Operant conditioning

• Applies to reflexive responses
• Positive reinforcement = Something desirable is obtained in response to doing something
• Negative reinforcement = Something undesirable is removed when something happened
• Skinner (1938) - rats - method

  • Created skinner box placing one rat at a time
  • Box contained variety of stimuli
  • Speaker, lights, floor which gave an electric shock
  • Hungry rat placed in box
  • Time taken for rats to learn pressing lever released food recorded
• Skinner (1938) - rats - Results

  • Rat would run around cage until lever pressed
  • More rat put in box, quicker press the lever
• Skinner (1938) - rats - Conclusion

  • Rats learn through operant conditioning
  • Pressing lever positively reinforced by food
• Skinner (1938) - rats - Evaluation

  • Hugely influential in promoting idea of behavioural psychology
  • Animals means not generalisable to humans
  • Sample size too small
• Strengths of conditioning

  • Lot of evidence showing animals and humans can learn by conditioning
• Weakness of conditioning

  • Conditioning can't explain all behaviour
  • Generalising to humans is difficult
  • Different species have different capacities of learning
  • Genetics have an influence too
• Watson and rayner - little albert - method

  • 11month old boy
  • No fear of white fluffy objects
  • Researchers conditioned response to these objects
  • White rat placed in front as he reached out a metal bar was struck loudly
• Watson and rayner - little albert - Findings

  • When shown rat he'd start to cry
  • Extended to other white fluffy objects
• Watson and rayner - little albert - Conclusion

  • A fear response to fluffy object was conditioned
  • Abnormal behaviour can be learnt
• Watson and rayner - little albert - Evaluation

  • Unethical experiment
  • Not everyone would develop fear in situation
  • Lab experiment = lack ecological validity --> artificial