Source status: research term from learning science; its use in relationship writing is an interpretive comparison.
Intermittent reinforcement describes learning maintained by rewards that arrive unpredictably rather than every time.
The idea can help explain why occasional signals command attention. It must be carried carefully into human relationships: a person is not a laboratory schedule, inconsistency does not prove manipulation and the concept cannot diagnose either partner.
Different from: the Crumb-Chase Circuit. Intermittent reinforcement is a research construct. The Crumb-Chase Circuit is the book’s lived map of what can happen around scarce or inconsistent contact.
Related: The Crumb-Chase Circuit; The Almost; Attachment; Living on Love Crumbs.
