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Operant Conditioning Experiment

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Introduction: Learning, is a process that can be described as long lasting changes in behaviour potential that comes as a result influenced by experience. (Cherry, 2010).In order to understand human be-haviour researchers will observe the effects of the environment, conditioning, and reinforce-ment. One psychologists that is notably for his work with behaviour and learning is B.F Skin-ner. Skinner is considered to be the father of Operant Conditioning, although his work was based on Thorndike’s (1905) law of effect. Skinner added to Thorndike’s work by introduc-ing a new term into the Law of Effect - Reinforcement. Skinner also coined the term Operant conditioning. The term can be defined as a process that attempts to change behaviour by the …show more content…

The study had 2 hypotheses. Hypothesis 1 stated that during the reinforced period sniffys bar presses would greatly increase, as oppose to the number of times prior to the reinforcement. The results show that hypothesis 1 was supported. Hypothesis 2 stated that extinction will place when sniffys reinforcement is removed. This hypothesis was also supported. The findings of the current experiment share a degree of similarity with previous studies. There a number of strengths and weaknesses within the experiment that will be discussed further with reference to corresponding research. The method used for shaping sniffy was operant conditioning. This method exists in daily activities carried out by both humans and animals. In order to get sniffy to press the lever he first had to be shaped. To achieve this sniffy was rewarded for behaviour that became progressively similar to the desired behaviour. This method of response shaping has been successful in a number of studies. For example, Midgley, Lea and Kirby, (1989) focused on shaping rats to drop ball bearing down a hole in the …show more content…

The results showed that disruptive behaviour declined and studying increased when children received praise and attention. Reinforcements, similar to that in the sniffy experiments have been used in human participants to generate results. One study in particular, carried out by Garcia, Guess and Byrnes, 1973 used sweets as a reinforcer to improve the language skills of disabled children. The study was carried out, on what nowadays would be considered a vulnerable group and although the ethics of the study are questionable, the results are imperative. The Sniffy program is designed to give the researcher a first-hand experience with conditioning so that they can learn about observational techniques and operant conditioning in a more ethical manner, but because humans are complex beings, our behaviour cannot always be compared with that of a virtual rat. Sniffy is immune to emotional and physical traits that make up a human. For example human participants would grow bored and lose interest in a reinforcement if it is continued over long periods of

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Throughout this book, we can see examples of operant conditioning. This type of conditioning includes reinforcing behavior with some sort of action. Operant conditioning usually occurs in early childhood -prior to middle childhood- but can also happen later in life (Belsky, 11). This is present in multiple areas of the text. One of the first examples of operant conditioning that can be seen is when Robert is learning to swim.

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Mr. Byrne is having trouble getting his students to listen. He is trying scolding as a punishment, but that is not working. By the end of this essay, Mr. Byrne will learn how use operant conditioning to get his seventh grade students to listen. Mr. Byrne can 't understand why scolding his seventh-grade students for disruptive classroom behaviors makes them unrulier. Mr. Byrne 's can use operant conditioning techniques to reduce disruptive behaviors and increase cooperative behaviors.

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She goes on saying how humans smell weakens over time and that since everyone’s noses protrude out of our face it takes scents longer to awaken inside of our brains. When it comes to sneezing it may seem like a simple task, but the way humans sneeze is a little more dramatic. Smell can also play tricks to oneself by allowing the nose to believe it smells of something else until it is truly seen. Ackerman also brings smell into a more scientific animal trait. Providing examples on how the human scent can bring pleasure and joy to its mate or how it can show leadership.

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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,

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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.

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In making the creature that is his legacy, Frankenstein rehearsed little premonition. His absence of arranging an existence with his creation is basically the start of the end, and this is most clear as his creation draws its first breath, as Frankenstein falls into stun. This is the reason Frankenstein is not recognized as a kindhearted creator, but rather a distraught researcher. Frankenstein utilized little caution in his part as creator, rather liking to show his exceptional forces. This is the place the wellspring of contention untruths; when to utilize control versus when to lower oneself.

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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.

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The Positive and Negative of Operant Conditioning and The Most Effective Method There are many ways we can come about in behavior. An American psychologist, B.F. Skinner, introduced the theory of operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is known as associative learning and a learning process. The theory is made up of two factors in which behavior is modified through either reinforcement and or punishment.

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The major key findings that were discovered in this study include the idea that it is possible that after being conditioned to react to a certain stimulus, the subject could possibly begin to generalize different objects that may cause the subject to react the same way towards the generalized stimuli as the subject did to the original stimulus. Another finding is that classical conditioning is something that could potentially have a long lasting effect on someone, especially if the subject formed a generalization to the original stimulus. The researchers felt that because of the lack of experimental evidence provided about the subject before this experiment prompted them to research it

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Link to reality: Both Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning and Pavlov’s theory of classical conditioning can be used every day in an ECCE setting. Today many school systems and childhood authorities follow Skinner’s and Pavlov’s theory by using the approach of positive reinforcement. This encourages good behaviour in the child making the behaviour more likely to be repeated again as they are rewarded and praised for their efforts in reading, writing and general learning. It is important that children’s efforts in a learning setting are rewarded as this will encourage the child to perform to the best of their ability.

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For operant conditioning theory, the major pioneers of the theory are B.F. Skinner and Edward Thorndike. Edward Thorndike proposed the Law of Effect in 1905, it states that actions which are followed by desirable outcomes are more likely to be repeated and vice versa. This law influenced Skinner’s investigation to a great extent and in this essay, I will take B.F. Skinner as the major pioneer of operant conditioning for further elaboration. Skinner is a behaviorist, he believes that classical conditioning cannot explain complex human behavior and the best way to understand behavior is to look at the cause and consequence of event and there are four contingencies in the theory. Bandura is the pioneer of observational theory, he believes that learning is not always measured by behaviors and can be done by observing others, self-efficacy, beliefs and desires of an

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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.

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After repeating this pairing several times, the dog eventually treated the bell as a signal for food and began salivating in expectation of the treat, but having said that the dogs still produced saliva, when he rang the bell without bringing any food. At this time, they had been 'conditioned ' to salivate well every sound of a bell with the

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Reinforcement and punishment are methods used in operant conditioning and both can be positive and negative but work in a unique way. Positive means you are adding something so you increase a behaviour and negative means you are taking something away so you decrease a particular behaviour. Reinforcement Reinforcement is used to help increase a specific behaviour in the future and if done correctly this behaviour will increase, occurring more frequently as the child develops.

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The Learning perspective argues that children imitate what they see and hear,and that children learn from punishment and reinforcement.(Shaffer,Wood,& Willoughby,2002). The main theorist associated with the learning perspective is B.F. Skinner. Skinner argued that adults shape the speech of children by reinforcing the babbling of infants that sound most like words. (Skinner,1957,as cited in Shaffer,et.al,2002). This theory explains that the language starts on what they see or hear, the children will imitate what they see on their parents or the people around them.

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