Operant Conditioning In Children

Like many children his age, my nephew hates eating his vegetables and he cries whenever he has to eat them. Because of this, his mom takes the veggies away so that he doesn't have to eat them anymore. Due to this, he begins crying whenever vegetables are placed in front of him because he knows that it will make his mom take them away. This example is negative reinforcement because the behavior being altered the vegetables are being subtracted as he starts crying. This leads to him crying each time, so that the vegetables are taken away, being a successful type of operant conditioning.

One famous behaviourist was Skinner (1904-1990) who was an American psychologist and believed in the role of reinforcement. There are two types of reinforcement: positive and negative. Positive reinforcement occurs when a particular behaviour is followed by a consequence that is desired such as receiving food, money or verbal praise. Whereas negative reinforcement takes place when a particular behaviour removes something unpleasant. Skinner used both positive and negative reinforcement in his experiment where he worked with rats and pigeons. He used a “Skinner box” to investigate the key values of learning new and challenging behaviours. Skinner used the theory of operant conditioning and would place the rat or pigeon into the “Skinner Box” the animal would then be curious and sniff and run around the box until eventually it would press the lever, which would release a food pellet. After a while the animal would carry out this behaviour many times, as it has learnt that after pressing the lever it will receive a food pellet as a consequence. As the pellet is experienced as reinforcing and something that the animal desires, this increases the chance of the behaviour being repeated. This is called

In chapter six in the General Psychology course, we learned about “Learning”. We learned the types of conditions that help people learn. One of the conditions is “Operant Conditioning” where learning is controlled by the organism’s behavior. During the lecture one thing that stood out to me was that in the operant condition, there is a term called positive punishment which is used to decrease bad behavior. It is used usually by parents to discipline their children when they misbehave in order to break that bad habit.

A fundamental tenet of Skinner's radical behaviorism is that the probability of a behavior is related directly to the nature of the environmental consequences that follow performance of that behavior. From this basic tenet he derived a set of procedures for modifying behavior by a method called operant conditioning. Specifically, behavior is strengthened, or increased in frequency, when followed by either a positive consequence (positive reinforcement) or removal of a negative consequence (negative reinforcement). Behavior is weakened, or decreased

According to Kail and Cavanaugh the theory established by Skinner known as operant conditioning is a “learning paradigm in which the consequences of a behavior determine whether a behavior is repeated in the future” (p. 13). This theory to an extent, parallels the previous theory of operant conditioning but is also important in trying to understand why one makes the decisions they do as well as how often they partake in certain behaviors. Through his theory Skinner displayed that there are two types of consequences, reinforcement and punishment, in which one increases the chances of repeated behavior and the other vice versa. Reinforcement is the component that increases the likeliness of repeated behavior and includes two divisions, negative and positive. Negative reinforcement is that in which a person’s

A researcher named Burrhus Frederic Skinner thought he would develop the idea of operant conditioning. He suggested than we act in regard to consequences (reward or punishment) in which we actively learn. He suggested there are 3 types of these consequences of behavior; positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement and punishment. Positive reinforcement is receiving a reward for acting in a certain way. An example of this could be getting a school prize for performing well in your exams, because of the reinforcement of the prize, the student will try to perform well every time. Negative reinforcement occurs when we act in a way that avoids an unpleasant consequence (e.g. not being late to a meeting because you do not want to be perceived as rude). Punishment is an unpleasant consequence that comes from the way we act. For example, gaining a detention for arriving late to lessons. Punishment decreases like probability that behaviour is likely to be repeated. Whereas, in positive and negative reinforcement the chances are you will repeat the behaviour. Skinner’s conducted research in the form of a lab experiment. He used a hungry rat that was placed in a cage that had been especially developed for the purpose of the study and was named Skinner’s box. In the cage was a button and a food dispenser. When the rat pressed the button food would appear in the dispenser. The animal soon learned that

picked up the wallet and ran away, then Kevin is likely to see this as

Skinner 's theory of operant conditioning was based on the work of Thorndike that he reviewed (1948). Edward Thorndike studied learning in animals using a puzzle box to propose the theory known as the 'Law of Effect ', responses that produce a satisfying effect in a situation become more likely to occur again in that situation, and responses that produce a discomforting effect become less likely to occur again in that situation. Skinner introduced a new term to Thorndike’s theory known as reinforcement (Skinner, 1948). Reinforcement is a stimulus (as a reward or the removal of an electric shock) that increases the probability of a desired response in operant conditioning by being applied or affected following the desired response. Skinner branched off Thorndike’s approach studied operant conditioning by experimenting on animals using conditioning chambers also known as a Skinner box and in 1948

