OPERANT CONDITIONING

BURRHUS FREDERICK SKINNER(March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990)

Burrhus Frederic Skinner was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor,

and Social Philosopher. He was a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from
1958 until his retirement in 1974.
Skinner was known for his impact on Behaviorism. He developed the theory of Operant
Conditioning.
In 2002 survey, he was identified as the most influential psychologist of the 20th
century.

TERMS TO KNOW

OPERANT – Involving the modification of behavior by the reinforcing or inhibiting

effect of its own consequences.

REINFORCEMENT- also means a reward , it increases the chance that a behavior will
occur again in the future
PUNISHMENT – prohibition of doing something, it decreases the chance that a
behavior will occur again in the future.
STIMULI- anything that can trigger a physical or behavioral change.
CONSEQUENCE – result or effect of an action
Positive-negative
Increase – decrease
Pleasant-unpleasant
Adding - removing
We can trace back the origin of OPERANT CONDITIONING to its predecessor,
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING which became the foundation of BEHAVIORISM.
Classical conditioning involves learning a new behavior through the process of
ASSOCIATION :
In classical conditioning, IVAN PAVLOV ring a bell every time he fed his dog. Overtime,
the dog became conditioned to salivate when the dog heard the sound of a bell even
when food wasn’t present.
Food, which was able to trigger salivation naturally, is the unconditioned stimulus. The
bell’s sound which began to trigger salivation after being paired with food repeatedly,
was the conditioned stimulus.
When the unconditioned stimulus (food) and the conditioned stimulus (sound of a bell)
became associated, the conditioned stimulus could trigger the same response
(salivating).
This newly learned response became a conditioned response. And this is now a form
of learning by association.
Skinner believed that the principles of classical conditioning account for only a small
portion of learned behaviors.
He believed that CLASSICAL CONDITIONING was far too simplistic to be a complete
explanation of complex human behavior.

He believed that we do have a mind, therefore its more productive to study observable
behavior rather than internal mental events.

He believed that the best way to understand operant behavior is to look at the causes
of an action and its consequences.

Later, psychologist EDWARD LEE THORNDIKE came up with the concept of

instrumental conditioning when he observed the impact of reinforcement in puzzle box
experiments with cats trying to escape. He called this process “TRIAL-AND-ERROR”
learning.

He proposed the LAW OF EFFECT:

“A connection between a stimulus and response is strengthened when the
consequence is positive (reward) and the connection between the stimulus and the
response is weakened when the consequence is negative.”

Like Thorndike, Skinner’s work focused on the relation between BEHAVIOR and its
CONSEQUENCES.
So the basis of this idea was from E.L. Thorndike’s Law of Effect .
If you REWARD behavior, the behavior will INCREASE and if you PUNISH a behavior,
the behavior will DECREASE.
Skinner investigated the idea of how behavior influences or how behavior is changed
by the consequences that follows it. His experiment was built on the concepts of
reinforcement and punishment to create the theory of OPERANT CONDITIONING.
In Skinner’s operant conditioning paradigm, observable behavior can be manipulated
when it is followed by reinforcement or punishment.
He referred to anything that INCREASES a behavior as REINFORCEMENT and anything
that DECREASES a behavior as PUNISHMENT.

OPERANT CONDITIONING EXPERIMENTS:

(POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT)
BF Skinner made a chamber called Skinner Box. He put a rat inside the box with a
lever.
On accidentally bumping the lever, the rat discovered that it opens the chamber and a
food from a dispenser comes out.
Each time the rat pressed a lever or a bar, it received food as reinforcement.
So eventually the rat learns that If he pulls that lever, he gets a reward ---- the food.
(NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT)
BF Skinner put a rat in a box which had a mild electric current that could cause the rat
a discomfort. On wandering around the box, the rat randomly hit the lever and turn the
current off. When exposed to electric current in the box the rat learned to always
pressing the lever to turned the current off. This is called “escape learning”. Similarly,
Skinner also taught the rat to flip the switch to prevent the electric current from being
turned on. This is called “avoidance learning”.

WHAT IS OPERANT CONDITIONING?

OPERANT CONDITIONING

-is a method of learning that employs rewards and punishments for behavior.
-It changes behaviors by using consequences.
-Positive consequences reinforce behavior and make it more likely to happen again.

-Negative consequences make behavior less likely to happen again.

-Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a

consequence (whether positive or negative) for that behavior.

Basically this means the association of VOLUNTARY BEHAVIOR with a

CONSEQUENCE.
 WHY DO YOU THINK IT IS SAID TO BE VOLUNTARY?
Operant behavior is said to be "voluntary" because the responses are under the
control of the organism and are operants.

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING vs OPERANT CONDITIONING

*Classical Conditioning involves UNCONSCIOUS reflexive behavior while Operant
behaviors are behaviors under CONSCIOUS control.

