Operant Conditioning

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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). An “operant” is some unit of behavior or voluntary response (Wallace, 1970, p. 39). A reinforcement …show more content…

Students are always praised when they display good behavior or good grades. For instance, teachers always encourage their students to study hard in order to get excellent grades. These good grades will result in students being part of the Honor Roll list who were rewarded every semester with a pizza party. Here, the positive reinforcement was the pizza party. In order to attend the pizza party, students had to display outstanding grades which results in their constant effort to study (the operant). This scenario creates a positive behavior that increases its occurrences. The students are more motivated to study and excel in school because their actions will be rewarded with a positive …show more content…

Here, each student depending on their group was shown a beige or blue pen (the neutral conditioned stimulus) on a slide show and had to enter a room where like or dislike music (unconditioned stimuli) was played. The students were divided into four groups; Group 1 was given the beige pen on a slideshow with liked music, Group 2 was given the beige pen on the slideshow with disliked music, Group 3 was given the blue pen on the slideshow with liked music and Group 4 the blue pen with disliked music. Each group entered the rooms to view their corresponding slideshows with their assigned type of