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Operant conditioning also called instrumental conditioning is a type of associative learning process through which the strength of a behavior is modified by reinforcement ebhavior punishment. It is also a procedure that is used to bring about such learning. Although operant and classical conditioning both involve behaviors controlled by environmental stimuli, they differ in nature. In operant conditioning, stimuli present when a behavior that is rewarded or punished controls that behavior.
For example, a child may learn to open a box to get the sweets inside, or learn to avoid touching a hot stove; in operant terms, the box and the stove are "discriminative stimuli". Operant behavior is said to be "voluntary". The responses are under the control of the organism and are operants. For example, the child may face a choice between opening the box and petting a puppy. In contrast, classical conditioning involves involuntary kn based on the pairing of stimuli with biologically significant events.
The responses are under the control of some stimulus because they are reflexes, automatically elicited by the appropriate stimuli. For example, sight of sweets may cause a child to salivate, or the sound of a door slam may signal an angry parent, causing a child to tremble. Salivation and trembling are not operants; they are not reinforced by their consequences, and they are not voluntarily "chosen".
However, both kinds of learning can affect behavior. Classically conditioned stimuli—for example, a picture of sweets on a box—might enhance operant conditioning by encouraging a child to approach and open the box. Research has shown this to be a beneficial phenomenon in cases where operant behavior is error-prone. The study of animal learning in the 20th century was dominated by the analysis of these two sorts of learning, [2] and they are still at the articles on human behavior of behavior analysis.
They have also been applied to the study of social psychologyhelping to clarify certain phenomena such as the false consensus effect.
Classification of Human Psychology:
Operant conditioning, sometimes called instrumental learning behavipr, was first extensively studied by Edward L. Thorndike —who observed the behavior of cats trying to escape from home-made puzzle boxes. With repeated trials ineffective responses occurred less frequently and successful responses occurred click at this page frequently, so the cats escaped more and more quickly.
In short, some consequences strengthen behavior and some consequences weaken behavior. By arricles escape time against trial number Thorndike produced the first articles on human behavior animal learning curves through this procedure. Humans appear to learn many simple behaviors through the sort of process studied by Thorndike, now called operant conditioning. That is, responses are retained when they lead to a successful outcome and discarded when they do not, or when they produce aversive effects. This usually happens without being planned by any "teacher", but operant conditioning has been used by parents in teaching their children for thousands of years. Skinner — is referred to as the Father of operant conditioning, and his work is frequently cited in connection with this topic. His book "The Behavior of Organisms: An Experimental Analysis", [6] initiated his lifelong study of operant conditioning and its application to human and animal behavior.
Articles on human behavior the ideas of Ernst MachSkinner rejected Thorndike's reference to unobservable mental states such as satisfaction, building his analysis on observable behavior and its equally observable consequences.
articles on human behavior Skinner believed that classical conditioning was too simplistic to be used to describe something as complex as human behavior. Operant conditioning, in his opinion, better described human behavior as it examined causes and effects of intentional behavior. To implement his empirical approach, Skinner invented the operant conditioning chamberor " Skinner Box ", in which subjects such as pigeons and rats were isolated and could be exposed to carefully controlled stimuli. Unlike Thorndike's puzzle box, this arrangement allowed the subject to make one or two simple, repeatable responses, and the rate of such responses became Skinner's primary behavioral measure. These records were the primary data that Skinner articles on human behavior his colleagues used to explore the effects on response rate of various reinforcement schedules. He also drew on many less formal observations of human and animal behavior.
Many of Skinner's writings are devoted to the application of operant conditioning to human behavior. Skinner defined new functional relationships such as "mands" and "tacts" to capture some essentials of language, but he introduced no new principles, treating verbal behavior like any other behavior controlled by its consequences, which included the reactions of the speaker's audience. Operant behavior is said to be "emitted"; that is, initially it is not elicited by any particular stimulus. Thus one may ask why it happens in the first place. The answer to this question is like Darwin's answer to the question of the origin of a "new" bodily structure, namely, variation and selection.
Similarly, the behavior of an individual varies from moment to moment, in such aspects as the specific motions involved, the amount of force applied, or the timing of the response.]
Magnificent idea and it is duly