Edward Thorndike best known for his theory of law of effect on how cats escape from a puzzle box in 1898 was the first psychologist to study the consequences of behavior. Thorndike used cats and dogs. Thorndike put together what he called a puzzle box. The idea was that the cat has to get through the maze by doing different puzzles such as step on a lever or hit a lever with their tail. At the end of the puzzle box the cat or dog would receive a bowel of food for getting out. Thorndike would do this several times and time each animal to see how fast they can do the course each time. The cats would learn to escape from the puzzle box, however only when there was only one response. (Jr, 1998)
Thorndike came to the conclusion that “the puzzle
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Skinner is known as the father of operant conditioning, his theory comes from Thorndike’s theory of Law of Effect. In 1938 Skinner sparked the term operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is “A process of behavior modification in which a subject is encouraged to behave in a desired manner through positive or negative reinforcement, so that the subject comes to associate the pleasure or displeasure of the reinforcement with the behavior” (Dictionary.com, 2014). Skinner in his theory testing used a box that he referred to as the Skinner box, which was similar to the puzzle box that Thorndike used.
Skinner designed a box as a chamber that consists of a key or a bar that pigeons can press to achieve food and/or water; this is considered as reinforcement. Skinner then added a machine that would record the pigeon’s responses and how many times they received food or water. Sometimes the offered other stimuli to be given such as mages, light and sound, in some chambers the floor was wired to give of electric shocks. As skinner referred to the box as the Skinner box it was used as a controlled environment and it also helped Skinner and his researches to figure out the schedule of reinforcement had the highest rate of response. (Iversen,
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Bandura held an experiment what is known at the Bobo Doll experiment using seventy two children all together thirty six boys and thirty six girls ranging from the ages of three to six. Bandura broke the children up into three different groups. Group A consisted of twelve boy and twelve girls, they watched a male and female hit, punch, and kick the Bobo doll. Group B consisted of another twelve boys and twelve girls watched a male and female play nice with the Bobo dole. However group C that consisted of twelve boys and twelve girls did not watch either. Each group was put in another room that was filled with toys, games, and a Bobo doll for twenty minutes. Group A when in the room imitated what they saw the other male and female doing to the Bobo doll such as hitting and kicking the doll for no reason. Group B and Group C where fine and played nice with BoBo. (Albert Bandura, 1963)
Bandura came to the conclusion that when a child is exposed to aggression in any form they will react on this, imitation goes a long way and with young children see the will imitate. This experiment has been done multiple times over the years using different methods using music, fight movies, and videogames. Each experiment comes to the same conclusion that Bandura has come up
According to Gewirtz and Peláez-Nogueras (1992), “B. F. Skinner contributed a great deal to advancing an understanding of basic psychological processes and to the applications of science-based interventions to problems of individual and social importance.” He contributed to “human and nonhuman behavior, including human behavioral development, and to various segments of the life span, including human infancy” (p. 1411). One of Skinner's greatest scientific discoveries was “single reinforcement” which became sufficient for “operant conditioning, the role of extinction in the discovery of intermittent schedules, the development of the method of shaping by successive approximation, and Skinner's break with and rejection of stimulus-response psychology” (Iversen, 1992, p. 1318).
At Harvard, B.F. Skinner looked for a more objective and restrained way to study behavior. Most of his theories were based on self-observation, which influenced him to become a enthusiast for behaviorism. Much of his “self-observed” theories stemmed from Thorndike’s Puzzle Box, a direct antecedent to Skinner’s Box. He developed an “operant conditioning apparatus” to do this, which is also known as the Skinner box. The Skinner box also had a device that recorded each response provided by the animal as well as the unique schedule of reinforcement that the animal was assigned. The design of Skinner boxes can vary ...
Bandura’s social cognitive theory, relates to the way Student A acts. Bandura’s theory focuses on observational learning like imitating and modeling, which Student A does through out the days I have observed. When the teacher teaches her how to say a word, student A imitates the lip movement and sounds the teacher makes. “People acquire a wide range of behaviors, thought, and feelings through observing others’ behaviors and that these observations form an important part of children’s development” (Santrock, 2010, p. 31). As I observed Student A, I saw how she always focused on what the teacher was doing, she would do exactly what the teacher was doing, on my fourth observation, when they were doing math, student A was doing exactly
In the beginning of the article the author stated that the father of operant conditioning was B.F. Skinner. Skinner introduced the concept of reinforcement. Reinforcement was when something was given or taken to increase the likelihood of a certain
...ss to the field of behavioral psychology, he did face some criticism regarding the reliability of his experiments. Psychologists who do not support Skinner’s work claim that his research using rats and pigeons does not translate into human behavior. Many people believe that the human mind is much more complex than that of small animals. It is common among those in the psychology field to believe that reinforcement and rewards are not the only causes of behavior.
