Why does operant conditioning work

This is one of the reasons that gambling is so addictive—and so resistant to extinction. In operant conditioning, extinction of a reinforced behavior occurs at some point after reinforcement stops, and the speed at which this happens depends on the reinforcement schedule. In a variable ratio schedule, the point of extinction comes very slowly, as described above.

But in the other reinforcement schedules, extinction may come quickly. For example, if June presses the button for the pain relief medication before the allotted time her doctor has approved, no medication is administered. Among the reinforcement schedules, variable ratio is the most productive and the most resistant to extinction.

Fixed interval is the least productive and the easiest to extinguish [link]. The four reinforcement schedules yield different response patterns. The variable ratio schedule is unpredictable and yields high and steady response rates, with little if any pause after reinforcement e.

A fixed ratio schedule is predictable and produces a high response rate, with a short pause after reinforcement e. The variable interval schedule is unpredictable and produces a moderate, steady response rate e. The fixed interval schedule yields a scallop-shaped response pattern, reflecting a significant pause after reinforcement e. Skinner uses gambling as an example of the power and effectiveness of conditioning behavior based on a variable ratio reinforcement schedule.

Beyond the power of variable ratio reinforcement, gambling seems to work on the brain in the same way as some addictive drugs. The Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery n.

Specifically, gambling may activate the reward centers of the brain, much like cocaine does. Research has shown that some pathological gamblers have lower levels of the neurotransmitter brain chemical known as norepinephrine than do normal gamblers Roy, et al. According to a study conducted by Alec Roy and colleagues, norepinephrine is secreted when a person feels stress, arousal, or thrill; pathological gamblers use gambling to increase their levels of this neurotransmitter.

Another researcher, neuroscientist Hans Breiter, has done extensive research on gambling and its effects on the brain. Deficiencies in serotonin another neurotransmitter might also contribute to compulsive behavior, including a gambling addiction.

However, it is very difficult to ascertain the cause because it is impossible to conduct a true experiment it would be unethical to try to turn randomly assigned participants into problem gamblers. It also is possible that some overlooked factor, or confounding variable, played a role in both the gambling addiction and the differences in brain chemistry. Some research suggests that pathological gamblers use gambling to compensate for abnormally low levels of the hormone norepinephrine, which is associated with stress and is secreted in moments of arousal and thrill.

Although strict behaviorists such as Skinner and Watson refused to believe that cognition such as thoughts and expectations plays a role in learning, another behaviorist, Edward C. Tolman , had a different opinion. This finding was in conflict with the prevailing idea at the time that reinforcement must be immediate in order for learning to occur, thus suggesting a cognitive aspect to learning.

In the experiments, Tolman placed hungry rats in a maze with no reward for finding their way through it. He also studied a comparison group that was rewarded with food at the end of the maze. As the unreinforced rats explored the maze, they developed a cognitive map : a mental picture of the layout of the maze [link]. After 10 sessions in the maze without reinforcement, food was placed in a goal box at the end of the maze. As soon as the rats became aware of the food, they were able to find their way through the maze quickly, just as quickly as the comparison group, which had been rewarded with food all along.

This is known as latent learning : learning that occurs but is not observable in behavior until there is a reason to demonstrate it. Psychologist Edward Tolman found that rats use cognitive maps to navigate through a maze. Have you ever worked your way through various levels on a video game?

You learned when to turn left or right, move up or down. In that case you were relying on a cognitive map, just like the rats in a maze. Latent learning also occurs in humans. Children may learn by watching the actions of their parents but only demonstrate it at a later date, when the learned material is needed. Instead, Ravi follows the same route on his bike that his dad would have taken in the car. This demonstrates latent learning.

Ravi had learned the route to school, but had no need to demonstrate this knowledge earlier. However, some buildings are confusing because they include many areas that look alike or have short lines of sight. Psychologist Laura Carlson suggests that what we place in our cognitive map can impact our success in navigating through the environment.

She suggests that paying attention to specific features upon entering a building, such as a picture on the wall, a fountain, a statue, or an escalator, adds information to our cognitive map that can be used later to help find our way out of the building. Operant conditioning is based on the work of B. Operant conditioning is a form of learning in which the motivation for a behavior happens after the behavior is demonstrated.

An animal or a human receives a consequence after performing a specific behavior. The consequence is either a reinforcer or a punisher. All reinforcement positive or negative increases the likelihood of a behavioral response.

All punishment positive or negative decreases the likelihood of a behavioral response. Several types of reinforcement schedules are used to reward behavior depending on either a set or variable period of time. Explain the difference between negative reinforcement and punishment, and provide several examples of each based on your own experiences. Think of a behavior that you have that you would like to change. How could you use behavior modification, specifically positive reinforcement, to change your behavior?

