Operant Conditioning Expert, Skinner ( 1938 )

Each person is a social being and is aware of the environment that they live in. People learn from their experiences as well as from observing others. When children learn about their environment first hand or by observing another, negative and positive behaviors are reinforcement. If a child does a behavior and receives a reward for that behavior, the rewarded behavior is reinforced. Similarly, when someone witnesses negative consequences based on their behavior, they tend to modify that behavior (Schmied & Tully, 2009, p. 9).

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

Albert Bandura’s Social Learning Theory describes the process through which people acquire new info, forms of behavior, or attitudes from others firsthand or vicariously. The likelihood of a behavior presenting itself will rely on the amount of reinforcement it receives and the value that the individual associates to it. While some behavior may be rewarded, others may produce unfavorable responses. An individual will learn from the consequences of these actions and when a similar situation arises, they will alter their behavior according to what was most successful in the past.

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.

Is a learning that occurs as a function of seeing, retaining, and in the case of imitation learning, replicating novel behavior executed by other people. It allows learning without any direct change to behavior; because of this, it has been used as an argument against strict behavior. Observational learning can also produce new behaviors, and either increase or decrease the frequency with which a previously learned behavior is demonstrated. In order for observational learning to occur, the observer must pay attention to an action, remember the observed behavior, also be able to replicate the behavior, and motivated to produce the behavior. For example, seeing a professional soccer player play soccer may motivate an observer to play soccer or other

In this paper there will be an examination of the Operant Conditioning theory. It will describe the theory, and compare and contrast the positive and negative reinforcement. It will determine which form of reinforcement is the most effective, and will give an explanation of the reasoning behind that choice. It will also give a scenario in which operant conditioning is applied and how it shapes behavior. It will show a schedule that could be used in the reinforcement of the selected behavior in the scenario.

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

Skinner (1948) was also influenced by Thorndike’s (1898) operant conditioning of cats and went on to use similar techniques to study conditioning in rats. Skinner studied how behaviour that is rewarded will be repeated, unlike behaviour that has a negative consequence. Skinner (1948) placed hungry rats in a ‘skinner box’ with a lever, when the lever was pressed, food was released and the rats soon learned that when they pressed the lever they would be rewarded. Skinner (1948) then placed rats in another box and administered them with an electric current. If the rats pressed the lever in this box it would stop the discomfort of the current. After repeating the rats quickly learnt to press the lever. Skinner (1948) argued that all human behaviour can be learned through operant conditioning (McLeod 2015).

Negative reinforcement is a fundamental principle of learning in applied behavior analysis (Cooper, Heron, & Heward, 2007).

Children imitate behavior because they believe that what they are doing will be rewarded, and because of this they will continue to commit these acts. Because children desire to be approved they will do what it takes in order to receive the approval of their family and peers. Reinforcement can be both positive and negative, but most importantly the fact of the matter is that reinforcement can lead to the change of a person’s behavior if the reinforcement does not match the person’s needs (McLeod,

B.F. Skinner modified Thorndike’s law of effect principle into what Skinner (1938) called the term, operant conditioning, in which through the application of reinforcement, a behavior changes for a more desire response. Skinner (1948) observed operant conditioning through his experiment

Social learning theory includes six key concepts; drive-cue-response-reward, modeling, identification, vicarious learning, self-efficiency, and self-reinforcement. Drives are central to behavior and our basic motivation stems from our need to reduce either innate or learned drives. A cue is an environmental stimulus that serves as a signal when a response is rewarded or not rewarded. The connection between cues and responses are strengthened when the response is rewarded either by drive reduction or through socially acquired rewards (Canda, Chatterjee, and Robbins, 2012). Self-efficiency is an individual’s subjective “conceptions of personal efficiency” is an important factor in regulating behavior. Self-reinforcement is when standards are

According to Gewirtz and Peláez-Nogueras (1992), “B. F. Skinner contributed a great deal to advancing an understanding of basic psychological processes and to the applications of science-based interventions to problems of individual and social importance.” He contributed to “human and nonhuman behavior, including human behavioral development, and to various segments of the life span, including human infancy” (p. 1411). One of Skinner's greatest scientific discoveries was “single reinforcement” which became sufficient for “operant conditioning, the role of extinction in the discovery of intermittent schedules, the development of the method of shaping by successive approximation, and Skinner's break with and rejection of stimulus-response

The behavioural perspective of motivation concerning Skinner 's operant conditioning theory argues that the consequences of a behaviour may change the probability of the behaviour reoccurring; in that any behaviour praised is likely to be repeated (Skinner, 1965). A study conducted by Thomson and Pennacchia (2015) saw behaviourist psychological approaches dominate in the

Skinner believed that classical conditioning was limited to behaviors that are reflexively elicited. An operant describes behaviors that are "operate upon the environment to generate consequences." Reinforcement follows an operant and increases the likelihood of the operant being repeated.