Behaviorism: The Dangers Of Operant Conditioning And Operant Conditioning

For example, the reinforcement of desired behaviors and ignoring or punishing undesired

In chapter 7, I found the concept of punishment to be most intriguing. Punishment is a part of operant conditioning which was theorized by B.F. Skinner. Punishment is often confused with negative reinforcement. However, the main difference between the two is: while the goal of reinforcement is to increase the likelihood of a behavior, the primary goal of punishment is to reduce the chances of the behavior it follows. In 1938, Skinner concluded that punishment produces only temporary suppression of behavior but later research found that effects may be permanent.

Skinners experiment was based on operant conditioning, using the concept of discrimination learning, he carried out experiments on animals with the idea that their behaviour is predetermined by their environment and using a well controlled environment would allow him to in turn control their behaviours using a range of triggers. Using reinforcement and expectancy, the animal associates acting out certain behaviours with rewards. (Toates, F., 2010, pp. 165-167) After performing a number of experiments on rats using mazes, he subsequently designed the Skinner box.

1) What symptoms did Harry have, even in infancy, that would suggest he had problems? The symptoms Harry illustrated was self-abuse. However Some of the self-abusive behaviors that Harry revealed was skin picking until he bled, hitting himself, biting, and smashing his face and nose with his fist or his knees. In Harrys infancy stage his mother had to place mailing tubes over his arms to prevent him from hitting his face with his fist. 2) What ethical concerns about the treatment of Harry might have been troubling to the IRB of the hospital in which he was being treated?

Operant conditioning is a condition in which the desired behavior or increasingly closer to the approximations to it are followed by a rewarding or reinforcing stimulus. “The fundamental principle of operant conditioning is that behavior is determined by its consequences. Behavior does not occur as isolated and unrelated events; the consequences that follow the actions of an animal, be they good, bad, or indifferent, will have an effect on the frequency with which those actions are repeated in the future,” (Laule 2). A reinforcement strengthens a response, reinforcement

Through The Psychologist Eye In Lauren Slater’s book, “Opening Skinner’s Box,” we discover in the first three chapters the mysteries behind a few psychological experiments and the discoveries that three profound psychologists have made. Each chapter is about a different psychologist, the first is B.F. Skinner; a behaviorist who designed a process of learning in which behavior is controlled, he called this operant conditioning. Lauren Slater wanted people to know about his experiment, she read his books, talked to friends and family members to unearth the features behind this man. She found that he was a loving father, who could train animals to do unordinary things, like play the piano for an example, through the processes of operant conditioning,

In contrast with Classical Conditioning, Skinner introduced Operant Conditioning to conduct research on shaping one’s own behaviors through two kinds of consequences: reinforcement and punishment. Reinforcement is the consequences that increase the chance that the behavior will occur again in the future. Two kinds of reinforcements he identified were positive reinforcement (stimulus that favors the outcome, such as praise) and negative reinforcement (the removal of unpleasant stimulus to increase recurring behavior). Punishment also plays an important role with Operant Conditioning. Punishment is the consequences that decrease the chance that the behavior will occur again.

During our developmental stages, we experience different learning processes that result in a range of behaviors. Two of the well known associative learning processes that are continuously studied are Operant Conditioning and Classical Conditioning. In our everyday activities we are constantly experiencing one, if not both learning theories. These theories have played an important role in our medical advancements such as in research and improvement in medicine. Burrhus Fredric Skinner developed operant condition which is process of “learning from the consequences of our behavior through positive or negative reinforcements” (Ayers, 2011, p. 379).

Nevertheless, Skinner points out that children learn nothing from the punishment. Instead, they may start to work out how to avoid it (Nolan & Raban, 2015). Another concept is classical conditioning (classical behaviorism) that emphasizes on the relation between stimuli and response. This concept embodies in a famous experiment, in which the food is presented to the dog when the bell rings, and the bell becomes a conditioned stimulus for the dog (Nolan & Raban, 2015). Likewise, if children receive toys in the condition that they behave well, then they will probably repeat this behavior to get the toys.

Behavior therapy was studied by Ivan Pavlov and his famous dog study in which dogs were conditioned to salivate upon hearing a bell. It was later continued to be studied by John Watson who has the famous “Little Albert” study in which an 11-month old infant was conditioned to be scared of fuzzy white things because a rat was paired with a loud noise. The conclusion of the two conditioning experiences was that, behaviors followed by satisfying experiences tend to increase in frequency and behaviors followed by aversive experiences tend to decrease in frequency” (Thoma, 2015). Watson’s assistant Mary Jones, used this principle to clinical applications reasoning that, “if conditioning could be used to induce a phobia, perhaps it could be used to undo a phobia as well” (Thoma, 2015). Thus, behavior therapy was developed and began being used for

Chapter three deals with procedures based in the principles of “respondent conditioning”, also known as Classical or Pavlovian conditioning. Classical conditioning is different than “operant conditioning”, in which a behavior is modified through its consequences, known as a reinforcer or punisher. These behaviors are called operant behaviors or voluntary. However, this chapter focuses on “respondent behavior”.

A positive punishment would be the coach making me do shuttle runs to improve my stamina when trying to take the ball from an opponent after I had lost it or when the player has lost the ball I can assist in getting the ball back with stamina. The negative punishment would be would be if we as a team lose a match the coach makes us run endless laps and it would effectively stop us from losing any more matches. To summarize reinforcement elicits a positive response and a punishment elicits a negative

Functionalism and Behaviorism Name: Institutional Affiliation: Functionalism And Behaviorism Introduction Psychology is the study of mind and behavior. Since people have varied perceptions and thoughts with regards to this definition, scholars in the past and present have come up with various classical theories related to psychology, all of which are geared to helping people to better understand the different perspectives of psychology and how it impacts the daily lives of humans (Bjorklund & Pellegrini, 2002). In this paper, I will aim to compare and contrast two major schools of psychology that is functionalism and behaviorism and their impacts in the field of psychology.

INTRODUCTION Have you ever thought on how people explain about behaviour? How do we know when learning process has occurred? Learning is permanent change that happened in the way of your behaviour acts, arises from experience one’s had gone through. This kind of learning and experience are beneficial for us to adapt with new environment or surrounding (Surbhi, 2018). The most simple form of learning is conditioning which is divided into two categories which are operant conditioning and classical conditioning.

Eventually, the previously neutral stimulus comes to evoke the response without the presence of the naturally occurring stimulus. The two elements are then known as the conditioned stimulus and the conditioned response. 2. Operant conditioning Operant conditioning (sometimes referred to as instrumental 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