What is your positive reinforcer? A Skinner box is an operant conditioning chamber used to train animals such as rats and pigeons to perform certain behaviors, like pressing a lever. When the animals perform the desired behavior, they receive a reward: food or water. In negative reinforcement you are taking away an undesirable stimulus in order to increase the frequency of a certain behavior e. Punishment is designed to reduce a behavior e.

Shaping is an operant conditioning method in which you reward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior. If you want to teach your dog to roll over, you might reward him first when he sits, then when he lies down, and then when he lies down and rolls onto his back. Finally, you would reward him only when he completes the entire sequence: lying down, rolling onto his back, and then continuing to roll over to his other side.

Skip to main content. Search for:. Operant Conditioning Learning Objectives By the end of this section, you will be able to: Define operant conditioning Explain the difference between reinforcement and punishment Distinguish between reinforcement schedules. Link to Learning Watch this brief video clip to learn more about operant conditioning: Skinner is interviewed, and operant conditioning of pigeons is demonstrated.

Everyday Connection: Behavior Modification in Children. Link to Learning Watch this video clip where veterinarian Dr. What is a Skinner box and what is its purpose? This explains why Skinner used hungry rats in his experiments. Immediacy : Learning occurs faster when the consequence reinforcement or punishment is delivered immediately after an action or behavior.

The more the consequence is delayed, the more ineffective it becomes. Consistency : Reinforcements that are consistently delivered following every correct response lead to faster learning times. Intermittent delivery of reinforcements leads to slower learning, but then the learned behavior is harder to extinguish compared to when reinforcements are consistently delivered after each correct response. Size : The amount of reinforcement or punishment also has an effect on the effectiveness of the consequence.

When the reward is too little, it might not seem worthwhile to go through a lot of effort displaying the desired behavior for such a small reward. Similarly, when the punishment is too small, the benefits of engaging in the unwanted behavior might outweigh the discomfort of experiencing the punishment.

Operant conditioning can be applied at the workplace in various ways, from instituting corporate culture and addressing interactions between employees to helping an organization achieve its annual targets. Positive reinforcement, one of the key components of operant conditioning, can be used to increase productivity at the workplace. Providing employees with positive reinforcement — through verbal praise and through incentives such as bonuses, generous perks and pay increases can motivate employees to work harder, leading to increased productivity for the entire organization.

Company culture is very important. It affects everything, from employee satisfaction to performance and how your organization is perceived in the media. To cultivate a great company culture, managers should identify the behaviors that need to be encouraged within the workplace and those that need to be discouraged. Having your employees work in teams is a great way of harnessing the benefits of both reinforcement and punishment.

At the same time, if certain members of the team are not working as hard as they should, they will incur negative backlash punishment from their team members, thus discouraging them from slacking off in future. This way, working as a team provides reinforcement for good performance and hard work and at the same time provides punishment for those who go against the grain.

Reinforcement is also commonly used to boost performance in sales departments. Many businesses provide bonuses for sales people who hit their targets. The bonus acts as positive reinforcement for achieving their targets. This motivates the sales people to learn everything they need to do in order to close more sales, hit their targets and get the bonus.

The theory surmises that our environment and its reactions to our actions has a major influence on our behavior. You can see examples of operant conditioning in various spheres of daily life, from teaching your children good behavior and pet training to encouraging good performance at work and teaching good discipline in the military. E-mail is already registered on the site.

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When they press the lever when a red light is on, they receive a mild electric shock. As a result, they learn to press the lever when the green light is on and avoid the red light. But operant conditioning is not just something that takes place in experimental settings while training lab animals. It also plays a powerful role in everyday learning. Reinforcement and punishment take place in natural settings all the time, as well as in more structured settings such as classrooms or therapy sessions.

Operant conditioning was first described by behaviorist B. Skinner , which is why you may occasionally hear it referred to as Skinnerian conditioning. As a behaviorist, Skinner believed that it was not really necessary to look at internal thoughts and motivations in order to explain behavior.

Instead, he suggested, we should look only at the external, observable causes of human behavior. Through the first part of the 20th century, behaviorism became a major force within psychology. The ideas of John B. Watson dominated this school of thought early on. Watson focused on the principles of classical conditioning , once famously suggesting that he could take any person regardless of their background and train them to be anything he chose. Early behaviorists focused their interests on associative learning.

Skinner was more interested in how the consequences of people's actions influenced their behavior. Skinner used the term operant to refer to any "active behavior that operates upon the environment to generate consequences. His theory was heavily influenced by the work of psychologist Edward Thorndike , who had proposed what he called the law of effect.

