Behaviorism And Operant Conditioning

In today’s society, learning takes place everyday. Think back to your childhood and how you learned certain behaviors that you have today. Believe it or not, this can be related to one of the major schools of thought in psychology. A behaviorist studies behaviors that are observable. A peer reviewed article states that behavior is a function of experience according to Johnson, Genevieve Marie (2012.). Environmental associations and consequences shape the way we learn. Behaviorist also look to find more objective and measurable reasoning. Since behaviors could be learned, this brought about the idea of being able to train animals and people into performing task. The idea is that behaviors can be picked up through conditioning. This happens through

Skinner researched this theory and based his work of of Thorndike’s law of effect. Operant conditioning is when behavior is controlled by the consequence. A peer reviewed article describes operant learning as behaviors reinforced in response to similar situations in the past according to Neiman, T., & Loewenstein, Y. (2014). Similar situations is used because the “same” situation will never happen exactly twice. Within operant conditioning is two key concepts: positive and negative reinforcements. Both positive and negative reinforcements can affect the behaviors in a person. My example comes from when I was little, if I did a chore for my mom, I would be able to have dessert after dinner. That is an example of positive reinforcement. There is also positive and negative punishment that can affect behavior. An example of negative punishment is if I received a poor grade, my mom would take away television time in hopes to stop me from receiving poor grades again. So operant conditioning is used to control behavior outcomes. Both positive and negative actions shape these

We must understand what influenced Skinner to research on operant conditioning. Thorndike’s law of effect focused on the learning by the consequences of the behavior used. Law of effect is defined as any behavior that is followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated, and any behavior followed by un-pleasant consequences is likely to be stopped according to Thorndike, E. L. (1898). There is also the law of exercise that states the more an act is used in a situation, the more strongly the act becomes associated with the situation. The law of effect is the what, and the law of exercise can be looked as how often? The learning Thorndike saw take place and what he called it is trial and error. Learning was based on repetition of responses that lead to a desirable consequence. Skinner based his ideas on Thorndike, and this is how operant conditioning came