In this essay, I will explain how to help get a young child to clean his room by using the operant conditioning method. Operant conditioning is defined as “learning in which a voluntary response is strengthened or weakened, depending on its favorable or unfavorable consequences. When we say that a response has been strengthened or weakened, we mean that is has been made more or less likely to occur” (Feldman 2010). To get such conditioning, we use reinforcements and punishments. Reinforcement is defined as “the process by which a stimulus increases the probability that a preceding behavior will be repeated” (Feldman 2010). Operant conditioning has two types of reinforcements, positive and negative and two types of punishments, also positive and negative. Throughout this essay, I will discuss each reinforcement and punishment while providing an example of each for a better understanding. At the end, I will develop a plan to help get a child to clean his room.
A positive reinforcement is adding something that will encourage a child to increase the chance they will repeat that behavior again. Case in point, to get a child to clean his room, I would tell him that if he cleans his room, we will go to the park. With my fingers crossed, the result will be that he cleaned his room. Which in my case means all the toys and clothes (clean or dirty) gets shoved up under the bed. If this happens, you could say that the positive reinforcement worked and a reward would be given. Positive