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conclution of christian art
george orwell's 1984 essay
literary analysis of 1984 by george orwell
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In the book, 1984, by George Orwell, the author creates a dark narrative, set in the future, about a dystopian society based on fear through conditioning and reinforcement. Ultimately, this results in a world of hate and dictatorship. Big Brother, being the leader, uses fear as a tactic to keep his society in its rural state and his people loyal to its rules. This technique, although taken to its extreme in the novel, is not a new idea. In fact, it dates all the way back to the bible in which damnation is used as punishment in order to promote faithfulness to God. The use of operant conditioning is a key concept in this book, as well as being utilized in the teachings of God within verses and Biblical stories.
1984 best reflects the behavioral studies of B.F. Skinner for operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is “the behavior is followed by a consequence, and the nature of the consequence modifies the organism’s tendency to repeat the behavior in the future.” Skinner created an operant chamber, better known as the Skinner Box, which observed how rats responded to this conditioning and how, in relation, it could be applied to humans and not just animals. Skinner discovered that in giving rewards to the rat for pushing a lever on the other side of the box, the rat was encouraged to do it more for the same response. However, when Skinner put an electric shock on the rat when it had pushed down on the lever, he saw that the rat was discouraged to do it again in order to avoid the punishment of being shocked. This concept is what Skinner called “reinforcement”. Reinforcement is considered “any event that strengthens or increases the frequency of a preceding response.” Nevertheless, there are two types of reinforcement: positive an...
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... the utopian society, which the Bible exemplifies the religious lifestyle to be, utilizes similar operant conditioning, and the idea that “Big Brother” is always watching.
Works Cited
Boeree, C. George. "B. F. Skinner." My Webspace Files. 1998. Web. 06 Mar. 2011. .
"Examples of God Personally Killing People - RationalWiki." RationalWiki. Web. 01 Mar. 2011. .
“Jonah (and the Whale) - Story of Old Testament Minor Prophet Who Went to Nineveh." Easy English Bible - with Studies and Commentaries. Web. 01 Mar. 2011. http://www.easyenglish.info/bible-outline/jonah-summary.htm
Myers, David G. "Learning." Psychology. 8th ed. New York: Worth, 2007. 326-29. Print.
NIV. Print
Orwell, George. 1984. San Diego: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1984. Print
“Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior” (Cherry). Positive reinforcement which is praising a person for doing something good verses negative reinforcement which is an unpleasant remark a punishment. B.F. Skinner did an experiment on a rat, the rat was taught to push two buttons, one to receive food and the other was a light electric shock. The rat tried both buttons and realized which button was good and which one was bad. This experiment goes to show that upon the rewards and punishment system one can learn their rights from their wrongs through a series of lessons. Kincaid and Hemingway both use operant conditioning to show human behavior under stimulus control.
B.F Skinner developed operant conditioning. It’s the theory that one’s behavior is influenced by the actions that follow afterward. If the actions that follow afterward are consequences, then the behavior according to the theory will fade away. If the actions afterward is a positive action like a reward the behavior will continue on.
He took an environmental approach to the study. His method was the use of the operant conditioning box also known as Skinner box helped understand different behaviors that occurred during different environments. He stimulated a system of rewards and punishments and reinforcements. When the pigeon or rat received a reward, the animal performed the behavior more often and when it received a punishment, it performed the behavior less. He first tested positive reinforcement which he made rats press a lever for food. It encouraged the rat to perform more of the behavior. He also used negative reinforcement which added an uncomfortable stimulus. He placed an electric current in the box. The rats learn to avoid it. They even learned to stop when he turned on the light indicating the circuit will soon turn on. This behavior was known as Avoidance or Escape Learning. Both positive and negative reinforcements encourage good behavior. He also used punishment. Unlike the reinforcements, punishments were used to discourage unwanted behaviors rather than promote good behavior. It was performed by adding an unfavorable stimuli or removing the rewarding stimuli. When the rat was punished, its unwanted behavior decreased. When Skinner, removed the punishment, the bad behavior returned. He placed a hungry rat. The rat would pull the lever for food, but no food would come out. The rat later stopped pulling it learning it had no purpose. He studied that the more the rat pulled the lever, the higher the probability that the rat will quit pulling it; he developed an equation known as response and extinction rate. Response rate, the domain, is that rate of how hard a person performed an action and extinction rate, the range, is the rate that the person performed the action less and less. As the response rate increase, so this extinction rate. He used a token economy, a type of positive reinforcement, which a person was given a “token” which can be
At Harvard, B.F. Skinner looked for a more objective and restrained way to study behavior. Most of his theories were based on self-observation, which influenced him to become a enthusiast for behaviorism. Much of his “self-observed” theories stemmed from Thorndike’s Puzzle Box, a direct antecedent to Skinner’s Box. He developed an “operant conditioning apparatus” to do this, which is also known as the Skinner box. The Skinner box also had a device that recorded each response provided by the animal as well as the unique schedule of reinforcement that the animal was assigned. The design of Skinner boxes can vary ...
Skinner argues that ‘learning is accelerated by reinforcement: a stimulus that increases the probability of a response’ called ‘operant conditioning’ and it is not reliant on what triggered the response but...
