OPERANT CONDITIONING

Operant Conditioning

Operant Conditioning

Operant Conditioning

The theory explains the situation of ensuring a certain behavior and then rewarding that behavior. When this behavior has been rewarded enough times, the association will be established. It explains how we learn from the consequences of our behavior, and social learning explains how we learn by watching other people (Miltenberger, 2001). For instance, the animal will tend to implement this behavior in order to obtain a reward. We have seen that, in classical conditioning, there is no reward after the behavior emitted by the animal but a conditioned stimulus.

Positive Reinforcements

Positive reinforcement is to increase the frequency of a response by reinforcing and providing an incentive that seems to, please, to the child. The reinforcement of behavior must be provided immediately as soon as possible. Positive reinforcements may consist of praise, words of encouragement, congratulations, facial expressions, physical contact, listen carefully (social rewards) can also be reinforcing materials; such as, consumable products like chewing gum, chocolate, soft drinks, items handled as records, balloons, toys, clothing or anything that is rewarding for the child (Martin & Pear, 2003). We can also increase the activities that provide pleasure to the children such as watching TV, playing video games, including shared activities such as reading a story, spending time with friends, movies, etc.

To use the methods of reinforcement, there is a need to know what things are reinforcing and appealing to the child. For example, if a book is being gifted to a child who does not like reading that the book would not work as a reward for the child.

Immediate positive reinforcements have the tendency to bring up the desired behavior from the child. However, when the child provided with the rewards before hand, the actual performance of the behavior would not be satisfactory.

Example: A 4 year old toddler will not eat what is on the plate. He does not like vegetables and the same happens to be a case with many other children. But, you know that your son loves custard dessert. Intelligent behavior would be to use the custard dessert as the positive reinforcement or a reward and provide it only when your child eats the dinner. There can be several options to this.

Example: If you eat at least half your plate with vegetables, you can have the dessert as much as you want. This way your child knows that if he performs the behavior that is eating vegetables, he will get the dessert which is a positive reinforcement.

Negative Reinforcements

Negative reinforcements are to increase the frequency of a desirable action eliminating something that is annoying to the subject, provided they hold properly. This reinforcement must also be as immediate as possible to the desired behavior. Its application may be continuous or intermittent (the former is more effective than the last) (Malott & Trojan, 2004).

Which means that the pleasing result is a consequence of the disappearance of an unpleasant sensation?

For Example, A child was assured that he will be excused from all the routine work if he helps ...