–12 from Chicago's west side and focuses on leadership development, tutoring, and mentoring. In 2009, Sayers joined the University of Kansas Athletic Department staff as Director of Fundraising for Special Projects.


title: Gale Sayers

text: In September 2013, Sayers reportedly sued the NFL, claiming the league negligently handled his repeated head injuries during his career. The lawsuit claimed Sayers suffered headaches and short-term memory loss since retirement. It stated he was sometimes sent back into games after suffering concussions, and that the league did not do enough to protect him. The case was withdrawn after Sayers initially claimed it was done so because the case was filed without his permission, but was actually withdrawn due to other litigation that Sayers was involved in at the time. Sayers filed a new lawsuit in January 2014 along with six other former players. The lawsuit was finally settled in late October, 2017. Sayers was represented by James Acho.


title: Gale Sayers

text: Sayers' record of 22 touchdowns in a season was broken by O. J. Simpson in 1975, who scored 23; his 22 touchdowns remains a rookie record as of 2021. Sayers was the last player to score at least six touchdowns in a game until 2020, when Alvin Kamara scored six against the Minnesota Vikings. His career kickoff return average of 30.56 yards is an NFL record for players with at least 75 attempts, and he is one of several players to have scored two return touchdowns in a game. He is tied with four other players for the second most career kickoff return touchdowns, with six. Sayers' rookie record of 2,272 all-purpose yards was broken in 1988 by Tim Brown, who gained 2,317 yards through 16 games, which was two more games than Sayers set the record in. His single-season all-purpose yards record of 2,440 set in 1966 was broken in 1974 by Mack Herron, who surpassed it by four yards.


title: Gale Sayers

text: Sayers was elected to the "Lincoln Journal"'s Nebraska Sports Hall of Fame in 1973, the first black athlete to be so honored. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1977. His number 48 jersey is one of three retired by the Kansas Jayhawks football team.


title: Gale Sayers

text: Later in 1977, Sayers was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame and is still the youngest inductee in its history. On October 31, 1994, at halftime of a Monday night game, the Bears retired his number 40 at Soldier Field, along with number 51, which had been worn by teammate, linebacker Dick Butkus. The Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee named Sayers to its NFL 1960s All-Decade Team, which is composed of the best players of the 1960s at each position. In 1994, Sayers was selected for the NFL 75th Anniversary All-Time Team as both a halfback and a kickoff returner; he was the only player selected for multiple positions. In 2019, he was one of twelve running backs selected to the NFL 100th Anniversary All-Time Team. In 1999, he was ranked 22nd on "The Sporting News"'s list of the 100 Greatest Football Players.


title: Gale Sayers

text: In March 2017, Sayers' wife, Ardythe, revealed that he had been diagnosed with dementia four years prior. She stated that a Mayo Clinic doctor confirmed it was likely caused by his football career. "It wasn't so much getting hit in the head," she said. "It's just the shaking of the brain when they took him down with the force they play the game in." While he remained physically healthy, the disease had an adverse effect on his mental health and memory in particular, making simple tasks such as signing his own name difficult. After suffering from dementia for several years, Sayers died on September 23, 2020, at the age of 77.


title: Japonic languages

text: Japonic or Japanese–Ryukyuan, sometimes also Japanic, is a language family comprising Japanese, spoken in the main islands of Japan, and the Ryukyuan languages, spoken in the Ryukyu Islands. The family is universally accepted by linguists, and significant progress has been made in reconstructing the proto-language. The reconstruction implies a split between all dialects of Japanese and all Ryukyuan varieties, probably before the 7th century. The Hachijō language, spoken on the Izu Islands, is also included, but its position within the family is unclear.


title: Japonic languages

text: Most scholars believe that Japonic was brought to the Japanese archipelago from the Korean peninsula with the Yayoi culture during the 1st millennium BC. There is some fragmentary evidence suggesting that Japonic languages may still have been spoken in central and southern parts of the Korean peninsula (see Peninsular Japonic) in the early centuries AD.


title: Japonic languages

text: Possible genetic relationships with many other language families have been proposed, most systematically with Koreanic, but none have been conclusively demonstrated.


title: Japonic languages

text: Most scholars believe that Japonic was brought to northern Kyushu from the Korean peninsula around 700 to 300 BC by wet-rice farmers of the Yayoi culture and spread throughout the Japanese archipelago, replacing indigenous languages.


title: Japonic languages

text: The former wider distribution of Ainu languages is confirmed by placenames in northern Honshu ending in < Ainu 'river' and < Ainu 'stream'.


title: Japonic languages

text: Somewhat later, Japonic languages also spread southward to the Ryukyu Islands. There is fragmentary placename evidence that now-extinct Japonic languages were still spoken in central and southern parts of the Korean peninsula several centuries later.


title: Japonic languages

text: Japanese is the national language of Japan, where it is spoken by about 126 million people. The oldest attestation is Old Japanese, which was recorded using Chinese characters in the 7th and 8th centuries.


title: Japonic languages

text: It differed from Modern Japanese in having a simple (C)V syllable structure and avoiding vowel sequences. The script also distinguished eight vowels (or diphthongs), with two each corresponding to modern "i", "e" and "o". Most of the texts reflect the speech of the area around Nara, the eighth-century Japanese capital, but over 300 poems were written in eastern dialects of Old Japanese.


title: Japonic languages

text: The language experienced a massive influx of Sino-Japanese vocabulary after the introduction of Buddhism in the 6th century and peaking with the wholesale importation of Chinese culture in the 8th and the 9th centuries. The loanwords now account for about half the lexicon. They also affected the sound system of the language by adding compound vowels, syllable-final nasals, and geminate consonants, which became separate morae.


title: Japonic languages

text: Modern mainland Japanese dialects, spoken on Honshu, Kyushu, Shikoku, and Hokkaido, are generally grouped as follows:


title: Japonic languages

text: The early capitals of Nara and Kyoto lay within the western area, and their Kansai dialect retained its prestige and influence long after the capital was moved to Edo (modern Tokyo) in 1603. Indeed, the Tokyo dialect has several western features not found in other eastern dialects.


