The Theory Of Operant Conditioning And Its Components In Learning

Introduction

Learning is a fundamental key to surviving in the world. More times than not, we are told, “knowledge is power.” Learning is developed through experience, skills, and being taught. There are several ways of learning whether that is by visual learning, auditory learning, experience, and more. Not everyone will learn the same way. As individuals, we all have different ways to learn that best suit us; however, the majority of learning styles go hand-in-hand with each other. Individuals are always and will always learn throughout life because things are constantly changing through life. Yet, that is not the only reason why we learn. We may learn because of new interests such as speaking a new language or learning to work with technology. The fun thing about learning is that most times, we may not recognize that we are doing it. When a first-time mom is raising her child, she may not know why we praise a child after doing something; yet, that is what parents do. It is encouraged to give a dog a treat right after learning a new trick, but why do we do it? We do it because of B.F. Skinner.

B.F. Skinner was a behaviorist and American Psychologist. He stemmed his ideas from another known Psychologist Edward Thorndike who invented “The Law of Effect”. Because of B.F Skinner, we now have a way to condition or train animals and humans. With the help of positive and negative reinforcement and positive and negative punishment, we know which response to use to help increase or decrease a behavior from being repeated; and to help increase the likelihood of a behavior being repeated with schedules of reinforcement. Operant conditioning was created in 1938 and has been used for many years even if it is not understood by individuals using Operant Conditioning. Operant Conditioning has been a common theory to train/condition animals, children, adults, and is commonly used in the workplace. Operant Conditioning Operant Conditioning is a learning theory that uses reinforcers and punishments as a way of learning. This can also be described as instrumental conditioning. I find this type of conditioning often used in parenting or training animals. This particular theory of learning was developed from an experimental process. Its purpose is to connect behaviors to consequences through punishments and rewards.

The behaviorists behind this theory of learning is none other than B.F Skinner. Although he may be known as the “father” of Operant Conditioning, his work stemmed from behaviorist Edward Thorndike. In 1989, Thorndike studied various different behaviors in animals which lead to “The Law of Effect”. This is where B.F Skinner developed a lot of his ideas from. The principle of Thorndike’s Law of Effect “suggested that "responses that produce a satisfying effect in a particular situation become more likely to occur again in that situation, and responses that produce a discomforting effect become less likely to occur again in that situation." Thorndike’s idea was to put animals (primarily cats) in a “puzzle box” and time how long it would take the cat to escape the puzzle and receive its prize. There was a lever placed inside of the box to open once it has been pressed. Eventually, the cat figured out what the lever was for. Every time the lever was pressed, the cage would open, and the cat would get a prize. Once the cat learned about the lever, it eventually became faster and faster learning that there is a prize at the end for pushing the lever.

B.F Skinners idea was similar in that he had a “Skinners box”. However, Skinner also introduced new discoveries to Thorndike’s Law of Effect. Skinner added reinforcers. He suggested that the repeated behavior that is reinforced would strengthen, and nonreinforced behavior would weaken. He would place rats inside a box and time how long it would take the rat to discover how to receive food. If the rat pressed one colored button, he would receive food; yet if he pressed another colored button, he would receive a slight shock. Eventually the rat would learn not to press the button that receives shock making the non-reinforced behavior weak whereas the reinforced behavior- receiving the food, has strengthened. In a sense, the shock was a punishment to the rat, decreasing the probability of the rat repeating the behavior; whereas, the food was a reward for the rat’s behavior, increasing the probability of the rat to repeat that behavior.

Components of Operant Conditioning

Although “Skinners box” is a great representation to how Operant Conditioning works, there are several components to know about before one can fully understand operant conditioning. Operant Conditioning has always fascinated me; yet, until recently, I struggled with confusing the components. There are two different types of reinforcement, two different types of punishment, and schedule of reinforcement.

