# Extinction in Operant Conditioning: Definition, the Extinction Burst, Spontaneous Recovery, and Examples

> Extinction in psychology is the fading of a behavior when its reinforcer is withheld. The extinction burst, spontaneous recovery, resurgence, and how to use it.

- Source: https://operantconditioning.com/extinction/
- Author: Ryan Martinson (https://operantconditioning.com/about/)
- Publisher: Operant Conditioning Inc.
- Published: 2026-09-07 · Updated: 2026-09-10
- License: https://operantconditioning.com/terms/#copyright (quote with attribution and a link; free to reproduce for non-commercial teaching)

---

*Core process*

Stop paying for a behavior and it fades — but not quietly, not immediately, and not for good. What extinction in psychology really means, why behavior gets worse before it gets better, and how to use it well.

> **Definition**
>
> **Extinction** in operant conditioning is the process in which a behavior that was previously reinforced is no longer followed by its reinforcer, and as a result the behavior decreases and eventually stops. The procedure is withholding the reinforcer; the effect is the decline in behavior.
>
> Extinction is not one of the four quadrants — nothing is added or removed; the consequence that used to arrive simply stops. Nor is it forgetting: extinguished behavior can return through spontaneous recovery, renewal, and resurgence, so extinction is best understood as new learning laid over the old rather than erasure.[1][2]

**In brief**

- Extinction is what happens when a previously reinforced behavior stops producing its reinforcer: the behavior declines and eventually stops.
- Behavior can get worse before it fades — the extinction burst — and giving in at that point reinforces a more intense version, intermittently.
- Extinction is not ignoring: it withholds whichever reinforcer maintains the behavior, and behavior reinforced [intermittently](https://operantconditioning.com/schedules-of-reinforcement/) resists extinction far longer.

## How extinction works

Every reinforced behavior exists because of a contingency: do this, get that. Extinction breaks the contingency. The rat that has learned to press a lever for food presses, and nothing happens. It presses again. Over the next hour its rate climbs, wobbles, and slides toward zero, tracing the **extinction curve** Skinner recorded in 1938.[1]

- A rat presses a lever → no pellet, ever again → pressing declines over the session.
- A child whines for a cookie → whining is never again followed by a cookie → whining declines over days.
- You text a friend who has stopped replying → no replies → you text less and eventually stop.

![The extinction curve](https://operantconditioning.com/assets/diagrams/the-extinction-curve.svg)

*The shape of extinction. When reinforcement stops, responding briefly rises (the burst), then declines; after a rest it returns at a lower level (spontaneous recovery) and fades again.*

Two things distinguish extinction from other ways of reducing behavior. It works only on the reinforcer that has been *maintaining* the behavior; withholding something else is not extinction. And it is slow and bumpy, because a history of the behavior paying off does not vanish when the payoff stops — it is tested, protested, and eventually overwritten. How long that takes depends on the reinforcement history, as the partial reinforcement extinction effect explains.

### Watch it happen

The simulator below starts in extinction: a subject with a history of reinforcement, and no more reinforcers. Run it and watch the burst, the decline, and the flattening record. Switch the schedule to compare how quickly behavior built on continuous versus intermittent reinforcement gives up.

## Operant vs. respondent extinction

"Extinction" is used in both branches of conditioning. In **respondent (classical) extinction**, a conditioned stimulus is presented repeatedly without the unconditioned stimulus — the bell rings, no food follows — and the conditioned response fades. In **operant extinction**, a behavior occurs repeatedly without its reinforcer and the behavior fades. Both show extinction curves, spontaneous recovery, and renewal, and both are now understood as new inhibitory learning rather than unlearning.[2] The difference is what is disconnected: a stimulus from a stimulus, or a behavior from its consequence. [Operant vs. classical conditioning in full ›](https://operantconditioning.com/operant-vs-classical-conditioning/)

## What is an extinction burst?

An **extinction burst** is a temporary increase in the frequency, intensity, or variability of a behavior immediately after its reinforcer is withheld, before the behavior declines. Press the elevator button; nothing happens; you press again, harder, three times, then hold it, then try the other button. More, harder, different — that is the burst. The organism's history says the behavior *should* work, and vigorous, varied responding is the evolved answer to a missing payoff.

