When thinking of operant conditioning, the first name people usually think of is B.F. Skinner or Burrhus Federic Skinner. Operant conditioning is a way of learning that is achieved though reward or punishment for a specific behavior. B.F Skinner was the founder of this method and it came after the famous classical conditioning. Skinner believed that the idea of classical conditioning was too simple for the complexity of a human. Although Skinner was the creator of this idea, he was inspired by Thorndike’s law of effect which explained that if a behavior is followed by a reward it will more than likely be repeated and if it is followed by an unwanted consequence it won’t. Skinners new way of learning introduced a reward and consequence style because he believed that in order to learn behavior, you must look at the cause and the consequence. Operant conditioning is a more complex way of conditioning, but it involves two main components, either a reinforcer or a punishment. A reinforcer would be something either negative or positive that would increase the chance of a specific behavior happening again and a punishment could also be negative or positive and it is a consequence that would decrease the chance of an action being repeated. That being said, operant conditioning comes in four different forms including: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment.
Positive reinforcement happens when favorable outcomes are given after a particular act, this can be in the form of praise or a reward and it will increase the chances of that act being performed again. Throughout my life positive reinforcement has played a huge role and I’m sure it’s been a part of many other people’s lives. A time in my life that I noticed this the most was definitely when I was younger, especially in school. When teachers would see you doing something good in class like paying attention or staying quiet, they usually will give a reward to the child and this will motivate them to keep doing it. For example, when I was younger, and I would do something good I would get a star next to my name or I would be first in line when it was lunch time. As I grew up this was still a big part of my life, I found myself doing things knowing that I would get a reward, for example my grandmother would always give me $20 if I received good grades on my report card so I found myself working hard just so I could show her. Even in college I still experience this, I convince myself to study by telling myself that if I finish I’ll reward myself with a snack or a nap. It’s clear that positive reinforcement does increase the chances of an action happening again, negative reinforcement is also like this however it works in a completely different way.
Negative reinforcement occurs when something undesirable is removed and it also increases the chances of a particular act happening again. An example of this would be doing an act to avoid something else like putting on sunscreen to avoid being sunburnt. This is something that is also very prevalent in everyday life especially in children. When kids are first born, they throw tantrums and cry in order to avoid something. I know when I was a baby and I didn’t want to go somewhere I would cry, and my parents would usually give in and not end up taking me, this reinforced the behavior of crying and it made me do it more often because I realized that if I cried, I wouldn’t have to do something if I didn’t want to. I see this a lot in my life now too especially in similar cases to the one I mentioned before of sunscreen. Something that I do often is take Advil to avoid a headache. I know that every time I take an Advil it will make my headache go away so in order to avoid it, I continue to take Advil. Another example is honking my car horn, I know that if I honk my horn as someone when it looks like they’re about to hit my car I can avoid an accident, so it motivates me to continue doing it. Unlike positive and negative reinforcement, there are other forms of operant conditioning that decrease the chances of a certain act happening again.
Positive punishment is a form of operant conditioning that decreases the chances of an act happening again. This occurs when an undesired outcome happens and lowers the chances of that behavior happening again. This is also something that is seen a lot with kids. When I was younger, and I would do something wrong my parents would put me in time out and it would usually stop me from doing whatever it is that I did again. This is also seen a lot in schools, when I was in the fourth grade, I was talking to my friend while the teacher was talking and because of that the teacher gave me a demerit and from that day on I never talked during class again. I see this a lot more in myself in college, because I have so much more responsibility that I did before I find myself using these operant conditioning techniques to make sure I get done what I need to do. For example, my first test as a college student was in biology and I’ve never been good at it but because I didn’t have the discipline I did at home, I didn’t end up studying and ended up getting a low B on the test, because of that I now find myself studying extra hard for every class. Like positive punishment, negative punishment also decreases the chances of a behavior happening again, but it works in a different way
Negative punishment involves something favorable being removed after a behavior. When I was younger this was something that always happened to me especially in high school. My parents whenever I would fight with them or would do something wrong would always take away my phone as a form of punishment and it did decrease the chances of me fighting with them again. When I was younger and in elementary school the teachers would take away privileges when you would do something wrong like if you disrespected the teacher, you would have to sit out during recess. This is one form of operant conditioning that I don’t typically see a lot in college, but it has happened. For example, I left an essay for the last minute in one of my classes and all of my friends were going out that day and I had to stay home and write the essay and couldn’t go out with my friends, now whenever an essay is due, I try to do it way before the due date so that doesn’t happen.
In conclusion, there are many different forms of operant conditioning that work in many different ways, but they are all have many similarities. Positive punishment and positive reinforcement are similar in the sense that they give something, but they differ in what they are giving, positive punishment gives something negative that lessens the chances of something happening again and positive reinforcement gives something positive that increases the chances of something happening again. It’s the same for negative punishment and reinforcement, they both take something away, but negative punishment takes away a favorable event in order to decrease the chances of a behavior being repeated and negative reinforcement takes away something negative in order to increase the chances of the behavior happening. Also, positive punishment and negative punishment both decrease the chances of a behavior happening in different ways and positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement increase the chances of a behavior happening in different ways. Overall, operant conditioning developed by B.F. Skinner, involves four main forms that are influence our learning and have a huge impact on our behavior.