what happens when you push the red button in an elevator

If it were reliable, there would be scientific studies confirming this. It works intermittently, in a way that’s indistinguishable from chance. It doesn’t work like a light switch works-that is, reliably. In humans, we’d call this a superstition. It was partial reinforcement that worked best. Other feeding schedules in the experiment-one pellet at regular intervals, for example-didn’t produce as strong an effect. Oddly, not only were the pigeons’ initial actions not causative, they weren’t even correlated with the food (except randomly). Eventually, each pigeon would repeat one action, and each had their own actions. More performances of the action led to more apparent instances where the action caused the food, which reinforced the behavior. When they were hungry, they would perform the incantation that seemed to have brought about the food in the past, over and over. Whatever the pigeon was doing when a pellet appeared-preening, stretching, walking, or whatever-was eventually interpreted to have caused the pellet.

Skinner placed pigeons in individual boxes where food pellets dispensed randomly. Skinner’s famous pigeon experiment illustrates how placebos like fake buttons and prayer work. Why have them at all? Because employees are happier with an illusion of control. Why have them inactive? Because employees fighting to change the temperature wastes energy. You can change the setting on these devices, but that won’t change the temperature.

What happens when you push the red button in an elevator