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Which would you say hinders the establishment of operant conditioning more, presenting the stimulus without prompting the desired response or prompting the response and not presenting the stimulus? I’m struggling with getting it to work. For normal reasons.

I would say, "presenting the stimulus without prompting the desired response".

Lengthy explanation of Operant Conditioning and how to use it below!

A common mistake in hypnosis and conditioning would be to give the reward or stimulus in general too frequently. In operant conditioning, we have what are called "schedules of reinforcement", which speak to frequency and technique in the timing of providing stimuli.

Providing the reward every time would be called "Continuous Reinforcement". This is a fine method of conditioning, but it is far from the most effective.

Partial Reinforcement Schedules are any means of conditioning that don't provide the stimuli every single time.

Fixed Ratio & Fixed Interval

Charts used from helpfulprofessor.com.

Fixed schedules suffer from a relatively predictable problem.

Fixed Ratio schedules are when a stimulus is provided after a certain number of behaviors are completed.

Fixed Interval schedules are when a reinforcement stimuli is provided at regular intervals (say, every hour).

The issues with Fixed schedules comes in the fact that we are aware of things (sadly). If a pattern is predictable, then we are both able to anticipate when it's about to happen, lessening the impact of the reward, and we know that right after the stimuli is finished, we won't be getting another one for a predictable amount of time.

Not only are there often lulls immediately after the stimuli, but the conditioning holds far, far weaker than both continuous and the other type of partial schedule.

When the stumuli stops being provided at the regular time (that singular moment being the only time where it feels possible), then its far easier for that anticipation to be flipped on its head and have a very negative impact, very quickly undoing any progress.

As a solution, we have...

Variable Ratio & Variable Interval

Charts used from helpfulprofessor.com.

Variable schedules are deeply, deeply effective. This is how gambling becomes addictive to people, but also how many other things are conditioned into creatures.

The one you should choose depends on what it is that you want to do.

Variable Ratio

This is the schedule you should follow if you want to enforce a behavior that you want to happen often. An example in the hypnosis sphere (most especially my hypnosis sphere) would be getting someone to start barking as part of their regular means of talking and typing.

All that is necessary to do is encourage the behavior initially, start the engines with rewards (either hypnotic triggers or just praise), and to only do it sometimes and at random.

Variable Interval

This is the schedule you should follow if you want to enforce a more continuous behavior that you want to happen steadily. This would be something more like obedience, giving a reward for good behavior at random, but importantly within a reasonably similar range each time.

You can't do it one hour then 48 hours later then 12, you should have something like a range of variance and stick to that, so long as the exact timing is not anticipatable.

This can also be done for singular behaviors like barking, if you wish for the conditioning to be much slower, and also to simply not be related to an amount of times being done.

Both methods build conditioning that takes a very, very long time to undo or fall away. In the case of many behaviors, unlike what is shown in the charts, they can become a near-permanent part of someone's existence, never quite going away without active efforts to do so.

If you get someone to bark consistently, and they do not have a reason for it to stop, it will become a part of themselves in a way deeper than you may ever expect.

As a fair warning, these methods of conditioning, as stated prior, are essentially forming an addictive loop for someone. It is not nearly so strong as gambling in most cases, but with the wrong person, the wrong environment, and the wrong precautions, you can steer into very unhealthy territory very, very quickly.

...it can be quite fun to condition people, though.

So, to again answer the original question: not only is "prompting the response and not presenting the stimulus" perfectly okay to do, it's actually better than doing it every single time.

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