What is most overlooked about behaviorism, here and elsewhere, is what Skinner called the generic nature of stimulus and response. Reinforcement acts not on behavior directly, but rather shapes the meaning of the stimuli that engender behavior in the future. A dog responds less vocally to acute physical pain than people because such behavior in a dog is less often reinforced- ie, different contingencies of reinforcement.

Generic thus describes how new meanings and new behaviors are carved out of the world we engage with