Question

How can operant conditioning be used to solve problems in your everyday life? Consider how you learn new skills, studying habits, work duties, parenting responsibilities, etc.

Answer 1

Operant conditioning::--

Operant conditioning (sometimes referred to as instrumental conditioning) is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior. For example, when a lab rat presses a blue button, he receives a food pellet as a reward, but when he presses the red button he receives a mild electric shock.

As a result, he learns to press the blue button but avoid the red button.

Operant behaviors do not occur in a vacuum; they occur more in some Situations than others and are triggered by external and internal cues. That is, for all operant behaviors there are stimuli, called discriminative stimuli and abbreviated SD, which tend to cue the response. Discriminative stimuli do not elicit the behavior, as the CS elicits the CR, but rather set the occasion for the behavior, making it more or less probable the behavior will occur. Thus we can often alter operant behavior by altering discriminative stimuli.One approach is to remove discriminative stimuli that cue undesired behaviors. As part of a program to reduce smoking we might remove those stimuli that increase the tendency to smoke, such as ashtrays on the table. When trying to lose weight we might change the route from work to home so it does not pass the doughnut shop.

A second stimulus control approach, called narrowing, involves restricting behaviors to a limited set of stimuli. A person who overeats probably is eating in many situations. This results in many discriminative stimuli (e.g., reading, watching TV, having a drink, socializing) cuing the tendency to eat. To cut back on this, we might restrict the eating to one place and certain times. Or in reducing smoking, we might restrict smoking to when the client is sitting in a particular chair in the basement.

Eliminating cues and narrowing are often combined. For example, in improving study habits an important component is establishing good study areas. If a student sits on the sofa when studying, eating, listening to music, and interacting with dates, then the sofa will cue thoughts, feelings, and behavior tendencies that may be incompatible with studying. It is preferable to set up an area in which nothing takes place except studying (perhaps a desk in a corner), get out of the area when doing things like daydreaming, and remove from the area stimuli (e.g., pictures, food) that cue behaviors incompatible with studying. Similarly, treatment of insomnia might involve only going to bed when sleepy; leaving the bed when not falling asleep; and not reading, eating, or watching TV when in bed.

A third stimulus control approach involves introducing stimuli that tend to inhibit the undesired behavior and/or cue behaviors incompatible with the undesired behavior. A person trying to lose weight might put signs and pictures on the refrigerator door. Or a person who has quit smoking may tell all his friends he has quit. Then the presence of one of his friends may be a stimulus to not smoke.

Because a person’s behavior gets tied into the stimuli and patterns of his daily life, it is often desirable to alter as many of these cues as possible. This stimulus change may involve a wide range of things such as rearranging furniture, buying new clothes, painting a wall, eating meals at different times, having sexual intercourse at different times and places, or joining a new club. Stimulus change is useful in situations such as part of marriage counseling or when a client is ready to significantly alter his life-style. Similarly, removing a person from his usual life situation until the change program is accomplished is often useful, particularly if coupled with stimulus change of the environment the client returns to.

Stimulus control deals with the antecedent side of operant behavior; the following sections deal with the consequence side.

Operant Conditioning Examples

Operant conditioning is a type of learning where behavior is controlled by consequences. Key concepts in operant conditioning are positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment and negative punishment.

Positive Reinforcement

Positive reinforcement is giving something pleasant after a behavior. This increases the probability that the behavior will continue. Examples are:

• Having a job and going to work every day to receive a paycheck.
• Receiving praise after a musical performance would increase the amount that you perform.
• A teacher complimenting students when they answer correctly will increase that behavior.
• At a gym, customers receive a discount if they work out a certain number of times and eat healthy.
• In the Skinner Box experiment, a rat got food as a reward for acceptable behavior, such as pressing a lever.

Negative Reinforcement

Negative reinforcement is taking away something unpleasant as a result of the behavior that is acceptable. This is also meant to increase the behavior. Examples are:

• It is very noisy outside so you turn on the television to mask the noise. Turning on the radio decreased the unpleasant noise.
• A teacher exempts student from the final test if they have perfect attendance. So, the teacher is taking away something unpleasant to increase behavior.
• At a store, a child throws a tantrum because he did not get a candy bar. Dad finally gets him one. He stopped the tantrum so he took away something unpleasant and Dad’s behavior of getting candy bars will increase.
• In the Skinner box experiment, a loud noise continuously sounded inside the cage until the rat did what Skinner wanted him to do. When he did, the noise stopped, so the unpleasant noise was taken away.
• In a biology class, students who made an "A" on the test did not have to dissect a frog.

Positive Punishment

Positive punishment is used to decrease a behavior and is presenting something unpleasant after the behavior. Examples are:

• An employee exhibits bad behavior at work and the boss criticizes him. The behavior will decrease because of the boss’s criticism.
• When a student misbehaves in class, she receives a time out.
• A child gets a spanking when he puts his hand in the cookie jar.
• When a child does not out his clothes in the hamper, he has to do ten extra minutes of chores.
• In an experiment, the subject received a slight electric shock when they got an answer wrong.

Negative Punishment

Negative punishment is also used to decrease a behavior and is removing something pleasant after the behavior. Examples are:

• An employee is habitually late for work so begins losing the privilege of listening to music while working. The behavior will decrease because of losing a privilege.
• A child doesn’t put his bike away so the parents lock it up for a certain time. The parents took away something pleasant to decrease behavior.
• Ted gets a $500 fine and suspension of his driving license for driving under the influence. Money and his license were removed to decrease behavior.
• A family has a "swear jar." Every time someone swears, they have to put a dollar in the jar. This is taking away money, which is something pleasant, and decreases the behavior of swearing.
• Kevin trashes his sister’s room and Mom told him he could not go camping with his friends.

As you can see with these different examples, operant conditioning can be used to control behavior using positive and negative actions.