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Operant conditioning. By: Rholetter, Wylene, MEd, Salem Press Encyclopedia, 2019

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Operant conditioning

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Operant conditioning, a term coined by B. F. Skinner, American psychologist and radical behaviorist, is the idea that behavior is the learned result of consequences. Skinner, who introduced the concept in his 1938 book The Behavior of Organisms: An Experimental Analysis, theorized that operant conditioning in the form of reinforcements and punishments leads to an association between a behavior and its consequence. Positive reinforcement increases a desirable behavior by following it with a favorable stimulus. Negative reinforcement increases a desirable behavior by removing an unfavorable stimulus after the behavior is performed. Both positive and negative reinforcement seek to increase a desirable behavior. Punishment, like reinforcement, also has positive and negative varieties. Positive punishment is adding an unfavorable stimulus in an effort to eradicate an undesirable behavior. Negative punishment is removing an unpleasant stimulus in order to decrease undesirable behavior. Both positive and negative punishment seek to decrease an undesirable behavior.

Overview

Skinner designed an operant conditioning chamber, which came to be known as the Skinner box, to test his theory of operant conditioning on animals. The Skinner box prevented human interruption of the experimental session and allowed the experimenter to study the behavior of an animal as a continuous process. The box includes at least one lever or key that the animal can manipulate to release food, water, or some other reward or to avoid punishment such as an electric shock. Skinner’s experiments with rats and pigeons showed that the animals first hit the lever and released food accidentally; after a few accidental releases, the reinforcement of manipulating the lever ensured that the behavior would be repeated. Skinner believed that operant conditioning could be used in similar ways with human beings.

Modifying behavior through operant conditioning has been used in the treatment of phobias, obsessive-compulsive disorders, substance-abuse problems, and some sexual disorders, but the impact of Skinner’s theories about operant conditioning has proved to be immense, reaching far beyond the field of psychology. Zoos and other animal facilities routinely use food as a positive reinforcement to train animals to move within enclosed areas and to increase safety during veterinary examinations. With human subjects, operant conditioning has been used to

control absenteeism in the workplace (such as when employers offer staff members with no absences a chance to win cash rewards), to increase sales (coupons), and to manage agitation in older adults with dementia. Perhaps no field has been more influenced by operant conditioning than education. Skinner’s assertion that positive reinforcement is more effective than punishment at changing and establishing desirable behavior led to the discrediting of punitive punishment in schools and the common application of timeouts (negative reinforcement) and a token economy (i.e., rewarding good behavior with gold stars that can be accumulated for prizes) instead.

Critics of operant conditioning have been vehement in pointing out its detriments. As early as 1959, American linguist and cognitive scientist Noam Chomsky argued that what worked in Skinner’s laboratory could be applied to complex human behavior only in a superficial way. In 1960 progressive educator A. S. Neil insisted that rewarding good behavior taught that the behavior was not worth doing for reasons other than the reward. Other critics were even more severe, charging that operant conditioning was dangerous and inhumane. Gradually, the influence of Skinner’s ideas declined, and by the twenty-first century, some declared that operant conditioning had become peripheral in psychology and related fields. However, in 2002 a list of ninety-nine top psychologists was published in the Review of General Psychology and B. F. Skinner topped the list.

Bibliography

Bunzli, Samantha, David Gillham, and Adrian Esterman. “Physiotherapy-Provided Operant Conditioning in the Management of Low Back Pain Disability: A Systematic Review.” Physiotherapy Research International 16.1 (2011): 4–19. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Aug. 2013.

Davey, Graham, and Chris Cullen. Human Operant Conditioning and Behavior Modification. New York: Wiley, 1988. Print.

Dayan, Peter. “Instrumental Vigour in Punishment and Reward.” European Journal of Neuroscience 35.7 (2012): 1152–68. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Aug. 2013.

Dayan, Peter, et al. “Disentangling the Roles of Approach, Activation and Valence in Instrumental and Pavlovian Responding.” PLoS Computational Biology 7.4 (2011): 1– 28. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Aug. 2013.

Edwards, Darren J. Integrating Behavioural and Cognitive Psychology: A Modern Categorization Theoretical Approach. Hauppage: Nova, 2015. Print.

Fonseca, Amilcar Rodrigues, Maria Cristina Zago Castelli, and Emileane Costa Assis de Oliveira. "Effects of Chronic Mild Stress on Operant Discrimination Learning." Behavior Analysis: Research and Practice 15.1 (2015): 20–27. Print.

Iversen, Iver H. “Skinner’s Early Research: From Reflexology to Operant Conditioning.” American Psychologist 47.11 (1992): 1318–28. PsycINFO. Web. 24 July 2013.

Miller, Harold L., Jr., and E. Benjamin H. Heuston. “Recent Trends in Operant Conditioning.” 21st Century Psychology: A Reference Handbook. Eds. Stephen F. Davis et al. Los Angeles: Sage, 2008, 340–50. Print.

Murphy, Eric S., and Frances K. McSweeney. The Wiley-Blackwell Handbook of Operant and Classical Conditioning. Hoboken: Wiley, 2014. Print.

Parrish, Margaret. “Behaviorism.” Social Work Perspectives on Human Behavior. Maidenhead: Open UP, 2010, 98–109. Print.

Rapanelli, Maximiliano, Luciana Romina Frick, and Bonifacio Silvano Zanutto. “Learning an Operant Conditioning Task Differentially Induces Gliogenesis in the Medial Prefrontal Cortex and Neurogenesis in the Hippocampus.” PLoS ONE 6.2 (2011): 1–12. Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Aug. 2013.

Reynolds, George Stanley. A Primer of Operant Conditioning. Rev. ed. Glenview: Scott, 1975. Print.

Staddon, J. E. R., and D. T. Cerutti. “Operant Conditioning.” Annual Review of Psychology 54 (2003): 115–44. PsycINFO. Web. 24 July 2013.

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