Examples Of Operant Conditioning In Children

Cognitive changes in infants, consists in the ability to think, learn, and remember. The brain of a newborn develops rapidly. The brain of an infant is made up uniquely with neurons. Neurons controls the brain as well as the nervous system (Feldman, 2014, p.129). Infants are born with between 100 to 200 billion neurons (Feldman, 2014, p.129). Infants are capable of learning early through classical conditioning. However, classical conditioning is a type of learning in which an organism responds in a way to a neutral stimulus that normally does not bring about that type of response. Classical conditioning begins from the early operation from the time of birth (Feldman, 2014, p.115). For example, A hungry baby stops crying when her mother picks

Operant conditioning is “learning resulting from the response an organism receives following a behavior” (Burger, 2014). An example that I see of this is when I see children throwing tantrums in a grocery store because they did not get what they wanted. The parents give the child what it wants, and the child is no longer throwing a tantrum. The example of the child is showing a negative reinforcement. The negative reinforcement is taking away something troublesome because of the behavior that is acceptable (Burger, 2014). Another example that I have witnessed beforehand was when a child misbehaves in class, the teacher gives the child a timeout. This type of punishment is positive. Positive punishment is used to decrease a behavior and is showing

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.

Negative reinforcement is removing an unpleasant consequence when a behavior is exhibited in order to encourage said behavior. This was shown when

Negative reinforcers, he claimed, are when a child chooses certain behaviour in order to avoid a punishment. An example of negative reinforcement is when a child is allowed to skip a required chore if homework is finished by a certain time. A simple example of punishment is when a child is reprimanded or criticised for inappropriate behaviour.

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

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 is a theory that was pioneered by Skinner, and it is a theory that is based on the type of consequence that is given following a particular behaviour. Skinner divided the consequences of actions into three groups, positive rein forcers, negative reinforcers and punishers. Skinner looked at what would happen to behaviour if giving positive reinforcers at different intervals. Most professionals and practitioners will use this theory in one way or another such as giving rewards for good behaviour or sanctions for bad behaviour so the theory is well used in today’s frameworks and practices.

Operant conditioning has made a significant contribution into the development of psychology. However, as with most psychological theories, this theory it has its strengths and weaknesses. Nevertheless, operant conditioning, with both its positive and negative aspects, is very important in promoting learning of desirable behaviors or removal of undesirable

When a baby does something wrong, they do not understand the concept of “no” or “that’s bad” only that receiving a spanking hurts, so they avoid repeating the action that earned them the spanking. This is operant conditioning, which Skinner proved to be a liable argument. Due to this, I think that when a young child who is performing a dangerous act and is not responding to vocal commands, spanking is acceptable and effective. For example, if a young child of a year or so was about to put their finger in an electrical socket, and they were not responding to their parent saying “no” smacking their hand would indicate they should not do that. The pain inflicted was not enough to actually injure the child, but enough to scare the child so they

“‘Conditioning’ simply means learning, and the term ‘operant’ refers to something that acts upon something else. Operant conditioning, then, is a form of testing in which an animal learns that a response, such as pressing a lever, results in a consequence, such as a food pellet being delivered to the animal (Pritchett & Mulder, 2004).” In operant conditioning, there are two categories: reinforcement and punishment. Both can be utilized using either positive or negative strategies. In reinforcement tactics, the behavior is attempted to be increased. A positive example of this would be praising a child if they say something that resembles mama or dada for their first words. A negative example would be the parents not responding or even chiding the child for mumbling or not being very coherent. Each action is strengthened by the parents reinforcement of praise when saying the correct words or their disregard when the child does not sound coherent. In the positive example, praise is being offered so the child is receiving something, therefore making the reinforcement positive. When the parents ignore the wrong words that the child speaks, we describe

My example of operant conditioning has to do with when my daughter misbehaves. For instance, when she chooses not to pick up her toys. If she does a good job picking them up she gets positive reinforcement of money

By using operant conditioning, with a combination of negative punishment and positive reinforcement, my goal was to try to get rid of my habit of spitting, so I could eat as much chocolate as possible. With negative punishment, the goal is to get rid of a certain behavior by taking something away that is good or desirable. In my case, I have to give a chocolate to one of my teammates every time I spit during practice. Another good example is what we talked about in class, where students have some kind of tokens or cash that they can use to redeem prizes, and when then they do something wrong, the negative punishment would be to take tokens away from them.

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