Operant Conditioning

Operant Conditioning

Introduction

The key contribution of B.F. Skinner to the field of psychology was his theory of operant conditioning. His theory depicted from the work of Ivan Pavlov and E. L. Thorndike and more particularly from their theories of trial and error learning and classical conditioning respectively. He described that Operant conditioning, also known as instrumental conditioning is a technique of learning that takes place through punishments and rewards for the behavior (Markle, 1969). With operant conditioning, a relationship is created between a behavior and an outcome of that behavior. The theory of Operant conditioning was thought up by behaviorist B.F. Skinner, which is the reason why it is often referred to as Skinnerian conditioning. Skinner, as a behaviorist realized that internal motivations and thoughts could not be employed to elucidate behavior. In its place, he proposed that we should only look at the external, visible causes and roots of human behavior. Through this theory, he explained that how we get hold of the range of learned behaviors we display each and every day of our lives.

Discussion

According to Skinner the best way to understand and identify behavior is to observe the causes of an action and its outcomes. He entitled this approach as operant conditioning. The father of Operant conditioning, Skinner brought in a fresh term into the Law of Effect which is “Reinforcement”; so, the behavior which is reinforced has a propensity to be repeated (i.e. strengthened) and on the other hand, behavior which is not reinforced has a propensity to be extinguished or die out. (i.e. weakened) (Skinner, 1971).

Skinner made use of rats as subjects for majority of his work; however he is even more well-known for his later on work with pigeons. He designed an apparatus to analyze animal behavior in a somewhat different way. The operant chamber, also known as the Skinner Box was especially designed to restrain human interference in the experimental session and to permit the study of behavior as a uninterrupted process, more willingly than in alienated test by test methods. In the puzzle box designed by Thorndike, the animal had to be actually placed back into the box later than every rewarded flee test. Skinner thought that such methods impede behavior as a ''stream of events''. An operant chamber has a lever for the rats that can be pressed again and again to deliver the food by each press, a single episode of the behavior was counted. For pigeons, he pecked one or more disks as the operand to send reinforcement for this behavior, generally in the form of food granules. The disks are frequently lighted for generalization training and stimulus discrimination. Later than an animal obtains reinforcement for pecking a disk or pressing a bar, the system does not need to restart; the chamber is all set to send more reinforcements once the animal acts in response again (Skinner, 1968).

Operantly Conditioned Behavior

The behaviors which have been reinforced are called operantly conditioned behaviors. Generally, these are volitional behaviors (while the response in ...