title: Japonic languages

text: The Hachijō language, spoken on Hachijō-jima and the Daitō Islands, including Aogashima, is highly divergent and varied. It has a mix of conservative features inherited from Eastern Old Japanese and influences from modern Japanese, making it difficult to classify. Hachijō is an endangered language, with a small population of elderly speakers.


title: Japonic languages

text: The Ryukyuan languages were originally and traditionally spoken throughout the Ryukyu Islands, an island arc stretching between the southern Japanese island of Kyushu and the island of Taiwan. Most of them are considered "definitely" or "critically endangered" because of the spread of mainland Japanese.


title: Japonic languages

text: Since Old Japanese displayed several innovations that are not shared with Ryukyuan, the two branches must have separated before the 7th century. The move from Kyushu to the Ryukyus may have occurred later and possibly coincided with the rapid expansion of the agricultural Gusuku culture in the 10th and 11th centuries. Such a date would explain the presence in Proto-Ryukyuan of Sino-Japanese vocabulary borrowed from Early Middle Japanese. After the migration to the Ryukyus, there was limited influence from mainland Japan until the conquest of the Ryukyu Kingdom by the Satsuma Domain in 1609.


title: Japonic languages

text: Ryukyuan varieties are considered dialects of Japanese in Japan but have little intelligibility with Japanese or even among one another. They are divided into northern and southern groups, corresponding to the physical division of the chain by the 250 km-wide Miyako Strait.


title: Japonic languages

text: Northern Ryukyuan languages are spoken in the northern part of the chain, including the major Amami and Okinawa Islands. They form a single dialect continuum, with mutual unintelligibility between widely-separated varieties. The major varieties are, from northeast to southwest:


title: Japonic languages

text: There is no agreement on the subgrouping of the varieties. One proposal, adopted by the UNESCO "Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger", has three subgroups, with the central "Kunigami" branch comprising varieties from Southern Amami to Northern Okinawan, based on similar vowel systems and patterns of lenition of stops. Pellard suggests a binary division based on shared innovations, with an Amami group including the varieties from Kikai to Yoron, and an Okinawa group comprising the varieties of Okinawa and smaller islands to its west.


title: Japonic languages

text: Southern Ryukyuan languages are spoken in the southern part of the chain, the Sakishima Islands. They comprise three distinct dialect continua:


title: Japonic languages

text: The southern Ryukyus were settled by Japonic-speakers from the northern Ryukyus in the 13th century, leaving no linguistic trace of the indigenous inhabitants of the islands.


title: Japonic languages

text: An alternative classification, based mainly on the development of the pitch accent, groups the highly divergent Kagoshima dialects of southwestern Kyushu with Ryukyuan in a Southwestern branch.


title: Japonic languages

text: In the following revised internal classification by Elisabeth de Boer, Japanese is paraphyletic within Japonic, with the Ryukyuan languages classified within one of the various branches of Japanese.


title: Japonic languages

text: There is fragmentary evidence suggesting that now-extinct Japonic languages were spoken in the central and southern parts of the Korean peninsula. Vovin calls these languages Peninsular Japonic and groups Japanese and Ryukyuan as .


title: Japonic languages

text: The most-cited evidence comes from chapter 37 of the (compiled in 1145), which contains a list of pronunciations and meanings of placenames in the former kingdom of Goguryeo. As the pronunciations are given using Chinese characters, they are difficult to interpret, but several of those from central Korea, in the area south of the Han River captured from Baekje in the 5th century, seem to correspond to Japonic words. Scholars differ on whether they represent the language of Goguryeo or the people that it conquered.


title: Japonic languages

text: According to Shirō Hattori, more attempts have been made to link Japanese with other language families than for any other language. None of the attempts has succeeded in demonstrating a common descent for Japonic and any other language family.


title: Japonic languages

text: The most systematic comparisons have involved Korean, which has a very similar grammatical structure to Japonic languages. Samuel Elmo Martin, John Whitman, and others have proposed hundreds of possible cognates, with sound correspondences. However, Alexander Vovin points out that Old Japanese contains several pairs of words of similar meaning in which one word matches a Korean form, and the other is also found in Ryukyuan and Eastern Old Japanese, suggesting that the former is an early loan from Korean. He suggests that to eliminate such early loans, Old Japanese morphemes should not be assigned a Japonic origin unless they are also attested in Southern Ryukyuan or Eastern Old Japanese. That procedure leaves fewer than a dozen possible cognates, which may have been borrowed by Korean from Peninsular Japonic.


title: Japonic languages

text: Most Japonic languages have voicing opposition for obstruents, with exceptions such as the Miyako dialect of Ōgami. Glottalized consonants are common in North Ryukyuan languages but are rarer in South Ryukyuan.


title: Japonic languages

text: A five-vowel system like Standard Japanese , , , and is common, but some Ryukyuan languages also have central vowels and , and Yonaguni has only , , and .


title: Japonic languages

text: In most Japonic languages, speech rhythm is based on a subsyllabic unit, the mora. Each syllable has a basic mora of the form (C)V but a nasal coda, geminate consonant, or lengthened vowel counts as an additional mora. However, some dialects in northern Honshu or southern Kyushu have syllable-based rhythm.


title: Japonic languages

text: Like Ainu, Middle Korean, and some modern Korean dialects, most Japonic varieties have a lexical pitch accent, which governs whether the moras of a word are pronounced high or low, but it follows widely-different patterns. In Tokyo-type systems, the basic pitch of a word is high, with an accent (if present) marking the position of a drop to low pitch. In Kyushu dialects, the basic pitch is low, with accented syllables given high pitch. In Kyoto-type systems, both types are used.


title: Japonic languages

text: Japonic languages, again like Ainu and Korean, are left-branching (or head-final), with a basic subject–object–verb word order, modifiers before nouns, and postpositions. There is a clear distinction between verbs, which have extensive inflectional morphology, and nominals, with agglutinative suffixing morphology.


title: Japonic languages

text: Mainland varieties have adjectives of both types, while Ryukyuan languages inflect all adjectives in the same way as verbs.


title: Japonic languages

text: Most Japonic languages mark singular and plural number, but some Northern Ryukyuan languages also have the dual.