To explain this concept, social cognitive and social learning theories are needed. According to these theories, people learn not only from their own actions, but also from the environment. For example, the child tends to follow and show analogous behavior with their parents. Likewise, media can provide information when we organize our perceptions of reality. Albert Bandura, who is a pioneer of the theory, he published Bobo dolls study in 1963 to determine if watching aggressive action on film caused the children to imitate the behavior displayed by the film characters in real-life situations (Albert, Dorothea, and Shella A. 1963). He made the child watch how the adult treat the Bobo doll. The adult showed aggressive behavior and used verbally aggressive phrases. They punched, kicked, sit on it, and threw down on the floor. After showing these behaviors, they left the laboratory. The result was that the children, who left in the laboratory alone, showed exactly same aggressive behaviors with the adult. The experiment means that the child observe what other do, save it in memory and imitate the behavior that what they watched. In other words, media can be one of a model that the children follow as if they act like the adult after watching their aggressive
1984 best reflects the behavioral studies of B.F. Skinner for operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is “the behavior is followed by a consequence, and the nature of the consequence modifies the organism’s tendency to repeat the behavior in the future.” Skinner created an operant chamber, better known as the Skinner Box, which observed how rats responded to this conditioning and how, in relation, it could be applied to humans and not just animals. Skinner discovered that in giving rewards to the rat for pushing a lever on the other side of the box, the rat was encouraged to do it more for the same response. However, when Skinner put an electric shock on the rat when it had pushed down on the lever, he saw that the rat was discouraged to do it again in order to avoid the punishment of being shocked. This concept is what Skinner called “reinforcement”. Reinforcement is considered “any event that strengthens or increases the frequency of a preceding response.” Nevertheless, there are two types of reinforcement: positive an...
The idea that people learn from one another through observations, modeling, and imitation has been identified as the theory of social learning. Psychologist, Albert Bandura, proclaims that human personality is an interaction between the environment and the mental processes of the individual. To test this theory, Bandura established that children can learn a social behavior such as aggression simply by observing the modeled behavior of another person. Physically aggressive children acquire aggressive tendencies by how their parents have disciplined them. If screaming, slapping, beating, etc., is evident, children are likely to mimic such behaviors and this has the potential for escalated abuse and essentially, violence begets violence. This theory also infers the influence media violence on
Skinner believed that all behavior is determined and operant behavior is the idea that operant behavior is the idea that we expect something because we preformed a certain behavior. Skinner also believed that operant conditioning’s purpose was to bring a change positive or or negative to any behavior.
Bandura discusses the importance of observational learning. Bandura focuses mostly on how kids develop their habits based of their role models. Bandura shows this in the Bobo Doll Experiment. The Bobo Doll experiment consisted of 36 boys and 36 girls. They were then separated again into watching a video of a plastic doll called Bobo. Some children were separated by some adults aggressively beating up Bobo and the other half were calm adults. After they were showed the video, the kids were then shown to Bobo and the results matched the Social Learning Theory to the max. The kids that were show the aggressive videos were aggressive towards Bobo. Another Social Learning Theory can be told in my shoes because I have done something similar. I remember in fifth grade my older cousin would always ride his bike down the biggest hill without a helmet. I figured if he did and was okay, why can’t I? I learned the hard way and sliced my arm on a rock. Luckily I did not need stitches however, I did go to the doctors and got ointment for it. I still have the scar today. I feel like the Social Learning Theory has made an impact on my life because I have had the opportunity of having a role model. This role model has made a positive change to my life. Similar to Bobo, I have seen what negative role models have done for a person and how much it affects
What is Skinner’s Operant Conditioning? Skinner was the first to discuss operant conditioning. McLead (2007) explained that an operant condition means that using reinforcements given after a desired response could change behavior. There were three types of responses that can follow the behavior. Neutral operants, reinforces, and punishers were the three types of responses. According to McLead (2007), Skinner invented a box with levers and lights to test his theory. He placed a hungry rat inside where the rat learned to press the levels for different responses. One level would give it a piece of food and the rat would not receive food when the light was off. This box demonstrated the shaping of behaviors through operant conditioning.
The aim of the box was to teach the rat in the box to press the lever by giving him food when he did. After spending some time inside the box, the rat realized that pressing the lever would bring him food, the reinforcement Skinner used. This experiment revealed another type of learning called operant conditioning, in which behavior is acquired because of the desired (or despised) consequences of the action. Operant conditioning is another confirmation that our brain determines our actions rather than our conscious control because the learning happens only because the results are somewhat pushing one to do the
Skinner designed an experiment to test operant conditioning, known as a ‘Skinner box’ (Gross 2005). In the box, animals, such as rats, would be conditioned into certain behaviour. For example, by pressing a lever to receive food (Gross 2005).
A Bobo doll was introduced into a room where the kids were playing and the Bobo doll was subjected to three different kinds of behavior that the children were made to witness. In the aggressive model, the adult role model attacked the Bobo doll. Sometimes they used hammers and sometimes they “threw the doll up in the air and shouted “Pow, Boom”” (McLeod, 2011.) In the non-aggressive model, the adult role model ignored the Bobo doll and played in a restrained manner. In the control group, the children played by themselves and were left to do whatever they wanted. Out of the 24 kids who were shown the aggressive model, 6 boys and 6 girls were shown a female model performing the aggressive action and 6 boys and 6 girls were shown a male model doing the same act. Of the 24 that saw the non-aggressive role model, again 6 boys and 6 girls were exposed to a female model and 6 boys and 6 girls were exposed to a male model. The 24 children of the control group were exposed to neither female nor male models. It is important to note that all the children were induced to a “mild aggression arousal” (McLeod, 2011.) The children were allowed to play with a couple of toys and as soon as they made a selection, it was taken away from them and were told that those toys were meant for the other
When Skinner turned 24, he attended graduate school at Harvard University. As a Psychology student, he teamed up with Physiology Professor, William Crozier. Together, they began to study the relationship between behavior and experimental conditions. During his time at Harvard, Skinner conducted many experiments using rats (B.F.Skinner Foundation, 2002). Skinner’s findings made him “the most influential psychologist of the 20th century” (Roblyer,2003, p.57).