The Creative Porpoise Revisited

Abstract

The sources of novel behavior and behavioral variability is an important issue in behavior analysis for theoretical as well as for practical reasons. "The Creative Porpoise" study by Pryor, Haag, and O`Reilly from 1969 has been repeatedly referred to in the behavior-analytic literature as a demonstration of how "novelty" can be directly reinforced by making reinforcement contingent upon it. However, the purpose of the present paper is to show that a direct scrutiny of the original 1969 report leaves such a conclusion questionable.