Self-injurious behavior: shaping "head banging" in monkeys

Head-banging, a common phenomenon among the mentally retarded, was shaped, brought under stimulus control, extinguished, and re-established in two monkeys through reinforcement and discrimination procedures of operant conditioning. The behavior was stable and led to lacerations, a condition that qualifies head-banging as self-injurious. The principles of the analysis of behavior used here may well be of value in the etiology and treatment of some human head-banging.