Reinforcement

Previously stated, reinforcement is when a reinforced behavior increases the chance of being repeated. There are two types of reinforcements. Positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement both increase the chance of repeated behavior. Whenever the words positive and negative are added to the word reinforcement, that is when I would previously get confused. Whenever I think of the word “positive”, I think of something enjoyable, however when I think of something “negative”, I think of something unpleasant. Yet, because reinforcement is strengthening the response, both negative and positive reinforcements increase response.

Positive Reinforcement

Positive Reinforcement is when something pleasant is presented following a specific behavior. For example, if an employee were to work hard at his/her job, then he/she may be rewarded for the hard work. In turn, this would motivate the employee to work harder every time to receive more praise. This also leads back to “Skinners Box” with the rats. Each time the lever was pressed, food was presented. Using positive reinforcement is the best way I trained my dog. I had to be consistent. every time my dog did something good- if he sat on command, he would instantly get a treat. Some may argue that positive reinforcement would make individuals slack off in a workplace. In an article, Dave Anderson explains how many leaders in a workplace may be too prideful to use positive reinforcement as a way to motivate employees to work harder. Some leaders may think that employees are doing what they are getting paid to do and should not receive positive reinforcement. “Some leaders think that if they give positive reinforcement, it will go to their heads- and then they will let up. This is true for about 5 percent of people. For the other 95 percent, positive reinforcement gives them a higher standard to live up to and a fear of letting the other person down.” I coach peewee cheerleaders and have been doing it for ten years. Over ten years, I have experimented with the best way to teach cheerleaders. I find that using positive reinforcement is the best way to help them learn. Especially because they are younger, I feel they thrive on compliments and work harder to receive more compliments.

Negative Reinforcement

Negative reinforcement is the second type of reinforcement. Even though the term “negative” is paired with reinforcement, it is not associated with punishment. Negative reinforcement is when something unpleasant is removed after a behavior that increases the strength of the response. An example of negative reinforcement in a workplace would be reducing the amount of workload one employee is doing by hiring another employee. Negative reinforcement can be used with animals as well. An example would be those who use shock collars to control dogs from barking. The dog discovering that if it stops barking the shock will go away. This is not intended as a punishment for dogs; however, to train the dog. The unpleasant stimulus would be the shock. Reduced barking decreases the unpleasant shock resulting in an increase response.

Punishment

Just like reinforcement, there are two types of punishment; negative and positive. Negative and positive punishments are both meant to decrease or weaken the probability of repeating a behavior.

Positive Punishment

Positive punishment is when an unpleasant stimulus is presented; in return, the stimulus is decreasing the behavior. An example of positive punishment in the workplace would be getting a write up for not doing the work. In this case, the write up is the unpleasant stimulus that would cause a decrease in the behavior- not working.

Negative Punishment

Negative punishment is the removal of a pleasant stimulus to decrease the likelihood of the behavior to repeat. From personal experience, I feel this type of punishment is common in a school setting. It is not uncommon to see children in school writing sentences during recess because the children got in trouble. This is would be an example of negative punishment. The teacher is taking away recess (pleasant stimulus), decreasing the possibility that the child will not repeat the behavior. Removing the pleasant stimuli is presumed to encourage children to change their behavior.

Reinforcement Schedules

The third component of Operant Conditioning is reinforcement schedules. “A schedule of reinforcement is the response required that must be met to obtain reinforcement”. Reinforcement schedules are, in other words, a guide to determine how well the reinforcer can be delivered. Each reinforcement schedule response will have different effects on a behavior. The first reinforcement schedule is continuous reinforcement. The name itself describes the reinforcement schedule; continuous. For this reinforcement schedule, each response is continually reinforced. “Skinner’s Box” is a great example of continuous reinforcement. A food pallet is released to the rat every time the lever is pressed. This particular reinforcement schedule is great when first staring to shape or train. Whenever I first started training my dog to sit on command, I had to be constant. Every time he sat on command, I instantly gave him a treat. If I were to give him a treat every three times he sat on command, he would become confused and would become harder to train. However, because I was consistent with giving him a treat every time he sat on command, he now associates the word “sit” with sitting. This is also commonly used with parents and children. When children reach preschool age, they start to learn the reason we do specific tasks, such as brushing teeth morning and night and making the bed after waking up. If a parent wants to be successful in making the bed after waking up, the parent would praise the child every time the child makes the bed. Intermittent reinforcement schedule refers to only partially praising responses. As previously mentioned, if I were to only praise my dog every three times he sat on command, this would be referred as intermittent reinforcement. It has a different effect on the response than does continuous reinforcement. With continuous reinforcement, my dog would know to sit every time I said “sit”; however, with intermittent reinforcement, my dog could become confused a may not sit right away knowing that he might not get a treat.

