Operant conditioning

• What is operant conditioning?

  Making a link between behaviour and it consequences
• What does operant conditioning help?

  maintain and shape behaviours
• How do you learn in operant conditioning?

  Through reinforcement
• What is a reinforcement in operant conditioning?

  Is a consequence that increases the chance of the behaviour happening again strengthens the behaviour
• What is a positive reinforcement?

  Behaviour followed by a reward (getting praised)
• What is negative reinforcement?

  A behaviour followed by removal of something unpleasent
• What is a punishment in operant conditioning?

  This decreases the probability that the behaviour is repeated (Weakens the behaviour)
• What is a positive punishment?

  behaviour followed by an unpleasant consequence (hitting a naughty dog)
• What is a negative punishment?

  The removal of something pleasant (taking away a phone or being grounded)
• What motivates behaviour?

  desire to achieve a goal and satisfy needs
• What are the two names for the rewards?

  Extrinsic reward

  Intrinsic reward
• What is extrinsic reward?

  Pleasurable consequence that comes from our environment ( Prize box or gold star)
• What is an intrinsic reward?

  Internal pleasurable consequence (feeling of achievement and being proud)
• Who and what experiment explains operant conditioning?

  Skinner and his rats
• What was the aim of his experiment?

  How punishments and reinforcements affect behaviour
• Simplify the process of this experiment

  • placed a rat into a skinner box
  • inside one box was a lever that gave food the other one that gave an electric shock
  • Rats accidentally pressed lever
  • one with the food the food poured out and the one with the shock got shocked
  • skinner measured how much the rats would press the lever
• What where the findings ?

  The rat with the food lever pressed it more because of a positive reinforcement

  The rat with the shock pressed it a lot less because of the positive punishment
• What are the pros of operant conditioning?

  • Many applications in child care and education so positive behaviours can be rewarded
  • Skinners findings are reliable because it links reinforcements and punishments to behaviour
• What are the cons of operant conditioning?

  • Skinner said all animals learn in the same way but humans have a more conscious insight than animals
  • It explains how behaviours are weakened and made stronger but not how they appear