In the 1950's, psychologist B.F Skinner began researching the theory of operant conditioning (Boeree, 1998). This theory, also known as instrumental learning, is learning based on the consequences of responding (Coon & Mitterer, 2011, p. 259). The operant conditioning law of effect is the basic principle that "responses that lead to desirable effects are repeated while those that produce undesirable results are not" (Coon & Mitterer, 2011, p. 259). This principle directly influenced Skinner and his research. Perhaps his most well known experiment, Skinner placed a rat in what became known as the "Skinner box." In the box, there was a bar that when pushed would release pellets of food. The story goes that Skinner was running low on food during an experiment when he discovered the schedules of partial reinforcement. In order to save pellets, Skinner cut back on the amount and frequency that he fed the rats. Instead of the rats' operant behavior decreasing, it remained stable even with the change in feeding schedule (Boeree, 1998). This "accident" led Skinner to his discovery of the four schedules of partial reinforcement: fixed ratio (FR), variable ratio (VR), fixed interval (FI), and variable interval (VI). Skinner discovered that giving partial reinforcement with these schedules was actually more effective than giving continuous reinforcement. It is because of this discovery that psychologists are able to better predict and control behavior and learning. Today, these findings are especially helpful in understanding exercise.
Skinners studies included the study of pigeons that helped develop the idea of operant conditioning and shaping of behavior. His study entailed making goals for pigeons, if the goal for the pigeon is to turn to the left, a reward is given for any movement to the left, the rewards are supposed to encourage the left turn. Skinner believed complicated tasks could be broken down in this way and taught until mastered. The main belief of Skinner is everything we do is because of punishment and reward (B.F. Skinner).
Behavior modification is based on the principles of operant conditioning, which were developed by American behaviorist B.F. Skinner. In his research, he put a rat in a cage later known as the Skinner Box, in which the rat could receive a food pellet by pressing on a bar. The food reward acted as a reinforcement by strengthening the rat's bar-pressing behavior. Skinner studied how the rat's behavior changed in response to differing patterns of reinforcement. By studying the way the rats operated on their environment, Skinner formulated the concept of operant conditioning, through which behavior could be shaped by reinforcement or lack of it. Skinner considered his discovery applicable to a wide range of both human and animal behaviors(“Behavior,” 2001).
Skinner designed an experiment to test operant conditioning, known as a ‘Skinner box’ (Gross 2005). In the box, animals, such as rats, would be conditioned into certain behaviour. For example, by pressing a lever to receive food (Gross 2005).
This essay will first explore what classical conditioning is by using Ivan Pavlov’s famous experiment with dogs to explain how it works. It will then go on to describe how classical conditioning led to more research by Edward L. Thorndike and B.F. Skinner in the study of instrumental behaviour (Gleitman et al. 2011). It will also mention briefly what similarities can be found between operant and classical conditioning before explaining in detail what operant conditioning is (Skinner’s experiment with the operant
B. F. Skinner concluded that people could mentally have control over all of their responses. He believed that a reinforcement and/or consequence given after a behavior would influence future behavior (Roblyer,2003, p.57). In other words, reinforcements and/or punishments can shape human behavior. For example, if a child eats all of his vegetables at dinner and his parent’s reward him with positive words and a cookie, then the child will probably eat his vegetables at the next dinner.
What is Skinner’s Operant Conditioning? Skinner was the first to discuss operant conditioning. McLead (2007) explained that an operant condition means that using reinforcements given after a desired response could change behavior. There were three types of responses that can follow the behavior. Neutral operants, reinforces, and punishers were the three types of responses. According to McLead (2007), Skinner invented a box with levers and lights to test his theory. He placed a hungry rat inside where the rat learned to press the levels for different responses. One level would give it a piece of food and the rat would not receive food when the light was off. This box demonstrated the shaping of behaviors through operant conditioning.
In my reaction paper I will discuss B.F. Skinners theory operant conditioning and the ways he tested it out on animals, how it relates to humans, and how I can relate operant conditioning to my own personal life.
B.F. Skinner is a major contributor to the Behavioral Theory of personality, a theory that states that our learning is shaped by positive and negative reinforcement, punishment, modeling, and observation. An individual acts in a certain way, a.k.a. gives a response, and then something happens after the response. In order for an action to be repeated in the future, what happens after the response either encourages the response by offering a reward that brings pleasure or allows an escape from a negative situation. The former is known as positive reinforcement, the latter known as negative reinforcement (Sincero, 2012). A teenager who received money for getting an “A” is being positively reinforced, while an individual who skips a class presentation is being negatively reinforced by escaping from the intense fear and anxiety that would have occurred during the presentation.
“Punishment is one of the most used, but least understood and badly administered, aspects of learning” (Luthans, 1977, pp.300). As mentioned earlier, punishment is anything which weakens behaviour and tends to decrease it in subsequent frequency. Positive punishment is the method of administering negative consequences upon the occurrence of an action whereas Negative punishment involves the termination of positive consequences. In order to work, either case must weaken and decrease the behaviour which preceded the application or withdrawal of the stimuli. Skinner (1953) stipulated that we must defy the urge to label a form of stimuli as “desired” or “undesired” as a whole but rather to identify them by their effect on the observed subject.