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Behaviorism: Operant Conditioning (B.F. Skinner) Overview

The document discusses B.F. Skinner's theory of operant conditioning. Key points include: 1) Operant conditioning focuses on how behaviors are strengthened or weakened based on consequences in the environment (reinforcement or punishment). 2) Reinforcement increases the likelihood a behavior will occur again. Schedules and types of reinforcement impact how behaviors are established and maintained. 3) Operant conditioning has been applied to areas like education, parenting, and behavior modification. For example, programmed instruction aims to break content into small steps with immediate feedback.

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Michelle Sajonia Rafanan
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46 views

Behaviorism: Operant Conditioning (B.F. Skinner) Overview

The document discusses B.F. Skinner's theory of operant conditioning. Key points include: 1) Operant conditioning focuses on how behaviors are strengthened or weakened based on consequences in the environment (reinforcement or punishment). 2) Reinforcement increases the likelihood a behavior will occur again. Schedules and types of reinforcement impact how behaviors are established and maintained. 3) Operant conditioning has been applied to areas like education, parenting, and behavior modification. For example, programmed instruction aims to break content into small steps with immediate feedback.

Uploaded by

Michelle Sajonia Rafanan
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Behaviorism

Operant Conditioning  (B.F. Skinner)

Overview:

The theory of B.F. Skinner is based upon the idea that learning is a function of change in overt behavior. Changes in
behavior are the result of an individual's response to events (stimuli) that occur in the environment. A response
produces a consequence such as defining a word, hitting a ball, or solving a math problem. When a particular
Stimulus-Response (S-R) pattern is reinforced (rewarded), the individual is conditioned to respond. The distinctive
characteristic of operant conditioning relative to previous forms of behaviorism (e.g., Thorndike, Hull) is that the
organism can emit responses instead of only eliciting response due to an external stimulus.

Reinforcement is the key element in Skinner's S-R theory. A reinforcer is anything that strengthens the desired
response. It could be verbal praise, a good grade or a feeling of increased accomplishment or satisfaction. The
theory also covers negative reinforcers -- any stimulus that results in the increased frequency of a response when it
is withdrawn (different from adversive stimuli -- punishment -- which result in reduced responses). A great deal of
attention was given to schedules of reinforcement (e.g. interval versus ratio) and their effects on establishing and
maintaining behavior.

One of the distinctive aspects of Skinner's theory is that it attempted to provide behavioral explanations for a
broad range of cognitive phenomena. For example, Skinner explained drive (motivation) in terms of deprivation
and reinforcement schedules. Skinner (1957) tried to account for verbal learning and language within the operant
conditioning paradigm, although this effort was strongly rejected by linguists and psycholinguists. Skinner (1971)
deals with the issue of free will and social control.

Scope/Application:

Operant conditioning has been widely applied in clinical settings (i.e., behavior modification) as well as teaching
(i.e., classroom management) and instructional development (e.g., programmed instruction). Parenthetically, it
should be noted that Skinner rejected the idea of theories of learning (see Skinner, 1950).

Example:

By way of example, consider the implications of reinforcement theory as applied to the development of
programmed instruction (Markle, 1969; Skinner, 1968)

1. Practice should take the form of question (stimulus) - answer (response) frames which expose the student to the
subject in gradual steps

2. Require that the learner make a response for every frame and receive immediate feedback

3. Try to arrange the difficulty of the questions so the response is always correct and hence a positive
reinforcement

4. Ensure that good performance in the lesson is paired with secondary reinforcers such as verbal praise, prizes
and good grades.

Principles:
1. Behavior that is positively reinforced will reoccur; intermittent reinforcement is particularly effective

2. Information should be presented in small amounts so that responses can be reinforced ("shaping")

3. Reinforcements will generalize across similar stimuli ("stimulus generalization") producing secondary
conditioning

B. Watson and Behaviourist Psychology


John B. Watson was an American psychologist working in the early 20th Century. He objected to the ideas of
Sigmund Freud and set out to change the whole way in which people thought about and did psychology. In the
process he became one of the most influential psychologists of the 20th Century. Despite his influence, his career
as a Psychologist was very short. Soon after publishing his landmark papers and studies he was caught up in a
scandal involving his coresearcher, Rosalie Rayner, and resigned from academic life. He went into advertising and
marketing and was very successful at this.

Watson’s Main Ideas

Main Idea What’s This?


The ‘blank slate’ Watson took the view that we enter the world as a ‘blank slate’ – all we have is thecapacity to
learn things. We learn things from our environment and our experiences in it. So a person’s unique ways of
behaving are the result of their unique set of learningexperiences.

The behavioural focus Watson objected to Freud because Freud’s ideas relied on concepts and processes that
could not be observed. How can we prove the unconscious mind exists? He thought that instead, psychologists
should adopt the scientific method, and study only things that could be directly observed – behaviour and the
environmental conditions that produce it.

Environmental determinism Like Freud, and unlike the humanistic psychologists who came later, Watson did not
believe that people have free will. He thought that all of our behaviour was determined
by our learning experiences and the environment we are in. "Give me a dozen healthy
infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up and I'll guarantee to
take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select--
doctor, lawyer, merchant-chief, and yes, even beggarman and thief, regardless of his
talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his
ancestors."(Watson, 1930)

Conditioning Watson believed that the main – if not only – process by which people learned was conditioning. This
is a type of learning whereby a human – or any animal – learns that two things are associated. This idea originated
with the work of Ivan Pavlov.

Conditioning: Stimulus Response Learning


Watson’s big innovation was to apply the idea of conditioning to human behaviour. This was a concept that had
originally been studied by Ivan Pavlov in the late 19th Century. Pavlov was a surgeon who was doing experiments
on dogs. He noticed that the dogs he kept in his lab would start salivating every time the say the lab assistant that
fed them, without even being shown any food. Clearly, the dogs had learned to associate the assistant with food.
Pavlov set out to investigate this learning further.

Some Behaviourist Vocabulary


Behaviourism has its own set of specialised terms to describe the learning process. It is worthwhile getting to be
familiarwith these terms and, if possible, to use them in your own writing. Some key behaviourist terms are:
Term What’s this?
Stimulus Any change in the environment that an organism registers.
Response Any behaviour that the organism emits as a consequence of a stimulus.
Reflex A consistent connection between a stimulus and a response.

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