According to the American Heritage Dictionary (2003), operant means to produce an effect that will cause a spontaneous reaction and recognized in Psychology as a reinforcing or inhibiting effect. The law of effect first suggest by Thorndike, in 1911 can explain the operant conditioning or operant learning procedure. Operant learning, judges responses, which are learned when the subject is performs a task. Once the task is complete in a satisfactory manner, and the subject demonstrates that he or she can continue to exhibit the same behavior constantly, the subject will continue to receive satisfactory incentives. Meaning the subject will repeat the same behavior, subsequently the subject will achieve the same satisfying incentives. Operant conditioning emits a reward for a proper response.
Shaping
The word shaping specified so early steps that the subject will engage in a behavior knowing at the end a reward will be waiting. For example, a bird is to be rewarded with food by peeking x number of times. Therefore, the bird must first go to a ledge next to an operant box. The bird must then begin to peck at the box to receive the reward, or birdseed (being that food is the best motivator in most animals). However, the bird must first learn the box contains food, then how it can eat the food in the box. Initially food or the reward is allotted to the subject at end of each step. However, in operant conditioning the reward will only be available to the bird if the bird pecks on the operant box x number of times (Horn, 2009).
Positive and negative reinforcement
Positive reinforcement will show that a rewarding and or satisfying incentive or something the subject wants is a positive reinforcer and the possibility that a certain response will occur. For instance, if a toddler uses the potty chair for the first time and the reward for his or her good deed is filled with hugs, kisses and a favorite activity in this case coloring. Each time the child uses the potty he or she will receive his or her favorite activity, in this case the child loves to color and the parents or caregiver will hug, kiss, and make a huge deal over the fact the child went to the bathroom. Therefore, the child will want to use the potty chair to ensure he or she can color and will receive the emotion excitement each time this is using the positive reinforcer. The parent or caregiver is awarding the child with hugs and kisses, and his or her favorite activity. Continuing the same pattern will encourage the toddler to use the potty. The child will begin to understand he or she is going to receive emotional stimulation and his or her favorite activity, more coloring time. The toddler will begin to realize he, she no longer needs to wear diapers and the idea of being a big girl, or boy is normally pleasing to a young child. In this scenario, the potty chair represents the operant box. Many parents do use food as a reinforcement tool. However, this is not a good practice for a number of reasons such as overweight children, which can cause health problems and eating disorders later in life.
Just as the bird would need to peck x number of times to receive food from the operant box, the bird may also respond to rewards like water or another type of stimulus like seeing its self in a mirror or another type of stimuli. Obviously, a child or individual cannot go without food or water. However, in the case of the bird or other animal if food or water is the reinforcement, the animal often will go without food or water for a significant amount of time before the experiment begins to inhance the subjects desire to receive its reward.
Negative reinforcement
Negative reinforcement is awarding an unpleasant or objectionable stimulus. Rather than allowing the subject to have an enjoyable positive reinforcer, the subject receives a negative reinforcer, which is anything the subject does not like or want. This will increase the odds that an exact response will occur, so that the negative reinforcer to take away or the subject will go out of its way to avoid the negative reinforcer.
In this case, a puppy will not stay away from the fence, and continues to dig until he can squeeze under the fence. Putting an electric wire at close to the bottom of the fence or slightly covered by dirt. When the wire is touched, an unpleasant shock will keep the puppy from wanting to dig his way under the fence. If when it the wire is touched and the puppy continues to dig, increasing the shock by small increments until the puppy no longer wants or likes to being shocked the puppy will eventually avoid the fence and no longer attempt to go near the fence. If the puppy continues to dig in the yard, the negative reinforcer can be set up in the yard the same way to stop the puppy from digging up the entire yard.
Punishment
According to Olson and Hergenhahn, (2009, p., 88)…punishment occurs when a response removes something positive from the situation. Punishment is different from negative reinforcement. Using punishment decreases the chance that a past incident will occur again or more than once. When a subject is punished, the subject experiences an aversive stimulus, which he or she cannot avoid. Experiencing the punishment may serve as a negative reinforcer. However, the subject could begin to manifest responses to avoid the particular punishment he or she deems as an unpleasant experience. For instance if a young child will not share with others and the child is punished by being sent to his or her room while others are allowed to play with the item or to the child would not share. The child, who is punished, may throw a temper tantrum believing if he or she carries on long enough the parent or caregiver will relent and allow the child out of his or her room. Once the child realizes not only does he or she have to behave to come out and play with the others, he or she must share the toy to be able to play with the other children.
The subject child may display the same behavior more than once. However, with consistency from the parent or caregiver, the child will soon understand playing nice and sharing with others is better than the alternative of listening to the other children having fun while the subject child sits in a lonely room. The punishment of listening to the other children having fun while the subject child must sit in a lonely room could be a negative reinforcer. The child may begin to understand sitting alone in the room is worse than sharing a toy he or she will have when it is his or her turn. The normal rule is one minute of punishment per age, eight years old equals eight minutes that he or she be alone which, feels like an eternity to a child in the lonely room. A child does not want to be alone without his or her favorite toy. Especially knowing that another child is touching the toy without him or her being in the room to make sure the toy is not lost or hurt. This punishment could be enough to teach the child to share and do his or her best to play well with others.
Conclusion
Operant learning judge’s responses that are learned when a task is complete in a satisfactory manner, and the subject demonstrates that he or she can continue to display the same behavior on a constant basis. Using both positive and negative reinforcers can achieve the same goal. The scenarios above are a few examples of how to use operant learning achieve a desired response. Even punishment can help teach or produce a desired behavior if a person uses consistency, and understands the punishment does not mean a need to be violent or physical to achieve a desired behavior.
References
American Heritage Dictionary, The, (2003). Definition operant, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language,
Retrieved March 31, 2010, from,
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/operant
Hergenhahn, B. R. (2009). An introduction to theories of learning (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River,New Jersey: Pearson Inc, Prentice Hall.
Horn, J. (October 3, 2009). B.F. Skinner and His Operant Conditioning Theory. Retrieved April 6, 2009, from,
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2231805/bf_skinner_his_operant_conditioning.