The burst is also the engine of [shaping](https://operantconditioning.com/shaping/): when a trainer stops reinforcing the current approximation, the burst of variability produces the slightly better response to reinforce next. But in everyday life the burst is where almost everyone gives up. The child whose whining has stopped producing candy whines louder, then cries, then throws himself on the floor — and a parent who gives in at that point has reinforced the floor-throwing.

How common is it? A review of 113 published data sets in which extinction was applied to problem behavior found a burst in about a quarter of cases, more often when extinction was used alone than when combined with procedures such as differential reinforcement.[3] A later analysis of 41 cases of self-injury treated with extinction found bursts in 39% and extinction-induced aggression in 22%, again less often when extinction was combined with other treatments.[4] The burst is worth planning for but not inevitable, and the way to make it less likely is also the way to make extinction work better: reinforce something else at the same time.

> **The burst is the moment that decides everything**
>
> If you give in during the extinction burst, you have not returned to where you started. You have reinforced a more intense version of the behavior, on an intermittent schedule — which makes it *more* resistant to extinction than before. Do not start extinction unless you can outlast the burst. If you cannot, use a different procedure.

## Extinction-induced aggression and emotional responding

Withholding an expected reinforcer also elicits emotional behavior: agitation, frustration, and aggression, often aimed at whatever is nearby. In a landmark experiment, pigeons pecking a key for grain were placed on extinction, and when the grain stopped they attacked a restrained pigeon at the other end of the chamber — a target that had nothing to do with the reinforcer.[5] The human version is familiar: the vending machine gets kicked, the customer-service line gets yelled at, a child on extinction hits a sibling. Emotional responding is the second main side effect of extinction, after the burst, and a central reason it is rarely used alone for serious behavior.[4][6]

## Spontaneous recovery, resurgence, and renewal

Extinguished behavior comes back in at least three distinct ways, each with its own trigger. Knowing which is which tells you what to do about it.

### Spontaneous recovery

**Spontaneous recovery** is the reappearance of an extinguished behavior after time away from the extinction setting. The rat that stopped pressing by the end of Monday's session starts again on Tuesday, at a lower rate, and stops sooner. First described by Pavlov for conditioned reflexes, it occurs just as reliably for operant behavior, and each recovery is smaller than the last if reinforcement stays withheld.[7] A behavior that seems gone on Friday may be back on Monday; that is not a sign extinction failed.

### Resurgence

**Resurgence** is the reappearance of a *previously* reinforced behavior when a *more recently* reinforced behavior is placed on extinction. Teach a pigeon to peck key A for food, extinguish it, teach it to peck key B, then extinguish B — and the pigeon starts pecking A again.[8][9] This explains a common form of relapse: a child learns to ask politely instead of screaming, then in a busy classroom polite requests go unanswered, and the screaming returns.[10] The remedy is to keep the replacement behavior reliably reinforced, especially where the old behavior once worked.

### Renewal

**Renewal** is the return of an extinguished behavior when the context changes. Mark Bouton's research showed that extinction learning is unusually tied to the place and cues in which it happened, whereas the original learning transfers broadly — which is why a fear extinguished in a therapist's office returns in the parking garage, and a behavior extinguished at the clinic returns at home.[2][11] The remedy is to conduct extinction in every context that matters.

| Phenomenon | Trigger | Example | What to do |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Spontaneous recovery** | Time since the last extinction session | Bedtime crying that stopped last week returns after a weekend away | Keep withholding; each recovery is weaker |
| **Resurgence** | A newer behavior stops being reinforced | Polite requests go unanswered and tantrums return | Keep the replacement reliably reinforced |
| **Renewal** | A change of context | Behavior extinguished at school returns at home | Extinguish in every relevant setting |

## The partial reinforcement extinction effect

The most important variable in how long extinction takes is the [schedule](https://operantconditioning.com/schedules-of-reinforcement/) on which the behavior was reinforced. Behavior reinforced **intermittently** is far more resistant to extinction than behavior reinforced every time. This is the **partial reinforcement extinction effect**, first demonstrated systematically by Lloyd Humphreys in 1939: responses reinforced only half the time persisted much longer without reinforcement than responses reinforced every time.[12]

