Operant Conditioning

1. Operant Conditioning Rewards and punishment

2. Classical vs. Operant Conditioning

3. Classical or Operant? A very bright (mildly painful) light is turned on a rat. The rat has learned that he can turn off the light by pressing a lever on the other side of his cage. As soon as the light comes on, the rat runs across the room and presses the lever.

4. Classical or Operant? When a mother strokes her infant’s skin, the stroking creates pleasure responses in the baby. After this goes on for many days, the baby begins to show pleasure responses simply at the sight of her mother (even before being touched).

5. Classical or Operant? Imagine you have a friend who keeps the temperature in her home so high that each occasion on which you visit her you find yourself perspiring. The last time you visited her, you noticed that you began to perspire and became uncomfortable as soon as you saw her house (even before you got inside).

6. Classical or Operant? A patient in a mental hospital is very disruptive at mealtimes. She grabs food from the plates of those sitting near her and tries to cram the food in her mouth. Because this behavior of stealing food is very undesirable, a plan is developed whereby every time the patient steals food from other plates, she is immediately taken to a room without food.

7. Classical or Operant? Alice leaves her clothes and toys all over her room. It seems that the only time she cleans up her room is when her mother yells at her. When she yells at her, Alice picks up her clothes and put away her toys.

8. Types of Reinforcment • positive (adding) or negative (taking away) • primary (innately satisfying) or secondary (conditioned) (learned to be satisfying) • immediate or delayed

9. Reinforcement Schedules continuous – rewarded every time partial – not every time • “fixed” – set, constant • “variable” – unpredictable • “interval” – time • “ratio” – number

10. Reinforcement Schedules • fixed ratio – set number (every three times you raise your hand I call on you) • variable ratio – unpredictable number of responses (slot machine) • fixed interval – set amount of time (pay you every hour) • variable interval – unpredictable amount of time (fishing)

11. Reinforcement Schedules • Summary • Ratio schedules cause a greater response rate than interval schedules • Variable schedules are more resistant to extinction • Continuous reinforcement causes the fastest learning. • Immediate reinforcement is more effective than delayed. • Teaching delayed gratification

13. Superstition • BF Skinner – “radical behavioralist” • Wanted to demonstrate that uniquely human behaviors were the product of conditioning. • Starved 8 pigeons. Then rewarded them with food every 15 s, no matter what they did.

14. Results: • 6 of 8 bird developed superstitions • Turning counter-clockwise in a circle • Thrusting head toward a specific corner of cage • “tossing” an imaginary ball with its head • Head bobbing with accompanying steps (2 birds) • “fake” pecking

15. Superstition (cont) • Follow up studies: • Gradually increased time between rewards to 1 min – bird behaviors became more pronounced (head bobbing/stepping looked like a dance) • Removed reward altogether to create extinction – pigeons showed resistance to extinction (one pigeon repeated behavior over 10,000 times before quitting). • What are your superstitions? How are they rewarded?

16. Reinforcement v. Punishment 1. If you were doing a crossword puzzle on the subject behavior modification and were asked for a synonym for negative reinforcement, what word would you select?__________________ 2. When you supply negative reinforcement, it usually results in: ______ a. Weakening a behavior that you want weakened. ______ b. Strengthening a behavior that you want strengthened. 3. Do people usually look forward to receiving negative reinforcement? ______ a. Yes ______ b. No 4. Do you anticipate regularly (consciously) supplying positive reinforcement to those you might manage in the future? ______ a. Yes ______ b. No 5. Do you anticipate regularly (consciously) supplying negative reinforcement to those you might manage in the future? ______ a. Yes ______ b. No

17. How could a high school student use principles of operant conditioning to train his or her parents to set a later curfew? Consider the effectiveness of positive reinforcement, shaping and the use of schedules of reinforcement in your response.

18. Criticisms of Behavioralism • Deemphasizes the role of internal thoughts and feelings in behavior; Presents humans as lacking free will • Ignores biological predispositions

19. Support for Criticisms Experiments with humans and animals both indicate that biological predispositions influence conditioning. a. Animal training b. Human societies built on behavioralist principles.

20. Support for Criticisms 2. Expectations alter the effectiveness of conditioning (i.e., alcoholics and nausea-producing drug; overjustification effect). 3. Learning occurs in the absence of rewards or punishments (this is called latent learning) - mice and cognitive maps

21. Problems with Punishment • it models aggression as a way to solve problems • breeds anger in the recipient • doesn’t provide an alternative behavior. Therefore, the behavior only goes away when the punisher is around.

22. Overjustification Effect • Experiment • Story of boys playing soccer • Overjustification effect: when we are rewarded for behaviors that we naturally enjoy, we sometimes lose our intrinsic motivation. • Learning and grades? • Professional athletes?

23. Observational Learning • Also known as modeling. • Albert Bandura – Bobo doll experiment

24. Modeling • Prosocial Behavior – constructive behavior • Antisocial Behavior – unproductive or destruction behavior

25. We are seven weeks into class! Time for your review of me… …please write two things you enjoy about Psychology and two things that could be improved and how I could improve!