Unit Three: Behavior and Cognition
Marshall High School Mr. Cline Psychology Unit Three AB * Conditioning
• For example, when a rat pulled a lever, it would receive food.
• Subsequently, the rat made frequent pulls on the lever.
• In order to understand operant conditioning, you must first become familiar with some important terms:
• Reinforcer: these are stimuli that increase the probability of the response occurring again. It is important to remember that different stimuli are reinforcing for different individuals.
• Reinforcement: this is the act of following a response with a reinforcer. There are categories and types of reinforcement that we will cover soon.
• Now you might be asking yourself, how does operant conditioning differ from classical conditioning?
• In operant conditioning, the individual actively operates on the environment to bring about reinforcement. * Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• The response is voluntary.
• In classical conditioning, however, the individual is passive and the response is involuntary.
• Categories Of Reinforcement
• Now let's get to the categories of reinforcement.
• First, we have primary reinforcers: these are consequences that satisfy a biologically built-in need.
• Such examples include food, shelter and oxygen.
• Then we have secondary reinforcers.
• Secondary reinforcement refers to a situation in which a stimulus reinforces a behavior after it has been associated with a primary reinforcer. * Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• Categories Of Reinforcement
• These are a bit more complicated.
• Money is an example of a secondary reinforcer; money can be used to reinforce behaviors because it can be used to acquire primary reinforcers, such as food, clothing and shelter.
• Consequences such as praise, money and feelings of success are examples of secondary reinforcers.
• Secondary reinforcement is also known as 'conditioned reinforcement'.
• Intrinsic And Extrinsic Reinforcement
• There are also intrinsic and extrinsic reinforcers. * Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• Intrinsic And Extrinsic Reinforcement
• Extrinsic reinforcers come from the outside environment.
• These include things like praise, money, 'stickers' and are often observable and tangible, as opposed to intrinsic reinforcers, in which the reinforcement comes from oneself.
• For example, simply enjoying an activity or having a desire to learn more information is intrinsic reinforcement.
• Exercise could be an example of both extrinsic and intrinsic reinforcement; if a person exercises in order to change their appearance (i.e. to become more muscular or lose weight), then they are being reinforced extrinsically.
• However, if that individual exercises to simply reap the benefits of increased endorphins and overall well-being, that is intrinsically reinforced. * Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• Positive And Negative Reinforcement
• Now that you know there are different types of reinforcement, we're going to talk about three types that you need to become familiar with.
• First, let's take a look at positive reinforcement.
• Positive reinforcement is a reinforcing consequence that increases the likelihood of the behavior.
• These can include praise, food, money and intrinsic reinforcement.
• Negative reinforcement is the strengthening of a behavior because something negative or unpleasant is removed from the situation, or in other words, the situation is escaped or avoided.
• For example, you leave the house early in order to avoid getting stuck in traffic and being late for work. * Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• Positive And Negative Reinforcement
• Another example is you do your homework to prevent getting in trouble with the teacher the next day.
• By eliminating undesirable outcomes, the preventative behaviors become more likely to occur again in the future.
• Many psychology students are under the mistake conception that negative reinforcement means something bad will happen to the person as the result of a behavior.
• But remember, it is NOT something bad happening, it is THE REMOVAL OF A BAD OUTCOME BY CHANGING THAT BEHAVIOR!
• Both positive and negative reinforcement strengthen the behavior. * Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• Positive And Negative Reinforcement
• In positive reinforcement, a stimulus is presented, and in negative reinforcement, a stimulus is removed.
• This is a very important concept.
• Negative reinforcement is often confused with punishment, but it is not.
• Punishment is a consequence that decreases the frequency of the response it follows. Okay, did you catch that?
• Punishment decreases the response.
• Punishment can involve the presentation of an unpleasant stimulus, such as a classroom teacher giving a student more homework as punishment for bad behavior, or the removal of pleasant stimulus.
• For example, a student loses recess privileges for three days because they failed to turn in their homework.
* Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• In the Classroom
• How can teachers shape the behavior of their students?
• We are going to not only discover how a pigeon learned how to bowl, but we will also study the steps required to shape complex acts into continuous behaviors.
• Have you ever tried to teach a dog to roll over?
• First, you might reward the dog each time it sits.
• Then, you might reward it when it lies down.
• Finally, you reward the dog only when it performs the motion of rolling all the way over.
• You have intuitively shaped the dog's behavior. * Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• In the Classroom
• Shaping Overview
• Shaping is the process of reinforcing successfully closer and closer approximations to a desired terminal behavior.
• The shaping of behavior starts at an early age.
• For example, a child learns to pull itself up, to stand, to walk and to finally move about through reinforcement of slightly exceptional instances of behaviors.
• Walking doesn't necessarily come naturally to a child, but through subtle reinforcements of being able to reach a toy or move more independently, the child's behavior is shaped.
• The behaviorist B. F. Skinner was an important researcher for the behavior analyst model of discipline and shaping student behavior through reinforcement. * Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• In the Classroom
• Shaping Overview
• Skinner first researched the behavioral processes of shaping by trying to teach a pigeon to bowl.
• The desired outcome was that of a swiping of a wooden ball by the beak of the bird so the ball was sent down a miniature alley toward a set of toy pins.
• That process involved a carefully designed series of discriminative stimuli and reinforcements for subtle changes in response referred to as a program.
• In order for shaping to be successful, it is important to clearly define the behavioral objective and target behavior, and to know when to deliver or withhold reinforcement. * Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• In the Classroom
• Steps In The Shaping Process
• There are specific steps to follow in the process of shaping behaviors.
1. Reinforce any response that in some way resembles the terminal behavior.
2. Reinforce the response that closely approximates the terminal behavior (no longer reinforcing the previous reinforced response).
3. Reinforce the response that resembles the terminal behavior even more closely.
4. Continue reinforcing closer and closer approximations to the terminal behavior * Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• In the Classroom
• Steps In The Shaping Process
• There are specific steps to follow in the process of shaping behaviors.
5. Reinforce only the terminal behavior
• Let's look at this step-by-step process with the bowling pigeon example.
• First, you would reinforce the pigeon each time it approached the bowling ball.
• Then we would withhold reinforcement until the pigeon's beak made contact with the ball. * Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• In the Classroom
• Steps In The Shaping Process
• After initial reinforcement for contact, we would withhold the reinforcement until the pigeon sideswipes the ball with its beak.
• We would continue to reinforce behaviors that led to the terminal behavior.
• Finally, we would only reward the pigeon when it has sent the ball down the alley toward the pins.
• Skinner referred to the process of continually reinforcing refinements as reinforcing successive approximations. * Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning
• In the Classroom
• Steps In The Shaping Process
• Skinner felt shaping was effective because it is sensitive to the continuous nature of a complex act and it illustrates the utility of constructing complex behavior by the continual process of differential reinforcement.
• Importance Of Shaping In The Classroom
• Shaping can generate complex behaviors that have almost a zero probability of occurring naturally in the final form.
• Really, how many pigeons do you see bowling in a natural setting?
• Shaping also differs from other behavioral modifications such as problem-solving situations like puzzles and mazes.