title: Japonic languages

text: Most Ryukyuan languages mark a clusivity distinction in plural (or dual) first-person pronouns, but no Mainland varieties do so.


title: Japonic languages

text: The most common type of morphosyntactic alignment is nominative–accusative, but neutral (or direct), active–stative and (very rarely) tripartite alignment are found in some Japonic languages.


title: Japonic languages

text: The proto-language of the family has been reconstructed by using a combination of internal reconstruction from Old Japanese and by applying the comparative method to Old Japanese (including eastern dialects) and Ryukyuan. The major reconstructions of the 20th century were produced by Samuel Elmo Martin and Shirō Hattori.


title: Japonic languages

text: Proto-Japonic words are generally polysyllabic, with syllables having the form (C)V. The following proto-Japonic consonant inventory is generally agreed upon, except that some scholars argue for voiced stops and instead of glides and :


title: Japonic languages

text: The Old Japanese voiced consonants "b", "d", "z" and "g", which never occurred word-initially, are derived from clusters of nasals and voiceless consonants after the loss of an intervening vowel.


title: Japonic languages

text: It is generally accepted that a lexical pitch accent should be reconstructed for Proto-Japonic, but its precise form is controversial.


title: Reinforcement

text: In behavioral psychology, reinforcement is a consequence applied that will strengthen an organism's future behavior whenever that behavior is preceded by a specific antecedent stimulus. This strengthening effect may be measured as a higher frequency of behavior (e.g., pulling a lever more frequently), longer duration (e.g., pulling a lever for longer periods of time), greater magnitude (e.g., pulling a lever with greater force), or shorter latency (e.g., pulling a lever more quickly following the antecedent stimulus).


title: Reinforcement

text: The model of self-regulation has three main aspects of human behavior, which are self-awareness, self-reflection, and self-regulation. Reinforcements traditionally align with self-regulation. The behavior can be influenced by the consequence but behavior also needs antecedents. There are four types of reinforcement: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, extinction, and punishment. Positive reinforcement is the application of a positive reinforcer. Negative reinforcement is the practice of removing something negative from the space of the subject as a way to encourage the antecedent behavior from that subject.


title: Reinforcement

text: Extinction involves a behavior that requires no contingent consequence. If something (good or bad) is not reinforced, it should in theory disappear. Lastly, punishment is an imposition of aversive consequence upon undesired behavior. Punishment by removal is a common example or removing a benefit following poor performance. While reinforcement does not require an individual to consciously perceive an effect elicited by the stimulus, it still requires conscious effort to work towards a desired goal.


title: Reinforcement

text: Rewarding stimuli, which are associated with "wanting" and "liking" (desire and pleasure, respectively) and appetitive behavior, function as positive reinforcers; the converse statement is also true: positive reinforcers provide a desirable stimulus. Reinforcement does not require an individual to consciously perceive an effect elicited by the stimulus. Thus, reinforcement occurs only if there is an observable strengthening in behavior. However, there is also negative reinforcement, which is characterized by taking away an undesirable stimulus. Changing someone's job might serve as a negative reinforcer to someone who has back problems, (e.g. changing from a laborer's job to an office position).


title: Reinforcement

text: In most cases, the term "reinforcement" refers to an enhancement of behavior, but this term is also sometimes used to denote an enhancement of memory; for example, "post-training reinforcement" refers to the provision of a stimulus (such as food) after a learning session in an attempt to increase the retained breadth, detail, and duration of the individual memories or overall memory just formed. The memory-enhancing stimulus can also be one whose effects are directly rather than only indirectly emotional, as with the phenomenon of "flashbulb memory," in which an emotionally highly intense stimulus can incentivize memory of a set of a situation's circumstances well beyond the subset of those circumstances that caused the emotionally significant stimulus, as when people of appropriate age are able to remember where they were and what they were doing when they learned of the assassination of John F. Kennedy or September 11 terrorist attacks.


title: Reinforcement

text: In the behavioral sciences, the terms "positive" and "negative" refer when used in their strict technical sense to the nature of the action performed by the conditioner rather than to the responding operant's evaluation of that action and its consequence(s). "Positive" actions are those that add a factor, be it pleasant or unpleasant, to the environment, whereas "negative" actions are those that remove or withhold from the environment a factor of either type. In turn, the strict sense of "reinforcement" refers only to reward-based conditioning; the introduction of unpleasant factors and the removal or withholding of pleasant factors are instead referred to as "punishment", which when used in its strict sense thus stands in contradistinction to "reinforcement". Thus, "positive reinforcement" refers to the addition of a pleasant factor, "positive punishment" refers to the addition of an unpleasant factor, "negative reinforcement" refers to the removal or withholding of an unpleasant factor, and "negative punishment" refers to the removal or withholding of a pleasant factor.


title: Reinforcement

text: This usage is at odds with some non-technical usages of the four term combinations, especially in the case of the term "negative reinforcement", which is often used to denote what technical parlance would describe as "positive punishment" in that the non-technical usage interprets "reinforcement" as subsuming both reward and punishment and "negative" as referring to the responding operant's evaluation of the factor being introduced. By contrast, technical parlance would use the term "negative reinforcement" to describe encouragement of a given behavior by creating a scenario in which an unpleasant factor is or will be present but engaging in the behavior results in either escaping from that factor or preventing its occurrence, as in Martin Seligman's experiments involving dogs' learning processes regarding the avoidance of electric shock.


title: Reinforcement

text: B.F. Skinner was a well-known and influential researcher who articulated many of the theoretical constructs of reinforcement and behaviorism. Skinner defined reinforcers according to the change in response strength (response rate) rather than to more subjective criteria, such as what is pleasurable or valuable to someone. Accordingly, activities, foods or items considered pleasant or enjoyable may not necessarily be reinforcing (because they produce no increase in the response preceding them). Stimuli, settings, and activities only fit the definition of reinforcers if the behavior that immediately precedes the potential reinforcer increases in similar situations in the future; for example, a child who receives a cookie when he or she asks for one. If the frequency of "cookie-requesting behavior" increases, the cookie can be seen as reinforcing "cookie-requesting behavior". If however, "cookie-requesting behavior" does not increase the cookie cannot be considered reinforcing.


