GENERALIZED REINFORCEMENT is the key to successful practical and scientific discourse. It brings the speaker’s behavior most narrowly under the control of the current environment and permits the listener to react to that behavior most successfully in lieu of direct contact with the environment. When the correspondence with a stimulating situation is sharply maintained, when the listener’s inferences regarding the objective situation are most reliable, we call the response “objective,” “valid,” “true,” or “correct.” (p. 147)
