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Operant conditioning apa essay
Operant conditioning principles
Operant conditioning principles
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Like most normal people, I do not particularly enjoy working out. What I do enjoy, however, is binge watching television shows on Netflix. Unfortunately, laying in my bed watching hours of Shameless (the current TV show I am obsessed with) does not burn calories or tone my body. Therefore, my desired behavior is to workout daily for 45 minutes. To help achieve that behavior, I can utilize positive reinforcement, a form of operant conditioning. Positive reinforcement increases the chances of me working out by adding a pleasant stimulus, which is allowing myself to watch an episode of Shameless after I am done with my workout. Positive reinforcement is more likely to help me form a workout schedule because I reward myself after I finish with something pleasant and …show more content…
I know that if I just get through that 45 minutes I can happily leave the gym and return to my Netflix addiction. This is an example of a continuous learning schedule. This means that the reinforcement (an episode of Shameless) comes after every instance of the behavior (45 minutes at the gym daily). Every single day when I leave the gym, I know that right when I get home, I get to pull out my laptop and watch an episode of Shameless. It is good to use this schedule especially when learning a new behavior because the more frequent the reinforcement, the more frequent the behavior. Another aspect I employ when using positive reinforcement is called the Premack Principle. The principle states that a more frequent behavior can reinforce a less frequent behavior. In my case, the more frequent behavior would be watching Netflix, which I have been doing for years. The less frequent behavior would be working out for 45 minutes daily, which I have honestly never done before. The reward for completing the behavior I prefer less is the behavior I am interested in the
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 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.
Positive reinforcement works by presenting something positive to the person after a desired behavior is exhibited, making the behavior more likely to happen in the future (McAdams, 2009). An example of this could be when a child helps their mother with the dishes and the mothers rewards the child with ice cream. Negative reinforcement, is when a behavior is strengthened by stopping, removing or avoiding a negative outcome or aversive stimulus (McAdams, 2009). An example of this could be when the light goes green at a traffic light, the car in front of a person does not move. The person hates when this happens and from experience knows that honking the car’s horn gets cars that are in front of them to go
Alternately, a reinforcement schedule is a pattern of provided reinforcement to an organism following a specified amount of time between receiving reinforcement. For example, a mouse with a fixed ratio schedule will receive a piece of cheese for every time the mouse performs a trick. Similarly, the roommate will be rewarded with a single choice of an unhealthy meal once a week for every successful week he only eats healthy food. The reward for the roommate is the reinforcement; the once a week opportunity to receive the reward is the pattern, as well as the specified amount of time between receiving reinforcement; and lastly the target behavior is the response. However, when comparing and contrasting the roommate and mouse, it is important to understand the roommate’s pattern of reinforcement is considered a fixed interval schedule, and the mouse’s is a fixed ratio schedule. This is because there 's a finite amount of time between when the roommate can receive the reward, whereas the mouse can perform as many responses in order to receive an equal amount of
With negative reinforcement, when the students act politely, I would basically take something away from them that they had a negative attitude towards in the first place. If there is a student in the class who has a particularly bad habit of talking back to me and making up his own rules, then by using negative reinforcement, my goal would be to encourage him to behave more politely, like by not talking back. So, if this student displays polite behavior such as following my rules instead of his own on three separate occasions, then he will not have to complete one homework assignment. I believe that this method could be applied to other situations as well, like telling the students that they do not have to complete a homework assignment if they answer questions calmly and by raising their hands on three separate occasions, as mentioned before. When using negative reinforcement, the students will want to have less of something they see as negative, like homework, so they should behave more
Out of positive reinforcement and punishment only the reinforcement was successful for my behaviour modification. I believe this was the case for a number of reasons but dominantly because the positive punishment had a lack of severity. The reason I came to this conclusion was because I realized in the case of positive reinforcement if I committed the operant response at least once my entire day of hard work would be ruined. When I made the switch to positive punishment I realized in the eventuality I performed the operant response I could just do the 50 push ups and be done with it. Upon comparison of my success and failure I reflected and realized if the punishment was more severe than 50 push ups I would not do it for actual fear and reluctance of doing the positive punishment. For example if the punishment was a 1000 push ups each repeated operant response I would most likely not bite my nails. I did enjoy the modified behaviour as my nails seemed fuller and less scarred but it was not long of an experiment enough so refraining from biting my nails was still a conscious action and took a lot of effort.
