The Pros And Cons Of Operant Conditioning

From the time we are born to the time we die, we learn new things every day, everyone knows that if you learn something new a day then you are doing okay. However, what most people do not know is how we learn and how our minds become disciplined while we are learning. There are two ways that we, as humans, learn new things. One is called classical conditioning. Classical Conditioning is a process where one object is connected with another object that generates a certain response. The second way is call operant conditioning, which is more commonly used. Operant conditioning uses rewards and punishments for our actions. Both ways have been studied by psychologist by research and experiments.
Like most of us, our inspiration came from our dogs

Operant conditioning is something that is learned as a response by being rewarded and by having consequences. Operant conditioning was first created by Edward L. Thorndike (Bernstein, 2016). Thorndike studied how people and animals have the ability to solve problems, behavior, and intelligence. Thorndike would place a cat in a maze and watch it learn how to get out. It was a slow process but the cat eventually learned and continued to do the same thing to exit the maze, which psychologist now call law of effect. A few decades later another man by the name of B. F. Skinner extended Thorndike’s ideas. Skinner tested his ideas and thoughts on rats. Much like Thorndike’s cat, Skinner would put his rats in a box and watch as the rats tried to solve how to get to a prize at the end. As Thorndike used a maze, Skinner’s rats had to pull a lever to be able to reach the treat. Together these two psychologists explained how we learn with operant conditioning and through experiences. An example of operant conditioning would be what we all have heard from either our parents or grandparents, “If your do not eat all of your food then you do not get any dessert”. While we were young we hated this rule and thought that maybe our parents would forget about this rule later that night and we would get a dessert anyways. It took a couple of times for us to learn that, unfortunately was not the case. This is operant conditioning

Both have a great meaning in what it takes to learn new things and to learn from past mistakes. Pavlov, Thorndike, and Skinner have proven their theories about learning through research and experiments on animals. To reinstate, classical conditioning is two objects being connected together getting the same response over time when the response is only natural for the first object. Operant conditioning a behavior or action learned by receiving rewards and punishment for their achievements and