The psychologist B. F Skinner believed that “changes in behavior are the result of an individual’s response to events (stimuli) that occur in the environment” (All About Operant Conditioning, 2006, Para 2). The following paper will discuss a learning situation in which an exercise routine is thought. The paper will evaluate the application of instrumental conditioning to this learning situation. As part of the analysis the learning situation will be described, the paper will compare and contrast the concepts of positive and negative reinforcement as related to learning situation, and explain the role of reward and punishment in learning an exercise routine. Finally, the paper will explain which form of instrumental conditioning would be …show more content…
Exercising releases certain neurotransmitters, which are known for alleviating physical and mental pain. For this particular scenario the author will create a learning situation which involves teaching an individual an exercise routine and then analyze how positive and negative reinforcement, and reward and punishment would have an effect on this learning situation. In order to effectively teach someone an exercise routine they must first be motivated to exercise. For a person to be motivated to exercise the certain sections of the brain must be working properly but also they must have an environment, which will accommodate that person’s needs and desires to perform physical training. In order to begin this learning experience the person instructing must first analyze the person’s personality, find out where he or she would be more comfortable learning the routine, the person’s exercise history, and find out the person’s short and long term exercise goals. By finding this information out the exercise routine can be accustomed to the individual but the instructor can also identify what this person may consider positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, reward, and punishment. There are two types of reinforcement; positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement strengthens the behavior through positive stimulus and includes a positive reinforcer, which causes the behavior to
Goal setting is an excellent way for students to track and improve upon physical fitness levels. The importance of being able to set goals and to try to achieve them is that each individual student can assess where they are and set goals to improve. Not all students can achieve the same fitness standards. Some students are born with more muscle mass or more fast twitch muscle fibers than other students. Some students have asthma or other physical difficulties that make it difficult to measure up with other students when all students are required to get a certain score on a fitness test to get an A. Using goal setting where all students can be successful by reaching their goals and showing improvement could be a positive influence for future motivation. While problem based learning can help students to learn and use goal setting (Hubball 2006), goal setting may not always help students to achieve greater fitness levels. Hill (2015) found that those students who set goals over an 18 week period did not have any significant improvement over those students that did not set goals on the pacer and push up tests. Similarly, in another study looking at the effects of goal setting on Native elders found only a weak correlation between goal setting and improvement on the amount of steps taken in a day using a pedometer (Sawchuck 2011). The problem with this study was that the researchers set the goals for the participants. It may be more important that students set their own
The Positive Reinforcement It is important to note that reinforcement is not just a simple reward system. To BF Skinner, reinforcement may be any event which increases the frequency of the preceding action. A reaction may be a tangible reward which can be a compliment or attention, or it may be an activity, like having a break after an hour of study (Skinner & Ferster, 2015). Primary and Secondary Reinforcements Primary reinforcements like how to get food are intrinsically satisfying.
In the behavioral science the term, reinforcement signifies strengthening a behavior. Many learning theories consist of some form of strengthening or weakening a behavior, in which withholding or presenting reinforcement may decrease or increase the future occurrence of a behavior (Skinner, 1953). The application of reinforcement varies between theorists and the type of learning implied.
There are two forms of reinforcement that teachers use with in the classroom, positive and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is widely used in classroom and in educational settings, and is defined as a possible motive that increases the occurrence of a behavior in the future (Wheeler, 2010). It is also known as an environmental event that is given in response to a behavior, that increases the occurrence of that behavior (Reinforcement, 2010). Positive
Positive reinforcement makes behavior more likely to occur by adding a motivating stimuli when desired behaviors occur. An example of positive reinforcement is a parent giving their child an allowance after she cleans her room. Negative reinforcement occurs when a stimuli is removed thus making a desired behavior more likely to occur. An example of negative reinforcement is James hates it when his dad lectures him about doing the yard work on Sundays. James starts doing the yard work on Saturday morning to avoid being lectured.