The effect is paradoxical — *less* reinforcement produces *more* persistence — and two theories survived decades of testing. Abram Amsel's **frustration theory** holds that organisms on intermittent schedules learn to keep responding *through* the frustration of nonreward, so nonreward during extinction is nothing new.[13] E. J. Capaldi's **sequential theory** holds that the memory of unreinforced trials becomes a cue for responding.[14] In plain language: an organism on a continuous schedule can tell instantly that the rules have changed; one on a variable schedule cannot, because unrewarded stretches were always part of the deal.

The consequences are everywhere. Slot-machine players keep pulling through long droughts. A parent who gives in to whining "only sometimes" has built whining on a variable schedule and faces a long extinction. And a habit you want to *keep* should be moved from continuous to intermittent reinforcement once established, so it survives the days the reinforcer does not show up.

## Resistance to extinction and behavioral momentum

Resistance to extinction is one case of what John Nevin called **behavioral momentum**. In physics, momentum depends on velocity and mass; in Nevin's analogy, a behavior's velocity is its rate and its mass is its resistance to disruption — by extinction, satiation, distraction, or free food. His central finding is that mass depends on the *rate of reinforcement obtained in the presence of a stimulus*, largely independent of response rate: behavior from a richly reinforced context is harder to disrupt than behavior from a lean one, even at the same rate.[15][16]

This has a counterintuitive implication for treatment. Reinforcing an alternative behavior makes the alternative more likely, but it also enriches the context, which can make the *problem* behavior more resistant to extinction when its reinforcement is later withheld.[16] Practitioners deliver the alternative reinforcement in clearly distinct situations and expect the persistence. For the rest of us, momentum is why a well-established habit, good or bad, shrugs off disruption.

## Extinction is not ignoring

"Just ignore it" is the folk version of extinction, and it is wrong often enough to be dangerous. Ignoring is extinction only when the reinforcer maintaining the behavior is *your attention*. Extinction means withholding whichever reinforcer is doing the maintaining; a functional analysis identifies it, and the procedure must match it.[17][18]

| What maintains the behavior | What extinction requires | Example | What "ignoring" would do |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| **Attention** (social positive reinforcement) | *Planned ignoring*: no eye contact, comment, or reaction | A child interrupts for attention; the parent no longer responds | Works — this is the case ignoring was made for |
| **Escape from demands** (social negative reinforcement) | *Escape extinction*: the demand stays in place; the behavior no longer ends it | A student shoves the worksheet away; the teacher calmly keeps it there and prompts the next step | Makes it worse — ignoring lets the student escape the task |
| **Tangible items** | The item is never delivered after the behavior | Grabbing for the phone never produces the phone | Irrelevant unless the adult was handing over the item |
| **Automatic (sensory) reinforcement** | *Sensory extinction*: the sensory consequence is blocked | A child spins objects for the visual effect; the effect is removed or altered | Does nothing — the behavior reinforces itself |

The escape row is the one that catches parents and teachers. A child who tantrums to get out of putting on shoes is not seeking attention, and ignoring the tantrum while the shoes stay off is not extinction; it is the reinforcer, delivered. Escape extinction means the shoes still go on — planned carefully, with calm, safety, and often an easier demand to begin with. [More on escape-maintained behavior ›](https://operantconditioning.com/negative-reinforcement/)

## Examples of extinction

| Situation | Reinforcer withheld | Burst | Outcome |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Elevator button | Elevator arriving | Repeated, harder presses; holding the button | You stop pressing and take the stairs |
| Vending machine that eats a coin | Snack dropping | Pressing every button; shaking; a kick | You walk away (and avoid that machine) |
| Crying at bedtime | Parent returning to the room | Louder, longer crying on the first nights | Crying declines within about ten nights if parents hold firm |
| Dog begging at the table | Scraps | Whining, pawing, intense staring | Begging fades — unless one family member keeps slipping food |
| Checking a phone with notifications off | New messages and likes | More frequent checks for a few days | Checking declines |
| Slot machine on a losing streak | Payout | Faster play, bigger bets | Very slow decline: the variable-ratio history resists extinction |
| App that has shut down | Content, updates, responses | A few repeated opens and refreshes | You stop opening it within days |
| Light switch during a power cut | Light | Flipping it several times | You stop within a day — and flip it again entering a new room (renewal) |

