LESSON 2 OPERANT CONDITIONING QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT

LESSON 2: OPERANT CONDITIONING

QUESTIONS TO THINK ABOUT: - Why does a child who has harmed their hand on an open flame know not to put their hand back into the flame? - Where did the old-fashioned spanking of children come from? What is its psychological advantages/disadvantages?

REINFORCEMENT Operant Conditioning: Learning in which a certain action is reinforces or punished, resulting in corresponding increases or decreases in occurrence. Positive and Negative Reinforcement: Stimulus or event that follows a response and increases the likelihood that the response will be repeated.

REINFORCEMENT (CONTINUED) Positive Reinforcer: Giving a dog a treat If the reinforcer is later withheld extinction will occur.

B. F. SKINNER The psychologist most closely associated with operant conditioning. Believed that most behavior is influenced by a person’s history of rewards and punishments.

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY REINFORCERS Primary Reinforcer Satisfied natural needs (thirsty, hungry, need sleep) Stimulus that is naturally rewarding, such as food or water. Secondary Reinforce Stimulus such as money that becomes rewarding through its link with a primary reinforcer. Grades, Candy, Money

PRIMARY AND SECONDARY REINFORCERS (CONTINUED) Wolfe’s 1936 Chimpanzee’s. Taught Chimpanzee’s to value Poker Chips. Prior the chips meant little to nothing to the Chimpanzees. They were not edible or fun to play with. Chimp-O-Mat placed within the enclosure. Chimps would pull down and receive the poker chips. Then take the poker chips into a slot machine, insert the chip, and then they would receive food. Soon, the chimpanzees would work for the poker chips, save them, and sometimes to try and steal them from one another.

SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT Continuous Schedule- reinforced every time. Partial Schedule- reinforced intermittently. Fixed-Ration Schedule- reinforcement depends upon a specified quantity of responses. i. e. only reinforced on the fourth time. Variable-Ratio Schedule- There is no fixed or set number of responses needed for a reinforcement. Fixed-Interval Schedule- The first correct response after a specified amount of time is reinforced. Variable-Interval Schedule- The time at which the reinforcement is given changes.

SHAPING AND CHAINING Shaping The technique in which the desired behavior is “modeled” by first rewarding any act similar to that behavior and then requiring ever-closer approximations to the desired behavior before giving the reward. Combining Responses: Chaining Response Chain: Learned reactions that follow one another in sequence, each reaction producing the signal for the next. i. e. Learning how to swim.

AVERSIVE CONTROL Negative Reinforcement Increasing the strength of a given response by removing or preventing a painful stimulus when the response occurs. Escape Conditioning: Training of an organism to remove or terminate an unpleasant stimulus. Avoidance Conditioning: Training of an organism to respond so as to prevent the occurrence of an unpleasant stimulus

AVERSIVE CONTROL Punishment Behavior is disciplined, when disciplined the bad behavior decreases or is not repeated. i. e. Reprimand a child for sneaking a cookie Disadvantages of Punishment Unwanted side effects: rage, aggression, and fear. People learn to avoid the person delivering the aversive consequences Punishment alone does not teach appropriate and acceptable behavior.