There are four different types of schedules of reinforcement that fall under the category of intermittent reinforcement. The first type is Fixed Ratio Schedules. This typed of schedule is determined by a number. The number determines how many times a response is conducted before being rewarded. With my example of training my dog to sit, if he were to only receive a treat every three times he sits on command, that would be a fixed ratio 3 (FR 3). Fixed ration can be similar to continuous reinforcement only if the response is reinforced after each time. With this type of schedule comes a break in between each response before returning to do another response. The larger the number is, the longer amount of time it takes a subject to take a break. If a dog had to sit down on command fifty times before receiving one treat, the dog would take a longer break in between behaviors. On the other hand, if a dog were to sit on command ten times before receiving one treat, he would take a shorter break in between behaviors. The dog would also receive more treats for every ten times the dog had to sit compared to every fifty times. The lower the number of ratios, the greater possibility of having little to no breaks. Whenever a low number of ratios need to be increased, it needs to be increased gradually.

The second type of intermittent reinforcement is Variable Ratio Schedules. Unlike the Fixed-Ratio schedule where the amount of numbers of responses is “fixed” or set, Variable Ratio Schedules is liable of changing an unpredictable number of responses. Whereas a fixed ratio, a dog gets a treat every ten times the dog sits on command, Variable Ratio would mean a dog would have to sit on an average of ten times before the dog gets a treat. Each time is unpredictable as well and the number of responses can range. If a dog sits three times and gets a treat, the dog may have to sit twelve times after that to receive a treat. That would continue until the overall average matches the number of responses; in this case, the average number of responses would be ten. Variable ratio Schedule happens more often in the world than we know, and possibly without individuals knowing that they are doing it. It is not rare that I hear, “if I don’t know the answer to this question on the exam, I will just guess. I have a 25 percent chance of getting it right.”. I am surround by sports fanatics; however, teammates know that there is a possibility of not winning some games which leads me to my favorite expression, “You win some, you lose some”. Running the ball to the end-goal is a reinforcement with Variable Ratio. Dare I say that the teammates are not thinking about Variable Ratios while running the ball to the end-goal to score a touchdown. It is all too often that this happens without consciously thinking about it.

The third type of intermittent reinforcement is Fixed Interval Schedules. Like Fixed Ration, Fixed Interval “reinforcement is contingent upon the first response after a fixed, predictable period of time.” In other words, for a fixed ratio schedule, a dog would have to sit five times before receiving a treat. After every fifth time the dog sits on command, a treat is presented. Yet only every fifth sit counts. With Fixed Interval, it is an interval of time. For every time the dog sits in one minute, the dog will be presented with a treat. If the dog sits down three times in one minute and five times the next minute, the dog will still be presented with a treat after the minute complete. Although the do would be sitting on command, every sit before the minute is up is ineffective.

The last type of Intermittent Reinforcement is Variable Interval Schedules. This type of schedule is just like Fixed- Ration other than instead of having an average number of responses that are unpredicted (Fixed Ratio), there is an average number of timed intervals that are unpredicted. If a dog were to sit for a FI thirty seconds, that would mean a dog could sit and receive a treat within four seconds for the interval and twelve seconds for the second interval and continuing until a reached Fixed Interval of an average of thirty seconds.