*In operant conditioning, It’s VOLUNTARY, the subject has a choice to respond, it
actively does the behavior.
*In CLASSICAL CONDITIONING, the response of the dog was conditioned and was
involuntary because no one teaches the dog to salivate while in
*In Operant Conditioning, change in behavior happens from the consequences, the
subject has a choice to respond, it actively does the behavior .
For example of classical conditioning, whenever you come home wearing a baseball
cap, you take your child to the park to play. So, whenever your child sees you come
home with a baseball cap, he is excited because he has associated your baseball cap
with a trip to the park.
In classical conditioning, the stimuli that precedes a behavior will vary to alter that
behavior.

In operant conditioning, the consequences which come after a behavior will vary, to
alter that behavior.

OPERANT CONDITIONING is built on the foundation of rewards and punishment.

When our behavior is REINFORCED (rewarded) , we are encouraged to repeat or

continue that behavior, and when our behavior is PUNISHED, we are discouraged from
repeating or continuing that behavior.
*Note:
Today’s psychologists and parenting experts favor reinforcement over punishment
because punishment is not effective , it can have severe side effects. In Psychology,
punishment physically is actually a bad thing, it does harm than good.
PURPOSE OF OPERANT CONDITIONING
The MAJOR PURPOSE of OPERANT CONDITIONING is to encourage desirable
behaviors through rewards and reduce behaviors through punishments.

Applying reinforcement and punishment creates a deliberate and conscious operant

learning process.

OPERANT CONDITIONING
3 KEY CONCEPTS

1. REINFORCEMENT

Positive Reinforcement
Negative Reinforcement

2. PUNISHMENT
Positive Punishment
Negative Punishment
3. EXTINCTION
 TYPES OF OPERANT CONDITIONING
that could affect new learning

REINFORCEMENT - It increases the probability of a behavior being repeated.

1. POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT
Adding PLEASANT stimulus to INCREASE a behavior.

2. NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT
Removing or taking away of UNPLEASANT stimulus to INCREASE a behavior.

PUNISHMENT - It decreases the likelihood of a behavior being repeated.

1. POSITIVE PUNISHMENT
Adding UNPLEASANT stimulus to DECREASE a behavior.

2. NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT
Removing or taking away of PLEASANT stimulus to DECREASE a behavior.

EXAMPLES OF REINFORCEMENT
POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT

1. If you get a perfect score on all of your quizzes you’ll be exempted on the FINAL
EXAM.

Adding Pleasant stimulus:

Exemption on fINAL exams

Increased desired behavior:

getting perfect scores

RESULT: You might get a perfect score again in the future for you to get the reward –
the FINAL EXAM exemption.
2. Every time you take out the trash your mother will give you a very big hug.

Adding Pleasant stimulus:

Big hug

Increased desired behavior:

Taking out the trash.

RESULT: You will repeat doing it because you want that hug from your mother.

NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT

1. If you do your homework you don’t have to do any chores today.

Removal of unpleasant stimulus:

doing the chores

Increased desired behavior:

doing homework

RESULT: You will always do your homework to avoid doing the chores.

2. Workers won’t get yelled at when they arrive at work on time.

Removal of unpleasant stimulus:

The yelling

Increased desired behavior:

Arriving at work on time

RESULT: Always arriving early at work to avoid being yelled at.

EXAMPLES OF PUNISHMENT
POSITIVE PUNISHMENT

1. Assigning the students to clean the whole classroom if they always comes late in the
class.

Adding of unpleasant stimulus:

Cleaning the whole room

Decreased undesired behavior:

Coming late in class

RESULT: The student will avoid being late in class.

2. The teacher gives a student an extra homework for making noise in the class.

Adding of unpleasant stimulus:

Extra homework

Decreased undesired behavior:

Making noise in the class

RESULT: The student will stop being noisy in class to avoid extra homework.

NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT

1. If a child misbehaves, a parent can take away his favorite toy.

Removing of pleasant stimulus:

favorite toy

Decreased undesired behavior:

Misbehaving of the child

RESULT: The child will behave to avoid removal his favorite toy.
2. Students lose their recess time for making too much noise.

Removing of pleasant stimulus:

Recess time

Decreased undesired behavior:

Making too much noise

RESULT: The students will behave in class to have their recess time.

EXTINCTION
The third component of operant conditioning is extinction, which is the process and rate
that a behavior is forgotten once reinforcement or punishment has ended.

AN EXAMPLE for this:

Unwanted Behavior such as tardiness and dominating class discussion can be extinguished
through being ignored by the teacher.

An employee was punished once for missing work, then never again.

It may become more likely to miss work later on because on the second time, she was
ignored for the absence.

EDUCATIONAL APPLICATION
The use of OPERANT CONDITIONING is widespread.

We see examples of operant learning everywhere because it occurs everywhere. It’s

utilized by parents, teachers, companies, government and even me and you. Sometimes we
are using it unknowingly.

In the conventional learning situation, operant conditioning applies largely to issues of

class and student management, rather than to learning content. It is very relevant to
shaping skill performance.

A simple way to shape behavior is to provide feedback on learner performance –

compliments, approval, encouragement and affirmation.

THANK YOU, MAY GOD BLESS US ALL!

FRIZA MYR TONGCO LAURINARIA

DISCUSSANT