The bedtime example is a real case, published in 1959. A 21-month-old boy screamed when his parents left the room, keeping one of them there for up to two hours a night. The parents put him to bed, left, and did not return. He cried for about 45 minutes the first night, less on subsequent nights, and by the tenth night not at all. A week later an aunt put him to bed, returned when he cried, and the tantrums came back at full strength — requiring a second extinction, which again succeeded.[19] The case contains the whole story: burst, curve, accidental intermittent reinforcement, recovery, and the persistence needed to see it through.

## How to use extinction

1. **Identify the maintaining reinforcer.** Attention? Escape? An item? A sensation? If you cannot tell, the procedure cannot be designed.
2. **Make sure you control that reinforcer.** If a classroom behavior is maintained by peers' laughter, a teacher's ignoring changes nothing.
3. **Decide whether you can withstand the burst.** If the behavior is dangerous at its worst — self-injury, aggression, bolting — extinction alone is not appropriate, and a professional should design the plan.
4. **Reinforce a replacement at the same time.** Extinction says what no longer works; differential reinforcement says what does. The combination reduces bursts and aggression.
5. **Get everyone on the same page.** One family member or one weekend with the grandparents can reinforce the behavior intermittently and undo weeks of progress.
6. **Expect recovery, resurgence, and renewal.** Returns after a break, under stress, and in new settings are normal, and each is weaker if the plan holds.
7. **Track it.** Extinction curves are bumpy; without data a bad week looks like failure.

### When not to use extinction

- When the behavior is dangerous and the burst could cause harm.
- When you cannot control the maintaining reinforcer — peer attention, sensory consequences you cannot block, reinforcers delivered by others.
- When you cannot be consistent; intermittent extinction is intermittent reinforcement.
- When an antecedent change would remove the need — moving the cookie jar is easier than extinguishing cookie-seeking. [Antecedent strategies in the ABC model ›](https://operantconditioning.com/abc-model/)

## Combining extinction with differential reinforcement

Extinction is rarely used alone in modern practice: by itself it produces the burst and the emotional side effects and leaves a hole where the behavior was. The standard package pairs it with reinforcement of something else.[6][20]

- **DRA (alternative behavior):** reinforce an appropriate behavior that gets the same result. The child who screamed for help is taught to tap the adult's arm; tapping is answered every time, screaming never.
- **DRI (incompatible behavior):** reinforce a behavior that cannot happen at the same time. Sitting is reinforced; jumping up cannot coexist with it.
- **DRO (other behavior):** reinforce the passage of time without the behavior. Every five minutes without shouting earns a point.
- **Noncontingent reinforcement:** deliver the maintaining reinforcer freely on a schedule, so the behavior has nothing to earn.

With a replacement in place, extinction becomes a redirection rather than a standoff: the reinforcer the learner wants is still available, through the door you chose. The same applies when the learner is you — the reliable way to extinguish a habit you do not want is to make its payoff available from one you do. [Building habits with operant conditioning ›](https://operantconditioning.com/habits/) · [Positive reinforcement in depth ›](https://operantconditioning.com/positive-reinforcement/)

## Key takeaways

- Extinction breaks the contingency: the behavior occurs and its reinforcer no longer arrives. Nothing is added or removed, so it is not one of the four quadrants, and it is not forgetting but new learning laid over the old.
- The extinction burst is a temporary rise in the frequency, intensity, or variability of the behavior. Giving in during the burst reinforces a more intense version on an intermittent schedule, so do not start extinction unless you can outlast it.
- Extinguished behavior returns in three ways: spontaneous recovery after time away, resurgence when a newer behavior stops being reinforced, and renewal when the context changes. Each is weaker if the plan holds, and none means extinction failed.
- Behavior reinforced intermittently is far more resistant to extinction than behavior reinforced every time: the partial reinforcement extinction effect. Giving in "only sometimes" builds whining on a variable schedule and guarantees a long extinction.
- Ignoring is extinction only when attention is the maintaining reinforcer; escape-maintained behavior requires escape extinction, in which the demand stays in place. In practice, pair extinction with reinforcement of a replacement, which reduces bursts and aggression.

