What term refers to the likelihood that a target behavior will occur in a given circumstance?

• A. Joint Probability
• B. Probability of Occurrence
• C. Unconditional Probability
• D. Conditional Probability

Answer: (D)

Conditional probability is the likelihood that a target behavior will occur given a particular antecedent or circumstance. It represents P(Target behavior | Specific circumstance). This captures how the chance of the behavior changes when that context is present, rather than looking at the behavior’s rate across all situations.

This differs from unconditional probability, which is the overall likelihood of the behavior without reference to any specific antecedent, and from joint probability, which is the chance that both the antecedent and the behavior occur together. The term probability of occurrence is not a precise technical label in this context.

For example, if a child shouts only when a loud whistle is blown, the conditional probability would quantify how often shouting happens when the whistle is present, compared to when it isn’t. If in 12 opportunities with the whistle present the child shouts 9 times, the conditional probability is 9/12 = 0.75, illustrating how the circumstance raises the likelihood of the behavior.