Operant conditioning relies on a fairly simple premise: Actions that are followed by reinforcement will be strengthened and more likely to occur again in the future.

If you tell a funny story in class and everybody laughs, you will probably be more likely to tell that story again in the future. If you raise your hand to ask a question and your teacher praises your polite behavior, you will be more likely to raise your hand the next time you have a question or comment. Because the behavior was followed by reinforcement, or a desirable outcome, the preceding action is strengthened.

Conversely, actions that result in punishment or undesirable consequences will be weakened and less likely to occur again in the future. If you tell the same story again in another class but nobody laughs this time, you will be less likely to repeat the story again in the future.

If you shout out an answer in class and your teacher scolds you, then you might be less likely to interrupt the class again. Skinner distinguished between two different types of behaviors. While classical conditioning could account for respondent behaviors, Skinner realized that it could not account for a great deal of learning. Instead, Skinner suggested that operant conditioning held far greater importance. In operant conditioning, new or continued behaviors are impacted by new or continued consequences.

Research regarding this principle of learning first began in the late 19th century with Edward L. Thorndike, who established the law of effect. In this experiment, he placed hungry cats into homemade boxes and recorded the time it took for them to perform the necessary actions to escape and receive their food reward. Thorndike discovered that with successive trials, cats would learn from previous behavior, limit ineffective actions, and escape from the box more quickly.

He observed that the cats seemed to learn, from an intricate trial and error process, which actions should be continued and which actions should be abandoned; a well-practiced cat could quickly remember and reuse actions that were successful in escaping to the food reward. As the number of trials increased, the cats were able to escape more quickly by learning. Thorndike realized not only that stimuli and responses were associated, but also that behavior could be modified by consequences.

According to the law of effect, behaviors that are followed by consequences that are satisfying to the organism are more likely to be repeated, and behaviors that are followed by unpleasant consequences are less likely to be repeated. Essentially, if an organism does something that brings about a desired result, the organism is more likely to do it again.

If an organism does something that does not bring about a desired result, the organism is less likely to do it again. Law of effect : Initially, cats displayed a variety of behaviors inside the box.

Over successive trials, actions that were helpful in escaping the box and receiving the food reward were replicated and repeated at a higher rate. According to this law, behaviors are modified by their consequences, and this basic stimulus-response relationship can be learned by the operant person or animal.

Once the association between behavior and consequences is established, the response is reinforced, and the association holds the sole responsibility for the occurrence of that behavior. Thorndike posited that learning was merely a change in behavior as a result of a consequence, and that if an action brought a reward, it was stamped into the mind and available for recall later.

From a young age, we learn which actions are beneficial and which are detrimental through a trial and error process. For example, a young child is playing with her friend on the playground and playfully pushes her friend off the swingset.

Her friend falls to the ground and begins to cry, and then refuses to play with her for the rest of the day. The law of effect has been expanded to various forms of behavior modification. Because the law of effect is a key component of behaviorism, it does not include any reference to unobservable or internal states; instead, it relies solely on what can be observed in human behavior.

While this theory does not account for the entirety of human behavior, it has been applied to nearly every sector of human life, but particularly in education and psychology. Skinner was a behavioral psychologist who expanded the field by defining and elaborating on operant conditioning.

Research regarding this principle of learning was first conducted by Edward L. Thorndike in the late s, then brought to popularity by B. Skinner in the mids. Much of this research informs current practices in human behavior and interaction. Skinner theorized that if a behavior is followed by reinforcement, that behavior is more likely to be repeated, but if it is followed by some sort of aversive stimuli or punishment, it is less likely to be repeated. He also believed that this learned association could end, or become extinct, if the reinforcement or punishment was removed.

Skinner : Skinner was responsible for defining the segment of behaviorism known as operant conditioning—a process by which an organism learns from its physical environment.

In his first work with rats, Skinner would place the rats in a Skinner box with a lever attached to a feeding tube. Whenever a rat pressed the lever, food would be released. After the experience of multiple trials, the rats learned the association between the lever and food and began to spend more of their time in the box procuring food than performing any other action.

It was through this early work that Skinner started to understand the effects of behavioral contingencies on actions. He discovered that the rate of response—as well as changes in response features—depended on what occurred after the behavior was performed, not before. Skinner named these actions operant behaviors because they operated on the environment to produce an outcome.

The process by which one could arrange the contingencies of reinforcement responsible for producing a certain behavior then came to be called operant conditioning. In this way, he discerned that the pigeon had fabricated a causal relationship between its actions and the presentation of reward. In his operant conditioning experiments, Skinner often used an approach called shaping.

Instead of rewarding only the target, or desired, behavior, the process of shaping involves the reinforcement of successive approximations of the target behavior.