According to Boeree, C, George (2006), B. F. Skinner’s “entire system is based on ‘operant conditioning’”. Behaviourism is determined by the environment and is “concerning with the effect of external events such as reward or punishment for behaviour” (Duschesne,

Skinner and his colleagues (Gass & Larry, 2008), learning or a change of behaviour on the part of the learner, is brought about by a process known as 'operant conditioning' which is the result of repeated training. Operant means 'voluntary behaviour' which is the result of learner's own free-will and is not forced by any outsider or thing (Ortega, 2009). The learner will demonstrate the new behaviour first as a response to a system of a reward or punishment, and finally it will become an automatic response.

Operant Conditioning Theory by B.F. Skinner is a psychological manipulation using rewards and punishments to enforce positive behavior. It uses an individual person’s response to events or stimulus. When a particular Stimulus-Response pattern is rewarded, the individual is conditioned to respond. The distinctive characteristic of operant conditioning is related to previous forms of behaviorism. The Operant Conditioning theory comprises of neutral operants, positive/negative reinforcers, and positive/negative punishers. Through these factors, we get the desired behavior of our subject because they do not want to be punished for under performing so they do what they’re told to or do more of what they were assigned to to receive positive stimulus

Skinner’s reinforcement experiments conducted on rats showed the principles of operant conditioning. While working with rats, Skinner would place them in a Skinner box with a lever attached to a feeding tube. After multiple trials, rats learned the connection between the lever and food, and started to spend more time in the box procuring food than performing any other action. He used positive reinforcement, and negative reinforcement to produce or inhibit specific target behaviors. Therefore, if a specific behavior is reinforced then the probability of that behavior occurring again is increased. Based on Skinner’s view, this theory can be applied to learning because learning is nothing more than a change in behavior. Operant conditioning encourages positive reinforcement, which can be applied in the classroom environment to get the good behavior you want and need from students. One of the ways of reinforcing a student’s behavior is through praise. Also teachers can build operant conditioning techniques into their lesson plans to teach children possible skills as well as good behaviors. For example: to give a smiley face, or motivational stamps to encourage children to perform correctly and encourage them to repeat such action again.

Operant conditioning developed by Skinner is one of the learning methods according to which the likelihood of behavior is increased or decreased by the use of reinforcement or punishment. In case of positive reinforcement a certain behavior becomes stronger by the effect of experiencing some positive condition. In case of negative reinforcement a certain behavior becomes stronger by the outcome of stopping or staying away from some negative condition. In case of extinction a certain behavior is becomes weaker by the outcome of avoiding to experiencing some positive condition or stopping some negative condition.

B.F. Skinner’s theory of Operant Conditioning has at its foundation a desire to demonstrate a “cause and

Skinner was a behaviorist who wanted to provide a method for understanding human behavior, thoughts, and emotions. Skinner believed that classical conditioning was to simplistic to be a complete explanation of the complex human behavior. Skinner believed the best way to understand any behavior is to look directly at the causes of an action and its consequences. He defined this approach as operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is defined as “ the idea that behavior is determined by its consequences, be they reinforcements or punishments, which make it more or less likely that the behavior will occur again” (B. F. Skinner, 2011). The behavioral model observes human behavior as a practical and useful response. This model acknowledges that every behavior has a purpose and has advanced from the earlier stages of a person's understanding. Skinner created a way to allow individuals the ability to avoid negative behaviors. His theory uses positive and negative reinforcements while covering affective punishments to make sure a student's bad behavior does not turn into a pattern. According to our textbook, “one defining characteristic of the behavioral model is that it views behavior from a functional perspective in terms that are both measurable and observable (Wheeler, 2014,p.17).”