Specific Learning Principles

In order to apply specific learning principles to my everyday life and have a deeper understanding of how they work, I chose to modify a habit of mine with some of these learning principles. My target behavior for this application process was my studying habits, or lack thereof. Through operant conditioning, specifically positive reinforcement, I tried to increase how much I studied by rewarding myself with Netflix afterwards. The Premack principle is being used here because I often watch Netflix daily but I do not study daily. This allowed me to combine positive reinforcement and the Premack principle by associating the two activities. Not only did this allow for me to have something to look forward to after studying, it also gave incentive to actually study more often. The reinforcement, Netflix, that I am using in this application process is a secondary reinforcer. Netflix is not a basic or biological need for us as humans, but it is associated with a sense of belonging. It also relates to our common interest in entertainment and something complex that is not directly related to our day to day lives.

But in order to make it work with my schedule and hopefully make the habit stick, I could not use reinforcement every single time. An intermittent schedule was used because sometimes I did not have enough time to study and watch Netflix before having to leave for class or work, meaning I used partial reinforcement. Going along with the intermittent schedule, I used a fixed interval of one hour of studying before being allowed to watch Netflix. An hour seemed to be the best amount of fixed time I could give myself to study without overloading myself with material. I tried using thirty minutes in the beginning but it never gave me enough time to actually get into the material I was reviewing at that