### Check yourself

**A child tantrums when told to put on shoes. The parent ignores the tantrum, and the shoes stay off. Is this extinction?**

No. The tantrum is maintained by escape from the demand, not by attention, so ignoring it while the shoes stay off delivers the reinforcer. Escape extinction means the shoes still go on; the behavior no longer ends the demand.

**A child whines for cookies. Parent A never gives a cookie for whining again. Parent B takes away screen time for each whine. Which one is extinction?**

Parent A. Extinction stops delivering the reinforcer the behavior used to produce; nothing is added or removed. Parent B removes a reinforcer the child already has, which is negative punishment, not extinction.

**Bedtime crying that stopped last week returns after a weekend at the grandparents' house. Has extinction failed?**

Not necessarily. A return after time away from the extinction setting is spontaneous recovery, which is normal and weaker each time if reinforcement stays withheld. The real risk is that someone responded to the crying over the weekend: one intermittent reinforcement can bring the behavior back at full strength.

**Two children whined for candy. One was always given candy for whining; the other got it only sometimes. Both families now stop entirely. Whose whining fades faster, and why?**

The child who was always given candy. Behavior reinforced every time is far easier to extinguish than behavior reinforced intermittently, which is the partial reinforcement extinction effect. The child on the continuous schedule can tell instantly that the rules have changed; the other cannot, because unrewarded stretches were always part of the deal.

**Explain it to a friend.** Explain why a behavior can get worse before it fades once its payoff stops, using an example that has nothing to do with children or pets.

## Frequently asked questions

**What is extinction in psychology?**

The weakening and eventual disappearance of a learned behavior when the consequence that maintained it stops occurring. In operant conditioning, a behavior is no longer followed by its reinforcer and declines. In classical conditioning, a conditioned stimulus is presented without the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned response fades.

**What is an extinction burst?**

A temporary increase in the frequency, intensity, or variability of a behavior right after its reinforcer is withheld — pressing the elevator button harder and faster before giving up. Bursts occur in a substantial minority of cases when extinction is used alone and are less likely when it is combined with reinforcement of another behavior.

**What is an example of extinction in operant conditioning?**

A child who used to get a cookie by whining stops getting cookies for whining; after an initial increase, the whining fades over days. Others: a dog stops begging when scraps stop, you stop pressing a broken elevator button, a toddler stops crying at bedtime once parents reliably stop returning.

**Is extinction the same as ignoring?**

Only when attention is the reinforcer maintaining the behavior. Extinction means withholding the specific reinforcer that keeps the behavior going. If a behavior is maintained by escape from a task, ignoring it lets the escape happen and makes things worse; escape extinction means keeping the task in place.

**Is extinction a form of punishment?**

No. Punishment adds an aversive stimulus or removes a reinforcer the person already has. Extinction simply stops delivering the reinforcer the behavior used to produce. Both reduce behavior, but extinction is slower, produces a burst, and is not one of the four quadrants.

**What is spontaneous recovery?**

The return of an extinguished behavior after time away from the extinction setting — the rat that stopped pressing on Monday presses again briefly on Tuesday. Each recovery is weaker than the last if reinforcement continues to be withheld.

**Why is behavior on a variable schedule harder to extinguish?**

Because unrewarded stretches were always part of the experience, so the organism cannot tell that reinforcement has stopped. This is the partial reinforcement extinction effect. It is why slot machines and social media are hard to quit and why "giving in sometimes" produces the most persistent whining.

**How long does extinction take?**

It depends on the reinforcement history. Behavior reinforced every time may fade within a session or a few days; behavior reinforced intermittently can persist for hundreds of unreinforced responses. In the classic bedtime-crying case, tantrums disappeared within about ten nights. Consistency matters more than anything else.