title: Reinforcement

text: The sole criterion that determines if a stimulus is reinforcing is the change in probability of a behavior after administration of that potential reinforcer. Other theories may focus on additional factors such as whether the person expected a behavior to produce a given outcome, but in the behavioral theory, reinforcement is defined by an increased probability of a response.


title: Reinforcement

text: The study of reinforcement has produced an enormous body of reproducible experimental results. Reinforcement is the central concept and procedure in special education, applied behavior analysis, and the experimental analysis of behavior and is a core concept in some medical and psychopharmacology models, particularly addiction, dependence, and compulsion.


title: Reinforcement

text: Laboratory research on reinforcement is usually dated from the work of Edward Thorndike, known for his experiments with cats escaping from puzzle boxes. A number of others continued this research, notably B.F. Skinner, who published his seminal work on the topic in The Behavior of Organisms, in 1938, and elaborated this research in many subsequent publications. Notably Skinner argued that positive reinforcement is superior to punishment in shaping behavior. Though punishment may seem just the opposite of reinforcement, Skinner claimed that they differ immensely, saying that positive reinforcement results in lasting behavioral modification (long-term) whereas punishment changes behavior only temporarily (short-term) and has many detrimental side-effects.


title: Reinforcement

text: A great many researchers subsequently expanded our understanding of reinforcement and challenged some of Skinner's conclusions. For example, Azrin and Holz defined punishment as a “consequence of behavior that reduces the future probability of that behavior,” and some studies have shown that positive reinforcement and punishment are equally effective in modifying behavior. Research on the effects of positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment continue today as those concepts are fundamental to learning theory and apply to many practical applications of that theory.


title: Reinforcement

text: The term "operant conditioning" was introduced by B. F. Skinner to indicate that in his experimental paradigm, the organism is free to operate on the environment. In this paradigm, the experimenter cannot trigger the desirable response; the experimenter waits for the response to occur (to be emitted by the organism) and then a potential reinforcer is delivered. In the classical conditioning paradigm, the experimenter triggers (elicits) the desirable response by presenting a reflex eliciting stimulus, the "Unconditional Stimulus" (UCS), which he pairs (precedes) with a neutral stimulus, the "Conditional Stimulus" (CS).


title: Reinforcement

text: "Reinforcement" is a basic term in operant conditioning. For the punishment aspect of operant conditioning, see punishment (psychology).


title: Reinforcement

text: Positive reinforcement occurs when a desirable event or stimulus is presented as a consequence of a behavior and the chance that this behavior will manifest in similar environments increases.


title: Reinforcement

text: The High Probability Instruction (HPI) treatment is a behaviorist psychological treatment based on the idea of positive reinforcement.


title: Reinforcement

text: Negative reinforcement occurs when the rate of a behavior increases because an aversive event or stimulus is removed or prevented from happening.


title: Reinforcement

text: Reinforcers serve to increase behaviors whereas punishers serve to decrease behaviors; thus, positive reinforcers are stimuli that the subject will work to attain, and negative reinforcers are stimuli that the subject will work to be rid of or to end. The table below illustrates the adding and subtracting of stimuli (pleasant or aversive) in relation to reinforcement vs. punishment.


title: Reinforcement

text: For example, offering a child candy if he cleans his room is positive reinforcement. Spanking a child if he breaks a window is positive punishment. Taking away a child's toys for misbehaving is negative punishment. Giving a child a break from his chores if he performs well on a test is negative reinforcement. "Positive and negative" do not carry the meaning of "good and bad" in this usage.


title: Reinforcement

text: A primary reinforcer, sometimes called an "unconditioned reinforcer", is a stimulus that does not require pairing with a different stimulus in order to function as a reinforcer and most likely has obtained this function through the evolution and its role in species' survival. Examples of primary reinforcers include food, water, and sex. Some primary reinforcers, such as certain drugs, may mimic the effects of other primary reinforcers. While these primary reinforcers are fairly stable through life and across individuals, the reinforcing value of different primary reinforcers varies due to multiple factors (e.g., genetics, experience). Thus, one person may prefer one type of food while another avoids it. Or one person may eat much food while another eats very little. So even though food is a primary reinforcer for both individuals, the value of food as a reinforcer differs between them.


title: Reinforcement

text: A secondary reinforcer, sometimes called a conditioned reinforcer, is a stimulus or situation that has acquired its function as a reinforcer after pairing with a stimulus that functions as a reinforcer. This stimulus may be a primary reinforcer or another conditioned reinforcer (such as money). An example of a secondary reinforcer would be the sound from a clicker, as used in clicker training. The sound of the clicker has been associated with praise or treats, and subsequently, the sound of the clicker may function as a reinforcer. Another common example is the sound of people clapping – there is nothing inherently positive about hearing that sound, but we have learned that it is associated with praise and rewards.


title: Reinforcement

text: When trying to distinguish primary and secondary reinforcers in human examples, use the "caveman test." If the stimulus is something that a caveman would naturally find desirable (e.g., candy) then it is a primary reinforcer. If, on the other hand, the caveman would not react to it (e.g., a dollar bill), it is a secondary reinforcer. As with primary reinforcers, an organism can experience satisfaction and deprivation with secondary reinforcers.


title: Reinforcement

text: In his 1967 paper, "Arbitrary and Natural Reinforcement", Charles Ferster proposed classifying reinforcement into events that increase frequency of an operant as a natural consequence of the behavior itself, and events that are presumed to affect frequency by their requirement of human mediation, such as in a token economy where subjects are "rewarded" for certain behavior with an arbitrary token of a negotiable value.


title: Reinforcement

text: In 1970, Baer and Wolf created a name for the use of natural reinforcers called "behavior traps". A behavior trap requires only a simple response to enter the trap, yet once entered, the trap cannot be resisted in creating general behavior change. It is the use of a behavioral trap that increases a person's repertoire, by exposing them to the naturally occurring reinforcement of that behavior. Behavior traps have four characteristics:


title: Reinforcement

text: As can be seen from the above, artificial reinforcement is in fact created to build or develop skills, and to generalize, it is important that either a behavior trap is introduced to "capture" the skill and utilize naturally occurring reinforcement to maintain or increase it. This behavior trap may simply be a social situation that will generally result from a specific behavior once it has met a certain criterion (e.g., if you use edible reinforcers to train a person to say hello and smile at people when they meet them, after that skill has been built up, the natural reinforcer of other people smiling, and having more friendly interactions will naturally reinforce the skill and the edibles can be faded).


