operant conditioning

• operant: voluntary response that acts on the environment to produce consequences
• law of effect (e.l. thorndike): behaviors with less favorable conseqeunces will occur less frequently and behaviors followed by more favorable consequences will occur more frequently
• reinforcement: the occurrence of a stimulus following a response that increases the likelihood of the response being repeated
• primary reinforcer: a stimulus that is inherently reinforcing for a species (biological necessities) - eg. food
• secondary (conditioned) reinforcer: a stimulus that has acquired reinforcing value by being associated with a primary reinforcer
• examples of secondary reinforcers are grades, gold stars, and paper money
• positive reinforcement: increases the likelihood t hat behavior will occur again by giving a reward
• positive reinforcement may lead to overjustification
• negative reinforcement: increases the likelihood that behavior will occur again by removing something unpleasant (escape/avoidance conditioning)
• positive punishment (aversive conditioning): presentation of an unpleasant stimulus following a bheavior that acts to decrease the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated
• negative punishment (omission training): the omission of a pleasant stimulus in order to decrease the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated
• positive reinforcement examples:

  • saying good job after child cleans room
  • getting a raise
  • getting cheers and applause after an award
  • telling someone they look good when they dress up
• negative reinforcement examples:

  • eating medicine
  • fanning yourself to avoid heat
  • giving in to cat's begging
  • faking a stomach ache to avoid going to school
  • giving in to an argument
• positive punishment example:

  • cleaning the garage because you were late
• negative punishment example:

  • taking away kid's keys because they were late
• shaping: reinforcement of behaviors that are more and more similar to the one you want to occur
• chaining: used for more complex skills where smaller skills are put together before reward is given
• extinction: occurs in operant conditioning when no consequence occurs to a behavior
• discriminative stimulus: stimulus that determines when a behavior will occur based on signals that inform the individual of availability of reward
• overjustification: positive reinforcement, when extrinsic rewards replace intrinsic motivation
• Skinner Box: a chamber containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforcer; attached devices record the animal’s rate of bar pressing or key pecking
• Puzzle Box (Edward Thorndike): a chamber that cats learn to escape from, they gradually get faster at it
• graphs: