Field Guide · Glossary
Extinction burst
Learning scienceA temporary increase in a behavior's frequency or intensity that can follow when its reinforcement first stops.
How it works
When it happens, it is what a behavior that has stopped working looks like from the outside before it fades: louder, longer, more persistent, and often more inventive. Plenty of behaviors skip it and simply taper off. The practical risk is entirely about timing. A handler who holds out through several days and then gives in at the peak has reinforced the most intense version of the behavior, which is now the version the dog will produce first next time. That single event can undo the whole process and leave the behavior worse than it started.
What it looks like
A dog whose whining at the back door has always been answered is ignored for the first time. Over three days the whining becomes barking, then scratching. On the fourth day it stops. Opening the door on the third day would have taught scratching.
Commonly confused with
- Extinction
- The burst is one stage of extinction, not a separate process. A behavior that gets briefly worse is on a normal path, and so is one that fades without ever spiking. Neither tells you on its own that something is still being reinforced.
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