title: Reinforcement

text: Much behavior is not reinforced every time it is emitted, and the pattern of intermittent reinforcement strongly affects how fast an operant response is learned, what its rate is at any given time, and how long it continues when reinforcement ceases. The simplest rules controlling reinforcement are continuous reinforcement, where every response is reinforced, and extinction, where no response is reinforced. Between these extremes, more complex "schedules of reinforcement" specify the rules that determine how and when a response will be followed by a reinforcer.


title: Reinforcement

text: Specific schedules of reinforcement reliably induce specific patterns of response, irrespective of the species being investigated (including humans in some conditions). However, the quantitative properties of behavior under a given schedule depend on the parameters of the schedule, and sometimes on other, non-schedule factors. The orderliness and predictability of behavior under schedules of reinforcement was evidence for B.F. Skinner's claim that by using operant conditioning he could obtain "control over behavior", in a way that rendered the theoretical disputes of contemporary comparative psychology obsolete. The reliability of schedule control supported the idea that a radical behaviorist experimental analysis of behavior could be the foundation for a psychology that did not refer to mental or cognitive processes. The reliability of schedules also led to the development of applied behavior analysis as a means of controlling or altering behavior.


title: Reinforcement

text: Many of the simpler possibilities, and some of the more complex ones, were investigated at great length by Skinner using pigeons, but new schedules continue to be defined and investigated.


title: Reinforcement

text: Simple schedules have a single rule to determine when a single type of reinforcer is delivered for a specific response.


title: Reinforcement

text: Compound schedules combine two or more different simple schedules in some way using the same reinforcer for the same behavior. There are many possibilities; among those most often used are:


title: Reinforcement

text: The psychology term "superimposed schedules of reinforcement" refers to a structure of rewards where two or more simple schedules of reinforcement operate simultaneously. Reinforcers can be positive, negative, or both. An example is a person who comes home after a long day at work. The behavior of opening the front door is rewarded by a big kiss on the lips by the person's spouse and a rip in the pants from the family dog jumping enthusiastically. Another example of superimposed schedules of reinforcement is a pigeon in an experimental cage pecking at a button. The pecks deliver a hopper of grain every 20th peck, and access to water after every 200 pecks.


title: Reinforcement

text: Superimposed schedules of reinforcement are a type of compound schedule that evolved from the initial work on simple schedules of reinforcement by B.F. Skinner and his colleagues (Skinner and Ferster, 1957). They demonstrated that reinforcers could be delivered on schedules, and further that organisms behaved differently under different schedules. Rather than a reinforcer, such as food or water, being delivered every time as a consequence of some behavior, a reinforcer could be delivered after more than one instance of the behavior. For example, a pigeon may be required to peck a button switch ten times before food appears. This is a "ratio schedule". Also, a reinforcer could be delivered after an interval of time passed following a target behavior. An example is a rat that is given a food pellet immediately following the first response that occurs after two minutes has elapsed since the last lever press. This is called an "interval schedule".


title: Reinforcement

text: In addition, ratio schedules can deliver reinforcement following fixed or variable number of behaviors by the individual organism. Likewise, interval schedules can deliver reinforcement following fixed or variable intervals of time following a single response by the organism. Individual behaviors tend to generate response rates that differ based upon how the reinforcement schedule is created. Much subsequent research in many labs examined the effects on behaviors of scheduling reinforcers.


title: Reinforcement

text: If an organism is offered the opportunity to choose between or among two or more simple schedules of reinforcement at the same time, the reinforcement structure is called a "concurrent schedule of reinforcement". Brechner (1974, 1977) introduced the concept of superimposed schedules of reinforcement in an attempt to create a laboratory analogy of social traps, such as when humans overharvest their fisheries or tear down their rainforests. Brechner created a situation where simple reinforcement schedules were superimposed upon each other. In other words, a single response or group of responses by an organism led to multiple consequences. Concurrent schedules of reinforcement can be thought of as "or" schedules, and superimposed schedules of reinforcement can be thought of as "and" schedules. Brechner and Linder (1981) and Brechner (1987) expanded the concept to describe how superimposed schedules and the social trap analogy could be used to analyze the way energy flows through systems.


title: Reinforcement

text: Superimposed schedules of reinforcement have many real-world applications in addition to generating social traps. Many different human individual and social situations can be created by superimposing simple reinforcement schedules. For example, a human being could have simultaneous tobacco and alcohol addictions. Even more complex situations can be created or simulated by superimposing two or more concurrent schedules. For example, a high school senior could have a choice between going to Stanford University or UCLA, and at the same time have the choice of going into the Army or the Air Force, and simultaneously the choice of taking a job with an internet company or a job with a software company. That is a reinforcement structure of three superimposed concurrent schedules of reinforcement.


title: Reinforcement

text: Superimposed schedules of reinforcement can create the three classic conflict situations (approach–approach conflict, approach–avoidance conflict, and avoidance–avoidance conflict) described by Kurt Lewin (1935) and can operationalize other Lewinian situations analyzed by his force field analysis. Other examples of the use of superimposed schedules of reinforcement as an analytical tool are its application to the contingencies of rent control (Brechner, 2003) and problem of toxic waste dumping in the Los Angeles County storm drain system (Brechner, 2010).


title: Reinforcement

text: In operant conditioning, concurrent schedules of reinforcement are schedules of reinforcement that are simultaneously available to an animal subject or human participant, so that the subject or participant can respond on either schedule. For example, in a two-alternative forced choice task, a pigeon in a Skinner box is faced with two pecking keys; pecking responses can be made on either, and food reinforcement might follow a peck on either. The schedules of reinforcement arranged for pecks on the two keys can be different. They may be independent, or they may be linked so that behavior on one key affects the likelihood of reinforcement on the other.


