Developmental Psychology

Achieve Test Prep: Developmental Psychology

Operant Conditioning : A different aspect of behaviorism is operant conditioning , which was postulated by B.F. Skinner. He developed this notion in response to the failings of classical conditioning. Skinner believed learning occurred due to selective reinforcement , or reinforcing certain behaviors while not reinforcing (or even punishing) other behaviors. • Reinforcement: any action or condition which increases the probability of a behavior occurring again. • Punishment: any action or condition which decreases the probability of a behavior occurring again. • Positive: if reinforcement or punishment introduces something. If the introduced stimulus is pleasant, it reinforces the desired behavior. However, if the stimulus is unpleasant, it punishes the behavior.

• Negative: if a reinforcement or punishment removes something. If the removed stimulus is unpleasant, it reinforces the behavior. If the removed stimulus is pleasant, it punishes the behavior.

For example, if you are attempting to get your child to clean her room for an entire week and you want to positively reinforce the behavior, introduce something pleasant, or remove an unpleasant task to negatively reinforce the good behavior, such as removing a chore. However, if the room is not clean by the end of the week, the child could be punished by adding something unpleasant, such as a chore, or the parent could remove something pleasant, like TV privileges. For punishment to be successful, it must occur directly after the undesirable behavior occurs. If it is not administered directly after the undesirable behavior, it will not be paired with the correct behavior. The association of a bad behavior and punishment will not be made.

Reinforcement Schedules:

When reinforcing behavior, frequency matters as much as what is done or not done. There are five schedules of reinforcement: continuous, fixed ratio, fixed interval, variable ratio, and variable interval.

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