Skinner's Operant Conditioning
Overview of Skinner and his theory.
After Ivan Pavlov and his conditioning theory, we will be focusing on another significant scientist Burrhus Frederic Skinner, and his theory which is called" Operant Conditioning".
Like l always do, let's find out some information about Skinner's life first. Skinner was an American psychologist, behaviorist, and author who lived between 1904 and 1990. Skinner carried out so many experiments on behaviorism and he is one of the other founders of behaviorism indeed. He wrote a book which is based on behaviorism and it is called" The Behavior of Organisms". So, he explains two different manners, one is respondent behaviors and the other is operant behaviors.
We will be discussing what exactly is the operant conditioning in this paragraph. First things first, he separated 2 different types of behaviors: Operant and respondent. So, in respondent behavior, people do not try hard to learn it, they reach and respond to the situation such as if the doctor taps your knee, your knee reacts to it. But in operant behaviors, you do some things with consciousness.
Skinner's operant conditioning has also some components such as reinforcement and punishment. In reinforcement, there are also both positive and negative reinforces. So if your teacher gives you a gift after you study hard, this is an example of a positive reinforcer but if there is something bad happens on an occasion and you remove this thing but in a bad manner, this becomes a negative reinforcer.
The other component is the punishment. So, if your child is very naughty and making some noises, you react with a bad attitude and give him a little punishment which is positive punishment. On the other hand, if your child is driving you crazy because he or she plays video games all the time, you take the video game and that is a negative punishment for the child.
Examples of this: "After performing in a community theater play, you receive applause from the audience. This acts as a positive reinforcer, inspiring you to try out for more performance roles".
"A teen girl does not clean up her room as she was asked, so her parents take away her phone for the rest of the day. This is an example of a negative punishment in which a positive stimulus is taken away".
Skinner searched so much about this operant conditioning and he had an experiment like Pavlov. Let's discuss this experiment which is called" Skinner Box."
In this research, Skinner aimed to examine operant and classical conditioning by using an animal. So let's find out how this box works. Skinner put a rat into the box and there was a lever that dispensed food. When the rat came across with the lever, it activated the lever and got food. While he was doing the experiment, he realized that the rat did this behavior again and again to get a portion of food.
As a result of the experiment, Skinner found out that"Positive reinforcement strengthens a behavior by providing a consequence an individual finds rewarding". So it is like when you help your mom, she gives you some money and you keep doing this, and every time you get rewarded.
References:
https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-a-skinner-box-2795875