title: Reinforcement

text: It is not necessary for responses on the two schedules to be physically distinct. In an alternate way of arranging concurrent schedules, introduced by Findley in 1958, both schedules are arranged on a single key or other response device, and the subject can respond on a second key to change between the schedules. In such a "Findley concurrent" procedure, a stimulus (e.g., the color of the main key) signals which schedule is in effect.


title: Reinforcement

text: Concurrent schedules often induce rapid alternation between the keys. To prevent this, a "changeover delay" is commonly introduced: each schedule is inactivated for a brief period after the subject switches to it.


title: Reinforcement

text: When both the concurrent schedules are variable intervals, a quantitative relationship known as the matching law is found between relative response rates in the two schedules and the relative reinforcement rates they deliver; this was first observed by R.J. Herrnstein in 1961. Matching law is a rule for instrumental behavior which states that the relative rate of responding on a particular response alternative equals the relative rate of reinforcement for that response (rate of behavior = rate of reinforcement). Animals and humans have a tendency to prefer choice in schedules.


title: Reinforcement

text: Shaping is reinforcement of successive approximations to a desired instrumental response. In training a rat to press a lever, for example, simply turning toward the lever is reinforced at first. Then, only turning and stepping toward it is reinforced. The outcomes of one set of behaviours starts the shaping process for the next set of behaviours, and the outcomes of that set prepares the shaping process for the next set, and so on. As training progresses, the response reinforced becomes progressively more like the desired behavior; each subsequent behaviour becomes a closer approximation of the final behaviour.


title: Reinforcement

text: Shaping is used as an intervention for various desired behaviors for individuals with Autism as well as other developmental disabilities. When shaping is combined with other evidence-based practices such as complex functional communication training (FCT), can yield a positive outcomes for the individual. When shaping is paired with a schedule of reinforcements with efficiency, the target behavior is increased.


title: Reinforcement

text: Shaping is also used for food refusal. Food refusal is when an individual has a partial or total aversion to food items. This can be as minimal as a picky eater to severe and can affect the individuals' health. Shaping has been used to have a higher success rate for food acceptance.


title: Reinforcement

text: Chaining involves linking discrete behaviors together in a series, such that each result of each behavior is both the reinforcement (or consequence) for the previous behavior, and the stimuli (or antecedent) for the next behavior. There are many ways to teach chaining, such as forward chaining (starting from the first behavior in the chain), backwards chaining (starting from the last behavior) and total task chaining (in which the entire behavior is taught from beginning to end, rather than as a series of steps). An example is opening a locked door. First the key is inserted, then turned, then the door opened.


title: Reinforcement

text: Forward chaining would teach the subject first to insert the key. Once that task is mastered, they are told to insert the key, and taught to turn it. Once that task is mastered, they are told to perform the first two, then taught to open the door. Backwards chaining would involve the teacher first inserting and turning the key, and the subject then being taught to open the door. Once that is learned, the teacher inserts the key, and the subject is taught to turn it, then opens the door as the next step. Finally, the subject is taught to insert the key, and they turn and open the door. Once the first step is mastered, the entire task has been taught. Total task chaining would involve teaching the entire task as a single series, prompting through all steps. Prompts are faded (reduced) at each step as they are mastered.


title: Reinforcement

text: Challenging behaviors seen in individuals with Autism and other related disabilities have successfully managed and maintained by previous studies using a scheduled of chained reinforcements. Functional communication training is an intervention that often uses chained schedules of reinforcement to effectively promote the appropriate and desired functional communication response. The purpose of the chaining procedures when using it paired with functional communication training are to decrease challenging or inappropriate behaviors with functional or more appropriate ways to express the individual.


title: Reinforcement

text: Persuasion is a form of human interaction. It takes place when one individual expects some particular response from one or more other individuals and deliberately sets out to secure the response through the use of communication. The communicator must realize that different groups have different values.


title: Reinforcement

text: In instrumental learning situations, which involve operant behavior, the persuasive communicator will present his message and then wait for the receiver to make a correct response. As soon as the receiver makes the response, the communicator will attempt to fix the response by some appropriate reward or reinforcement.


title: Reinforcement

text: In conditional learning situations, where there is respondent behavior, the communicator presents his message so as to elicit the response he wants from the receiver, and the stimulus that originally served to elicit the response then becomes the reinforcing or rewarding element in conditioning.


title: Reinforcement

text: A lot of work has been done in building a mathematical model of reinforcement. This model is known as MPR, short for mathematical principles of reinforcement. Peter Killeen has made key discoveries in the field with his research on pigeons.


title: Reinforcement

text: The standard definition of behavioral reinforcement has been criticized as circular, since it appears to argue that response strength is increased by reinforcement, and defines reinforcement as something that increases response strength (i.e., response strength is increased by things that increase response strength). However, the correct usage of reinforcement is that something is a reinforcer "because" of its effect on behavior, and not the other way around. It becomes circular if one says that a particular stimulus strengthens behavior because it is a reinforcer, and does not explain why a stimulus is producing that effect on the behavior. Other definitions have been proposed, such as F.D. Sheffield's "consummatory behavior contingent on a response", but these are not broadly used in psychology.


title: Reinforcement

text: Increasingly, understanding of the role reinforcers play is moving away from a "strengthening" effect to a "signalling" effect. That is, the view that reinforcers increase responding because they signal the behaviours that are likely to result in reinforcement. While in most practical applications, the effect of any given reinforcer will be the same regardless of whether the reinforcer is signalling or strengthening, this approach helps to explain a number of behavioural phenomenon including patterns of responding on intermittent reinforcement schedules (fixed interval scallops) and the differential outcomes effect.


title: Reinforcement

text: In the 1920s Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov may have been the first to use the word "reinforcement" with respect to behavior, but (according to Dinsmoor) he used its approximate Russian cognate sparingly, and even then it referred to strengthening an already-learned but weakening response. He did not use it, as it is today, for selecting and strengthening new behaviors. Pavlov's introduction of the word "extinction" (in Russian) approximates today's psychological use.