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
In order to develop a fixed negative reinforcement schedule, I divided my cigarettes into groups allowing myself only three cigarettes a day. I placed my daily ration of cigarettes into envelopes and labeled them for each day of the week. I smoked one cigarette after lunch, one after dinner, and one later at night. I would reward myself with a cigarette after attending classes and eating lunch. I would then reward myself with another cigarette after homework and dinner. Through the course of my week, I violated my regimen only twice. On Wednesday and Friday, I “bummed’ a cigarette from one of my friends. After feeling guilty about violating my regimen, I repented for hours, and swore to myself that I was going to beat my addiction. Primary negative reinforcers also helped me stick with the plan such as improved stamina during physical exercise and more money in my pocket.
Positive reinforcement is a method of presenting to children the appropriate behavior from the inappropriate behaviors. This is done by pointing out the correct behavior and giving some form of encouraging reward. The idea is that all behaviors
To increase the efficacy of my behavioral plan I came up with three specific goals to help me keep up with my intentions. First, I designated specific times on Tuesday, Thursd...
First of all, I was highly interested in the concept and various factors that together make up positive reinforcement. I had a premise that I could do some experimental work on the three children for whom I baby-sit during the week after school. They leave school full of energy and it is my job to get them to complete a series of tasks before the end of the evening. I imagined that some positive reinforcement might get them on their way to handling their responsibilities in a timelier manner. My first step was to come up with a specific instrumental response that would produce reinforcement. This took no time at all because by far the most painfully difficult thing for me to do is get the children to sit down and do their homework. I then spoke specifically to each child and asked them what they would rather choose as an after school activity. They named video games, television, and going to play with other neighborhood children. I had expected these types of answers from the children and made them into the positive reinforcers that would be contingent on the children’s performance of the instrumental response; namely completing their homework. I explained to the children that if they behaved and finished their homework, then directly following they could spend an hour doing an activity of their choice.
week to keep myself healthy. I think working out actually causes plenty of positive effects in
1. Bloomquist, C. D., Gyurcsik, N. C., Brawley, L. R., Spink, K. S., & Bray, S. R. (2008). The Road to Exercise Is Filled With Good Intentions: Why Don't My Proximal Exercise Intentions Match My Actions?. Journal Of Applied Biobehavioral Research, 13(2), 102-118. doi:10.1111/j.1751-9861.2008.00030.x
Reinforcement is a motivation which depends upon a performance and increases the chance of a performance being frequent. Positive reinforcement can increase the chance of not only necessary behavior but also unwanted behavior. For example, if a student complaints in order to get attention and is successful in getting it, the attention helps as positive reinforcement which increases the possibility that the student will remain to complain. Positive reinforcement is one of the important ideas in behavior inquiry and it is something like rewards, or things usually work to get (Fahimafridi, 2016).
My measurable, specific and realistic goal for this quarter is to exercise at least 10 hours a week by weightlifting, running, and swimming for the next 10 weeks. To be able to do that, I would need to have positive reinforcement to keep me going, help give me that little push that I need every day. One positive reinforcement that I absolutely love to use is food. After a hard day of working out, I buy myself something nice to eat, like good pizza or burritos. This way I become more likely to work out knowing that I will get something doo to eat after. I like to believe that food is my number 1 enforcer. It will always be there when I need it, it satisfies me tremendously, and overall it is just ridiculously reinforcing. As a result I try to