## References

1. Skinner, B. F. (1938). *The Behavior of Organisms: An Experimental Analysis*. Appleton-Century.
2. Bouton, M. E. (2004). Context and behavioral processes in extinction. *Learning & Memory, 11*(5), 485–494.
3. Lerman, D. C., & Iwata, B. A. (1995). Prevalence of the extinction burst and its attenuation during treatment. *Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 28*(1), 93–94.
4. Lerman, D. C., Iwata, B. A., & Wallace, M. D. (1999). Side effects of extinction: Prevalence of bursting and aggression during the treatment of self-injurious behavior. *Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 32*(1), 1–8.
5. Azrin, N. H., Hutchinson, R. R., & Hake, D. F. (1966). Extinction-induced aggression. *Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 9*(3), 191–204.
6. Lerman, D. C., & Iwata, B. A. (1996). Developing a technology for the use of operant extinction in clinical settings: An examination of basic and applied research. *Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 29*(3), 345–382.
7. Rescorla, R. A. (2004). Spontaneous recovery. *Learning & Memory, 11*(5), 501–509. See also Pavlov, I. P. (1927). *Conditioned Reflexes* (G. V. Anrep, Trans.). Oxford University Press.
8. Epstein, R. (1983). Resurgence of previously reinforced behavior during extinction. *Behaviour Analysis Letters, 3*, 391–397.
9. Epstein, R. (1985). Extinction-induced resurgence: Preliminary investigations and possible applications. *The Psychological Record, 35*(2), 143–153.
10. Lattal, K. A., & St. Peter Pipkin, C. (2009). Resurgence of previously reinforced responding: Research and application. *The Behavior Analyst Today, 10*(2), 254–266.
11. Bouton, M. E. (2002). Context, ambiguity, and unlearning: Sources of relapse after behavioral extinction. *Biological Psychiatry, 52*(10), 976–986.
12. Humphreys, L. G. (1939). The effect of random alternation of reinforcement on the acquisition and extinction of conditioned eyelid reactions. *Journal of Experimental Psychology, 25*(2), 141–158.
13. Amsel, A. (1958). The role of frustrative nonreward in noncontinuous reward situations. *Psychological Bulletin, 55*(2), 102–119.
14. Capaldi, E. J. (1966). Partial reinforcement: A hypothesis of sequential effects. *Psychological Review, 73*(5), 459–477.
15. Nevin, J. A. (1974). Response strength in multiple schedules. *Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 21*(3), 389–408.
16. Nevin, J. A., & Grace, R. C. (2000). Behavioral momentum and the law of effect. *Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 23*(1), 73–90.
17. Iwata, B. A., Pace, G. M., Cowdery, G. E., & Miltenberger, R. G. (1994). What makes extinction work: An analysis of procedural form and function. *Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 27*(1), 131–144.
18. Iwata, B. A., Dorsey, M. F., Slifer, K. J., Bauman, K. E., & Richman, G. S. (1994). Toward a functional analysis of self-injury. *Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 27*(2), 197–209. (Reprinted from *Analysis and Intervention in Developmental Disabilities, 2*, 3–20, 1982.)
19. Williams, C. D. (1959). The elimination of tantrum behavior by extinction procedures. *Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 59*(2), 269.
20. Cooper, J. O., Heron, T. E., & Heward, W. L. (2020). *Applied Behavior Analysis* (3rd ed.). Pearson.


## About the author

Ryan holds a master's degree from UCLA, where he studied animal behavior in Daniel Blumstein's lab and was part of the university's Evolutionary Medicine Program, which applies findings from evolutionary biology and animal behavior to human health. He founded Operant Conditioning Inc. and built the Operant habit app (https://operantconditioning.com/app/). Every page here is written from the primary literature and cites it. How pages are checked: https://operantconditioning.com/about/#editorial-standards

## Related

- [Schedules of reinforcement](https://operantconditioning.com/schedules-of-reinforcement/): Why intermittent schedules resist extinction — with a live simulator.
- [Negative punishment](https://operantconditioning.com/negative-punishment/): Time-out and response cost, and how they differ from extinction.
- [Shaping](https://operantconditioning.com/shaping/): How the variability of the extinction burst builds new behavior.