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Operant conditioning example essay
Basic Principles of Operant Conditioning
Basic Principles of Operant Conditioning
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Out of the several behaviors that are performed daily, there are some that become bad habits and are hard to break. There are various behavior modification techniques, or treatment approaches based on the principles of operant conditioning, that can be used to eliminate these problems. Operant conditioning is controlling and manipulating one's behavior through reinforcement and punishment to help one understand their behavior, and to try and correct it. Not only can some of these behaviors be frustrating, they can also be unhealthy, and finding an approach to break the habit is needed.
An undesirable behavior that affects many children and adults through out the world is nail-biting. Nail biting, also known as onychophagia, is defined as a nervous affliction or neurosis in which the free edges of the nails are bitten down (Davis 1265). In other words, For one to bite their nails they must put one or more fingers in their mouth and bite on their nail with their teeth. Although this activity may not seem like a problem, there are several complications that can come with the territory...
Joshua Klein was at a cocktail party with his friends when one was complaining about the crows in their yard. Joshua mentioned that they should train them to do something useful, and the friend responded that it was impossible. This is what brought Klein to his idea of making a vending machine for crows. Klein studied crows and found that they adapt a lot to live in our world. He figured he would make something useful and beneficial for both the birds and us. After spending years reading about crows, Klein made his vending machine.
“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.
Operant conditioning is a kind of conditioning, which examines how often a behavior will or occur depending on the effects of the behavior (King, 2016, pg. ). The words positive and negative are used to apply more significance to the words reinforcement or punishment. Positive is adding to the stimulus, while negative is removing from the stimulus (King, 2016). For instance, with positive reinforcement, there is the addition of a factor to increase the number of times that the behavior occurs (King, 2016). An example of positive reinforcement is when a child is given an allowance for completing their household chores. The positive reinforcement is the allowance which helps to increase the behavior of doing chores at home. In contrast with negative
Since the arrival of our twins undesirable behavior has manifested in one of our 11 yr. old. While initially very conscienscious in helping attend to the infants & her ordinary duties, she has become accustomed to playing with them mostly now. This play in itself is great, except they no longer get the changing & feeding expected. Furthermore she uses them as an excuse now to put off doing the minimal domestic maintenance formerly performed. She is generally unresponsive to negative reinforcement options. Past experience shows she responds best to tactile & humanistic behaviorist techniques, backed up by specific instruction from our sacred texts observed in our household.
Some may say nail biting is an addiction, most people do it! Actually nail biting usually happens when stress overweighs someone or they do it subconsciously, or when that overhang nail has just been bothering
The first systematic study regarding operant conditioning was taken place in the 1800’s by the Psychologist, Thorndike. Thorndike formally defined operant conditioning as a type of learning that is controlled by the consequences of an organism’s behavior. However according to lecture, operant conditioning can be simply thought as performing an action in order to receive a reward. Operant conditioning can be useful when trying to deal with procrastination, increase efficacy of teaching, or to improve motivation. Therefore, operant conditioning can be used as a behavioral modification program to devise a more specific weight loss program to increase the roommate’s chances of making it on the football team. The program will include the following
Biting my nails is a great because it relieves stress and helps with boredom. It is unwanted however because it leaves my finger nails in an undesired state.
Classical conditioning and operant conditioning play a huge role with the future use of a drug. First, just like in the theory of Pavlov, classical conditioning with the role of substance and addiction can start to form much similar. For example, if an individual sits in traffic after getting off work every day and pulls out marijuana to smoke in the car, the car will then start to become the conditioned stimulus to the substance, the individual will pair sitting in traffic now as its time for the daily joint. Since the car is now the conditioned stimulus to the individual, the person will now start to experience those cravings every time they are sitting in the car. Most of the time, the individual will experience relapse, since the body is now fully conditioned to
There are many bad habits these days and the most serious one for me is stay up late all the time and not energetic enough in the morning. This behavior is called sleep procrastination. Just as the words from the researchers at Utrecht University, “pre-bed procrastination is the latest diagnosable strain of mismanaged time, stopping us from shutting off when we should and causing us to fritter away valuable snoozing opportunities on unnecessary tasks.” Indeed, such tiny behavior has already spread out the entire campus and wastes energy and time. Therefore, trying to correct this behavior by using psychological ways, I decided to use operant conditioning, the process of associating
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).
Operant conditioning is a system of learning that transpires through punishment and rewards for behaviors (Kalat, 2011). Through this, a connection linking a behavior and a consequence is made. For instance a kid could be told that she will not get recess privileges if she talks in class. This possibility of being punished leads to decrease in disruptive behaviors from her. The major components of operant condition are punishment and reinforcement (Kalat, 2011).
“Behavior theory consists of ideas about how human actions and emotions develop, are sustained, and are extinguished through principles of learning” (Walsh, 2010). Positive and negative reinforcement is used to help manipulate the behaviors of the individual. The theory has been used to help eliminate unwanted behaviors. In addition, behavior theory has been use primarily with children, and persons with developmental disabilities. According to Walsh (2010) behavior theory evolved in the 1960s from a field of philosophy to the field of science. Ivan Pavlov discovered classical conditioning, which plays a major role in behavioral theory. Classical conditioning is the process of learning through ones surroundings, conditioned, and unconditioned stimuli and response. B. F. Skinner discovered operant conditioning the process of learning to influence the future responses to the environment (Clark, 2004). The two concepts has been used throughout the behavior theory to help assist clients with unacceptable behaviors that is occurring. The combination of the two concepts has been a very helpful aspect to the behavior theory. Both concepts offer a different approach or solution to the behavior of the client.
Punishment is a process through which “the consequence of a response decreases the likelihood that the response will recur” (Gray, 2002, pp.115). Further, punishment can be seen as an effort to decrease the response rate to stimuli by either removing a desired stimulus or presenting one which is undesired (Gray, 2002). Recent studies suggest that punishment can be an effective method of behaviour modification. However, as reported in Lerman and Vorndran (2002), there are a number of limitations to punishment as an intervention and subsequent negative side effects. For this reason, certain principles upon which the implementation of a successful punishment is dependent must be adhered to. In accordance to these findings, this essay will contend that whilst there are alternative means to operant conditioning, certain punishment techniques have been proven to be effectual and in some aspects advantageous.
Operant conditioning is the learning of various behaviors, which are occurring from specific environment (Jenkins, 1979). Also, these behaviors are associated with voluntary responses and consequences. Operant conditioning features a behavior and outcome relationship, and simply consists of a punishment or reward system. Learning strengthens if followed by reinforcing or diminishing behavior by punishment through voluntary responses. Reinforcement increases the probability that the preceding action will repeat in the future (Kucker, 2-23-16). Punishment decreases the probability that the preceding action will repeat in the future (Kucker, 2-23-16). Positive reinforcement is the addition of something to change the subject’s behavior, and negative
Operant conditioning can be used to break the bad habit of a smoker by using positive and negative reinforcements. I can alter the behavior of a smoker using operant conditioning by removing the stimulus (the cigarettes) which the individual likes and this should possibly decrease the target behavior. This is known has negative punishment. I can also use negative reinforcement which means that I would take away the stimulus and replace it with something that the individual does not like. Then take the item that the individual does not like and this should increase the target