title: Reinforcement

text: In popular use, "positive reinforcement" is often used as a synonym for "reward", with people (not behavior) thus being "reinforced", but this is contrary to the term's consistent technical usage, as it is a dimension of behavior, and not the person, which is strengthened. "Negative reinforcement" is often used by laypeople and even social scientists outside psychology as a synonym for "punishment". This is contrary to modern technical use, but it was B.F. Skinner who first used it this way in his 1938 book. By 1953, however, he followed others in thus employing the word "punishment", and he re-cast "negative reinforcement" for the removal of aversive stimuli.


title: Reinforcement

text: There are some within the field of behavior analysis who have suggested that the terms "positive" and "negative" constitute an unnecessary distinction in discussing reinforcement as it is often unclear whether stimuli are being removed or presented. For example, Iwata poses the question: "... is a change in temperature more accurately characterized by the presentation of cold (heat) or the removal of heat (cold)?" Thus, reinforcement could be conceptualized as a pre-change condition replaced by a post-change condition that reinforces the behavior that followed the change in stimulus conditions.


title: Reinforcement

text: Reinforcement and punishment are ubiquitous in human social interactions, and a great many applications of operant principles have been suggested and implemented. Following are a few examples.


title: Reinforcement

text: Positive and negative reinforcement play central roles in the development and maintenance of addiction and drug dependence. An addictive drug is intrinsically rewarding; that is, it functions as a primary positive reinforcer of drug use. The brain's reward system assigns it incentive salience (i.e., it is "wanted" or "desired"), so as an addiction develops, deprivation of the drug leads to craving. In addition, stimuli associated with drug use – e.g., the sight of a syringe, and the location of use – become associated with the intense reinforcement induced by the drug. These previously neutral stimuli acquire several properties: their appearance can induce craving, and they can become conditioned positive reinforcers of continued use. Thus, if an addicted individual encounters one of these drug cues, a craving for the associated drug may reappear. For example, anti-drug agencies previously used posters with images of drug paraphernalia as an attempt to show the dangers of drug use. However, such posters are no longer used because of the effects of incentive salience in causing relapse upon sight of the stimuli illustrated in the posters.


title: Reinforcement

text: In drug dependent individuals, negative reinforcement occurs when a drug is self-administered in order to alleviate or "escape" the symptoms of physical dependence (e.g., tremors and sweating) and/or psychological dependence (e.g., anhedonia, restlessness, irritability, and anxiety) that arise during the state of drug withdrawal.


title: Reinforcement

text: Animal trainers and pet owners were applying the principles and practices of operant conditioning long before these ideas were named and studied, and animal training still provides one of the clearest and most convincing examples of operant control. Of the concepts and procedures described in this article, a few of the most salient are: availability of immediate reinforcement (e.g. the ever-present bag of dog yummies); contingency, assuring that reinforcement follows the desired behavior and not something else; the use of secondary reinforcement, as in sounding a clicker immediately after a desired response; shaping, as in gradually getting a dog to jump higher and higher; intermittent reinforcement, reducing the frequency of those yummies to induce persistent behavior without satiation; chaining, where a complex behavior is gradually put together.


title: Reinforcement

text: Providing positive reinforcement for appropriate child behaviors is a major focus of parent management training. Typically, parents learn to reward appropriate behavior through social rewards (such as praise, smiles, and hugs) as well as concrete rewards (such as stickers or points towards a larger reward as part of an incentive system created collaboratively with the child). In addition, parents learn to select simple behaviors as an initial focus and reward each of the small steps that their child achieves towards reaching a larger goal (this concept is called "successive approximations"). They may also use indirect rewards such through progress charts. Providing positive reinforcement in the classroom can be beneficial to student success. When applying positive reinforcement to students, it's crucial to make it individualized to that student's needs. This way, the student understands why they are receiving the praise, they can accept it, and eventually learn to continue the action that was earned by positive reinforcement. For example, using rewards or extra recess time might apply to some students more, whereas others might accept the enforcement by receiving stickers or check marks indicating praise.


title: Reinforcement

text: Both psychologists and economists have become interested in applying operant concepts and findings to the behavior of humans in the marketplace. An example


title: Reinforcement

text: is the analysis of consumer demand, as indexed by the amount of a commodity that is purchased. In economics, the degree to which price influences consumption is called "the price elasticity of demand." Certain commodities are more elastic than others; for example, a change in price of certain foods may have a large effect on the amount bought, while gasoline and other essentials may be less affected by price changes. In terms of operant analysis, such effects may be interpreted in terms of motivations of consumers and the relative value of the commodities as reinforcers.


title: Reinforcement

text: As stated earlier in this article, a variable ratio schedule yields reinforcement after the emission of an unpredictable number of responses. This schedule typically generates rapid, persistent responding. Slot machines pay off on a variable ratio schedule, and they produce just this sort of persistent lever-pulling behavior in gamblers. Because the machines are programmed to pay out less money than they take in, the persistent slot-machine user invariably loses in the long run. Slots machines, and thus variable ratio reinforcement, have often been blamed as a factor underlying gambling addiction.


title: Reinforcement

text: An alternative to traditional pay for performance incentive schemes that is rooted in reinforcement theory, known as the O.B. Mod Approach, has been proposed as a practical approach to managing the performance-related behaviors of an organization's members. . O.B. Mod. and its "reinforce-for-performance" basis has been shown empirically to yield performance improvements in both manufacturing and service organizations, though improvements varied by type of reinforcer in both contexts.


title: Reinforcement

text: Nudge theory (or nudge) is a concept in behavioural science, political theory and economics which argues that positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions to try to achieve non-forced compliance can influence the motives, incentives and decision making of groups and individuals, at least as effectively – if not more effectively – than direct instruction, legislation, or enforcement.


title: Reinforcement

text: The concept of praise as a means of behavioral reinforcement in humans is rooted in B.F. Skinner's model of operant conditioning. Through this lens, praise has been viewed as a means of positive reinforcement, wherein an observed behavior is made more likely to occur by contingently praising said behavior. Hundreds of studies have demonstrated the effectiveness of praise in promoting positive behaviors, notably in the study of teacher and parent use of praise on child in promoting improved behavior and academic performance, but also in the study of work performance. Praise has also been demonstrated to reinforce positive behaviors in non-praised adjacent individuals (such as a classmate of the praise recipient) through vicarious reinforcement. Praise may be more or less effective in changing behavior depending on its form, content and delivery. In order for praise to effect positive behavior change, it must be contingent on the positive behavior (i.e., only administered after the targeted behavior is enacted), must specify the particulars of the behavior that is to be reinforced, and must be delivered sincerely and credibly.


