Operant Conditioning Paper Johnny Williams PSY/390 July 9, 2012 Gary Burk Operant Conditioning Paper Operant conditioning is defined as a method of learning with the intention of rewards and punishments that solely depends on a person’s behavior. Through the process of operant conditioning, a correlation is completed flanked by a behavior and an end result for that behavior. Operant conditioning was first introduced by a behaviorist by the name of B.F.Skinner. As a behaviorist, Skinner understood that inner thoughts and motivations could not be utilized to give reasons for behavior. In its place, he then went further to recommend that, we as humans ought to come across only at the external, observable causes of human behavior.
This is because reinforcement is done so that the behaviour occurs more, but punishments are given to decrease certain behaviour. Positive reinforcement is, instead of taking something away, you add something so that behaviour will occur again in the future. This means that you get a reward for
This will help to increase the chance of good behavior. Encouraging a verbal acknowledgment will help to further strengthen the principle since this is a secondary reinforcement. A negative reinforcement is the removal of a negative stimulus once the desired response is seen. This will then increase any chance of this behavior to be repeated. A positive punishment happens wen the negative stimulus is introduced after this undesirable behavior, such a child misbehaving and being sent to their room for it.
CBT is a problem-solving/task-centered approach which recognizes and challenges illogical and faulty beliefs in an effort to change negative or destructive behavior. CBT combines elements of both cognitive and behavior therapy to track and modify the thoughts and behaviors of the client in order to increase desired behaviors and thoughts and to decrease undesired behaviors and thoughts while improving problem solving skills. The major goal of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy is to alter unproductive behaviors and thought patterns in an effort to improve the perceived problem and undesired behaviors. Some of its general goals are to increase desired behaviors and thoughts, decrease undesirable behaviors and thoughts and improve problem solving skills. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy is divided into three major phases.
Why it is a good strategy to use to address phobias? Classical conditioning is a learning method that happens when two stimuli are continually paired; a response that is at first triggered by the second stimulus is eventually triggered by the first stimulus only. Operant conditioning is a behavioral theory based on the effects of consequences on behavior. They only affect future behavior. It also selects any behavior and it occurs automatically (Cooper et al, 2007).
In 1941 N.E Miller and associate J. Dollard proposed that one could learn a behavior by observing that behavior in others. They called this theory social learning. The social learning theory of Miller and Dollard also stated that “by imitating these observed actions the individual observer would solidify that learned action and would be rewarded with positive reinforcement.”(Green) Loosely translated this means that if we ape the actions of those around us they will reward us for such actions. In 1954 Julian Rotter broke away from the then popular instinct based psychoanalysis and drive based behaviorism theories. Rotter believed that a psychological theory should have a psychological motivational principal, and that people were motivated to seek out positive reinforcement or stimulus and to avoid the negative of either.
Discuss principles of reinforcement and punishment in your response. Operant conditioning is the process in which a human or non-human learns to respond to the environment in a way that produces desired outcomes rather than negative experiences. The central principles of operant conditioning include reinforcement, punishment and extinction that can then be further defined into finer categories. The principle of reinforcement is a consequence that causes behaviour to occur with greater frequency. Positive reinforcement is where behaviour is rewarded (whether intended or not) which will increase the probability of reoccurrence of that behaviour.
Positive punishment which is also referred to as punishment by application presents an aversive stimulus following the behavior. Negative punishment which is also referred to as punishment by removal is when taking away a desirable stimulus following
Outline and evaluate one or more social psychological theory of aggression Social psychological theories, such as social learning theory and deindividuation, propose that the causes of aggression comes from our interactions with others. According to social learning theory, aggressive behaviour is learned either through direct experience or by vicarious experience. Learning by direct experience is derived from Skinner's principles of operant conditioning. It is when you act in an aggressive manor and, as a result, get rewarded for it. The reward acts as reinforcement, therefore you are more likely to act like this again in a similar situation.
His experiment was called “Skinners Box” Skinners focus was based on reinforcement and this can be a positive outcome or it is a behaviour to avoid any negative consequences. This theory was built as a result of Pavlov’s experiment, where he thought that any bad behaviour would be punished and then it would eventually die. Operant conditioning can be described as a process which attempts to modify and behaviour through positive or negative reinforcement. By doing this Skinner believed that an individual makes an association between behaviour and a consequence. An example of this could be the teacher rewarding the class with a marble whenever they do something positive.