LRG - Operant Conditioning Lesson

 

Operant Conditioning

Our lives are dominated by operant conditioning. Any time you receive a reward or a punishment as a consequence for your actions, you've experienced operant conditioning. If you're late to class, you get a detention, and that makes you want to stop being late. If you clean your room, you get your allowance, and that makes you want to clean your room. If you're sweet to your mom, she makes you some cookies, and that makes you want to be sweet. If you use all the gas in the car, your mom nags you until you go get some more.

All of these examples are different than classical conditioning because the learner is making a choice to do a behavior. In classical conditioning, the learner couldn't choose to drool or jump in fear. In operant conditioning, the consequence of the learner's actions makes them want to continue or stop their behavior.

Operant conditioning is based on the Law of Effect, an idea created by Edward Thorndike after working with cats for some time. Thorndike gave the cats treats if they performed certain behaviors. As soon as the cats realized they could get a treat for a certain behavior, the cats started to do that behavior over and over again. Thorndike's Law of Effect says that rewarded behavior is likely to increase and punished behavior is likely to decrease.

The size of the red arrow in the graphic represents the likelihood of that response. As the graphic shows, at first cats were likely to do typical cat behaviors like scratching or digging. But once the cats realized that they would be rewarded for pressing the lever, they almost exclusively spent their time pressing the lever. Rewards changed their behavior, thus showing the Law of Effect in action.

 

BF Skinner took this idea and ran with it. He created a Skinner Box, also known as an operant conditioning chamber. A Skinner Box is big enough for a cat or a rat to move around in comfortably. It has a little door through which a treat can drop, a few levers or bars that the animal can press, a light that can flash on, and sometimes a shocking mechanism.

In Skinner's experiments, the rats could earn a treat by pressing the bar. At first they accidentally pressed the bar and were surprised by the treat, but after a few repetitions of accidentally pressing the bar and receiving a treat, the rats began to press it again and again to get a treat. They'd been conditioned, and acquisition had occurred.

In this case, Skinner was using reinforcement. A reinforcer is anything that increases a behavior. There are two types of reinforcers: positive reinforcers and negative reinforcers.

In Operant Conditioning, behavior can also be changed with punishment. A punisher is anything that decreases a behavior. There are two types of punishment: positive punishment and negative punishment.

    

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1.         

   Operant conditioning

   1. Reinforcement (Increase Behavior)
      1. Positive (add appetative stimulus following correct behavior)
      2. Negative
         1. Escape (remove noxious stimuli following correct behavior such as turning off an alarm clock by pressing a snooze button)
         2. Active Avoidance (behavior avoids noxious stimulus such as studying to avoid getting a bad grade)
   2. Punishment (decrease behavior)
      1. Positive (Add noxious stimuli following behavior such as spanking a child for cursing)
      2. Negative (Remove appetative stimulus following behavior such as telling a child to go to their room for cursing)

    

    

   Positive presence of a stimulus

   Negative absence of a stimulus

   Reinforcement increases behavior

   Punishment decreases behavior

   Escape removes a stimulus

   Avoidance prevents a stimulus

    

       

 

Terms you should know -

• Positive - always means adding in psychology
• Negative - always means subtracting in psychology

 

• Reinforcement - increases the behavior that immediately precedes it
• Positive Reinforcement - Increases a behavior through adding something desirable
• Negative Reinforcement - Increases a behavior through subtracting something undesirable

 

• Punishment - decreases the behavior that immediately precedes it
• Positive Punishment - decrease a behavior through adding something undesirable
• Negative Punishment - Decrease a behavior through subtracting something desirable

 

Learn more about reinforcement and punishment examples below:

 

 

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