Firstly, the reinforcement is thought to be the most effective method to reinforce a behavior. Reinforcement is the behavior that repeats each time when an award is given (Wood & Boyd, p. 154). Unfortunately, it is an ineffective method because it can lead to extinction, decrease of behavior, when the award is not given anymore. For example, a mother giving her son money every time when he cleans his room is reinforcement. The son will most likely continue this behavior because receiving money increases his behavior to clean; but when his mother stops rewarding him, he stops cleaning his room. Reinforcement is not very effective in this case. The idea behind this myth is to help
Negative reinforcement strengthens behavior because it stops or removes an unpleasant experience. As an example if you don’t pay your school fees on time, there will be a punishment where you have to pay an extra amount. This is to strengthen you to pay your school fees on time. Positive reinforcement on the other hand is the act of rewarding by presenting the subject with something that it likes for example Skinner rewarded his rats with food pellets. Punishment is defined as the opposite of reinforcement since it is designed to weaken or eliminate a response rather than increase it. It is an event that decreases the behavior that it follows. Sometimes it’s difficult to cater for many problems with using punishment, such as its not forgotten
Positive reinforcement involves the addition of a reinforcing stimulus following a behavior that makes it more likely that the behavior will occur again in the future.
The results supported Skinners (1938) theory of operant conditioning where behaviour could be modified and the use of reinforcement or punishment can increase or decrease
When studying behavior analysis in Psychology, reinforcement can be positive or negative. Most people have a difficult time distinguishing the difference between the two. B.F. Skinner discovered the effects of reinforcement and punishment using his operant conditioning chamber for his experiments. The operant conditioning chamber “Skinner Box” was a container that would hold a laboratory animal inside. The container was set to use devices to reinforce or punish the desired behavior of the animal. Skinner discovered through his experiments that he could train the animals using reinforcement and punishment to learn and perform desired behaviors. Positive reinforcement is adding something positive to motivate and reinforce
Operant conditioning that introduce by B.F.Skinner refers to a systematic program consist of rewards and punishments, which influence the behavior by the use of reinforcement. Operant conditioning known as instrumental conditioning which animals use its own behavior as an "instrument" to pursue some goals. An individual relates particular behavior and a consequence through operant conditioning. B.F.Skinner believed that external is more obvious to explain the behavior than internal thoughts. Besides, Skinner believed that behavior can be observe by the causes of an action and the consequences. Three types of responses that can trace behavior identified by Skinner which are Neutral operants, reinforcers and punishers. Positive reinforcement strengthens a behavior by rewarding an individual, as consequence in order to eliminate undesired behavior. Skinner proves that by remove an unpleasant reinforcement can also strengthen behavior because it removes an unwanted behavior. Punishment is design to eliminate undesirable behavior rather than increase. Punishment can categorize in two, which is positive punishment and negative punishment.
Reinforcements are events that strengthen responses and behaviors. Positive reinforcement is adding something in order to increase a response and behavior. For example, when I was younger every time that I received a good grade in school, my teacher would give me a gold star and that would make me feel
- Positive reinforces are likely to make people repeat behavior when they get something they desire. He suggested that using positive reinforcement was the most effective way of encouraging new learning. It includes gaining adults attention, praise, stickers, sweet, treats.
In order to analyse classical and instrumental conditioning, it is required to first define the content from which they are derived from, that is learning. According to Domjan, learning is a long lasting change in the process of behaviour involving particular stimuli with or alternately responses that result from previous experiences with those or almost the same stimuli and responses (2009). There are several learning paradigms which take the behaviourist approach, but as previously mentioned this essay will focus on only two, which are classical conditioning and instrumental conditioning.
Positive reinforcement is the adding of an item to increase a certain behavior or response. If you give someone two dollars for every time you saw them smiley and they would smile every time they see you and that is positive reinforcement. It’s interesting to me because I can use it on my siblings to get them to read a book for just an hour and kids now a days just want to play video games or watch television all day. Positive reinforcement is useful because it can