Operant Learning Punishment

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

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.

Punishment has occurred when a response is followed immediately by a stimulus change to decrease the future frequency of the behavior. Positive punishment aids in the decrease in the problem behavior. Reprimand is one of the most common forms of positive punishments. A firm "No" or "Stop" delivered immediately on the occurrence of an undesirable behavior will significantly reduce the chance of the behavior being repeated in the future.

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

Mr. Higginbotham uses the idea of operant conditioning and continuous reinforcement throughout his classroom. Operant conditioning is the behavior in which voluntary behavior are strengthened or weakened by consequences, while continuous reinforcement deals with giving a reinforcer after every response. These reinforcers can be either positive or negative, strengthening or weakening the behavior that occurred. Positive reinforcements are there to increase the opportunity of a specific behavior reoccurring and negative reinforcement is strengthening behavior that results in a negative action. (Woolfolk, 2014, pgs. 277-278). An example in Mr. Higginbotham’s class of positive reinforcement would be during the point in time when he decides to announce that his progress checks can each be earned towards bonus points on their project and once ten complete progress checks have occurred the children can also receive a homework pass. Another positive reinforcement is the three highest scoring students will receive twenty-five dollars to their class trip fund for their senior year. A negative reinforcement is demonstrated in Mr. Higginbotham’s class when Susan shows disrespectful behavior and earns four detentions. These four detentions equal a day of indoor, in-school suspension. So even when students do not want to do their homework the progress report check will help the students work towards that one homework pass. Both positive and negative reinforcement as continuous

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.

Positive punishment is involves presenting an aversive stimulus after a behavior as occured. Where aversive is causing avoidance of a thing, situation, or behavior by using an unpleasant or punishing stimulus, as in techniques of behavior modification. For example, during learning process in the class, Ishaan did not pay attention of what his teacher told in front of the class. Besides, he was unconsciously focused on a bird feeding it’s children outside the window. Then, Ishaan was asked by the teacher to go in front of class and get the punishment as a reminder for him for not repeat the same mistake again. This situation show that when response leads to the arrival of something aversive, and this response tends to be

Behaviorism provides insight into how I was learning in that moment. Operant conditioning, or the rewarding of part of a desired behavior, was present (Standridge, 2002). Positive punishment is one of the four quadrants associated with operant conditioning where something is added to decrease an undesired behavior (Standridge). The vice principal was going to charge me with insubordination to make sure I understood the severity of being disrespectful to authority. This is commonly used in education settings to reduce unfavorable behaviors in students.

Operant conditioning focuses on a system of reinforcement and punishers where actions will have a consequence (Skinner, 2016). In operant conditioning, behaviour that is reinforced will be strengthened while behaviour that is not reinforced will weaken with time (Skinner, 2016). There are three types of operants. The neutral operants that will neither increase nor decrease the chances of repeating a behaviour (Skinner, 2016). The reinforcers will increase the chances of repeating a behaviour (Skinner, 2016). The punishers will decrease the chances of repeating a behaviour (Skinner, 2016). Positive reinforcement strengthens a behaviour as an individual gains rewards through it (Skinner, 2016). Negative reinforcement strengthens the behaviour by removing an unpleasant consequence

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.

Operant conditioning is a type of learning which occurs through either receiving reinforcement or punishment for a behavior. This type of learning creates an association between a behavior and consequence for that behavior. The four types of operant conditioning are positive reinforcement, positive punishment, negative reinforcement, and negative punishment. If operant conditioning was used properly it could be used to solve a variety of social and resource dilemmas; especially in the case of the cattle ranchers and overgrazing.

     An alternative to punishment is trying to change the behavior of others. First, stop reinforcing the problem behavior by identifying the reinforcer and eliminating it. When it is not possible to eliminate the reinforcement, remove the opportunity to obtain positive reinforcement. An example of this would be time-out for a child because he or she is no longer

Operant conditioning, is defined as an organism developing a link between its behaviors and consequences that follow those behaviors. The goal of operant conditioning is to develop a desired behavior in response to a given stimulus. When teaching a dog to roll over, the trainer wants the dog to rollover in response to his command. In this way the dog rolling onto its back is the