title: Reinforcement

text: Acknowledging the effect of praise as a positive reinforcement strategy, numerous behavioral and cognitive behavioral interventions have incorporated the use of praise in their protocols. The strategic use of praise is recognized as an evidence-based practice in both classroom management and parenting training interventions, though praise is often subsumed in intervention research into a larger category of positive reinforcement, which includes strategies such as strategic attention and behavioral rewards.


title: Reinforcement

text: Traumatic bonding occurs as the result of ongoing cycles of abuse in which the intermittent reinforcement of reward and punishment creates powerful emotional bonds that are resistant to change.


title: Reinforcement

text: 'The necessary conditions for traumatic bonding are that one person must dominate the other and that the level of abuse chronically spikes and then subsides. The relationship is characterized by periods of permissive, compassionate, and even affectionate behavior from the dominant person, punctuated by intermittent episodes of intense abuse. To maintain the upper hand, the victimizer manipulates the behavior of the victim and limits the victim's options so as to perpetuate the power imbalance. Any threat to the balance of dominance and submission may be met with an escalating cycle of punishment ranging from seething intimidation to intensely violent outbursts. The victimizer also isolates the victim from other sources of support, which reduces the likelihood of detection and intervention, impairs the victim's ability to receive countervailing self-referent feedback, and strengthens the sense of unilateral dependency ... The traumatic effects of these abusive relationships may include the impairment of the victim's capacity for accurate self-appraisal, leading to a sense of personal inadequacy and a subordinate sense of dependence upon the dominating person. Victims also may encounter a variety of unpleasant social and legal consequences of their emotional and behavioral affiliation with someone who perpetrated aggressive acts, even if they themselves were the recipients of the aggression.


title: Reinforcement

text: Most video games are designed around some type of compulsion loop, adding a type of positive reinforcement through a variable rate schedule to keep the player playing the game, though this can also lead to video game addiction.


title: Reinforcement

text: As part of a trend in the monetization of video games in the 2010s, some games offered "loot boxes" as rewards or purchasable by real-world funds that offered a random selection of in-game items, distributed by rarity. The practice has been tied to the same methods that slot machines and other gambling devices dole out rewards, as it follows a variable rate schedule. While the general perception that loot boxes are a form of gambling, the practice is only classified as such in a few countries as gambling and otherwise legal. However, methods to use those items as virtual currency for online gambling or trading for real-world money has created a skin gambling market that is under legal evaluation.


title: Reinforcement

text: Ashforth discussed potentially destructive sides of leadership and identified what he referred to as petty tyrants: leaders who exercise a tyrannical style of management, resulting in a climate of fear in the workplace. Partial or intermittent negative reinforcement can create an effective climate of fear and doubt. When employees get the sense that bullies are tolerated, a climate of fear may be the result.


title: Reinforcement

text: Individual differences in sensitivity to reward, punishment, and motivation have been studied under the premises of reinforcement sensitivity theory and have also been applied to workplace performance.


title: Chirality (chemistry)

text: In chemistry, a molecule or ion is called chiral () if it cannot be superposed on its mirror image by any combination of rotations, translations, and some conformational changes. This geometric property is called chirality (). The terms are derived from Ancient Greek χείρ ("cheir") 'hand'; which is the canonical example of an object with this property.


title: Chirality (chemistry)

text: A chiral molecule or ion exists in two stereoisomers that are mirror images of each other, called enantiomers; they are often distinguished as either "right-handed" or "left-handed" by their absolute configuration or some other criterion. The two enantiomers have the same chemical properties, except when reacting with other chiral compounds. They also have the same physical properties, except that they often have opposite optical activities. A homogeneous mixture of the two enantiomers in equal parts is said to be racemic, and it usually differs chemically and physically from the pure enantiomers.


title: Chirality (chemistry)

text: Chiral molecules will usually have a stereogenic element from which chirality arises. The most common type of stereogenic element is a stereogenic center, or stereocenter. In the case of organic compounds, stereocenters most frequently take the form of a carbon atom with four distinct groups attached to it in a tetrahedral geometry. A given stereocenter has two possible configurations, which give rise to stereoisomers (diastereomers and enantiomers) in molecules with one or more stereocenter. For a chiral molecule with one or more stereocenter, the enantiomer corresponds to the stereoisomer in which every stereocenter has the opposite configuration. An organic compound with only one stereogenic carbon is always chiral. On the other hand, an organic compound with multiple stereogenic carbons is typically, but not always, chiral. In particular, if the stereocenters are configured in such a way that the molecule has an internal plane of symmetry, then the molecule is achiral and is known as a "meso" compound. Less commonly, other atoms like N, P, S, and Si can also serve as stereocenters, provided they have four distinct substituents (including lone pair electrons) attached to them.


title: Chirality (chemistry)

text: Molecules with chirality arising from one or more stereocenters are classified as possessing central chirality. There are two other types of stereogenic elements that can give rise to chirality, a stereogenic axis (axial chirality) and a stereogenic plane (planar chirality). Finally, the inherent curvature of a molecule can also give rise to chirality (inherent chirality). These types of chirality are far less common than central chirality. BINOL is a typical example of an axially chiral molecule, while "trans"-cyclooctene is a commonly cited example of a planar chiral molecule. Finally, helicene possesses helical chirality, which is one type of inherent chirality.


title: Chirality (chemistry)

text: Chirality is an important concept for stereochemistry and biochemistry. Most substances relevant to biology are chiral, such as carbohydrates (sugars, starch, and cellulose), the amino acids that are the building blocks of proteins, and the nucleic acids. In living organisms, one typically finds only one of the two enantiomers of a chiral compound. For that reason, organisms that consume a chiral compound usually can metabolize only one of its enantiomers. For the same reason, the two enantiomers of a chiral pharmaceutical usually have vastly different potencies or effects.