operant conditioning

• Behaviours learnt through punishment and reinforcement


  This is when...
• Positive reinforcement


  A desirable consequence is given for a desired characteristic, therefore the behaviour is reinforced and is more likely to be repeated
• Negative reinforcement


  Something negative is removed in response to the desired behaviour, e.g. attending every lesson to avoid an SLT, through avoidant behaviour, therefore the behaviour is more likely to be repeated
• Positive punishment


  Something unpleasant happens so that the behaviour is weakened, e.g. a student is given a detention for not doing the homework so now the behaviour of not doing the homework is weakened
• Negative punishment


  Something pleasant is taken away because of the undesired behaviour, e.g. taking your phone away because you're not revising, therefore the behaviour is weakened
• Continuous reinforcement


  Behaviour is reinforced every time it happens
• One strength of operant conditioning is there is evidence to support that behaviour that is rewarded is more likely to be repeated. Skinner showed that through continuous rewards of the sugar pallet as a result of pressing the lever, the rat learnt to stay in one corner of the box showing how the behaviour is now being repeated. This is a strength as it can also show how phobias are maintained through continuous exposure to the feared stimulus and a reward being the comfort felt once the feared object is gone therefore the behaviour of staying away from the phobia is reinforced and maintained.
• Fixed intervals


  Behaviour is reinforced at set times e.g., every Monday
• Variable interval


  Reinforced at varying times e.g., after 5 days then, 2 days then, 10 days etc.
• Operant conditioning suggests


  All behaviour is learned by reward or punishment
• Fixed ratio


  Reinforcement given after a certain number of responses e.g., after every 5th response
• Variable ratio


  Reinforced after varying number of responses e.g., after 2nd response then after the 7th response, you don't know when the reinforcement is coming so it's the most effective way to change a behaviour
• One weakness is that operant conditioning suggests that all behaviour is learned by reward or punishment, but this does not seem to be able to account for very complicated behaviours such as the learning of language e.g., research shows that children acquire language faster if they do not receive corrections, e.g., Nelson (1973) observed mothers’ responses to incorrect speech and found that children who were systematically corrected expanded their vocabulary more slowly than children of more forgiving parents.
• Therefore, operant conditioning may not be a useful explanation of how all behaviours are learned, perhaps it only explains more simplistic learning.