Positive Reinforcement Analysis

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Like most normal people, I do not particularly enjoy working out. What I do enjoy, however, is binge watching television shows on Netflix. Unfortunately, laying in my bed watching hours of Shameless (the current TV show I am obsessed with) does not burn calories or tone my body. Therefore, my desired behavior is to workout daily for 45 minutes. To help achieve that behavior, I can utilize positive reinforcement, a form of operant conditioning. Positive reinforcement increases the chances of me working out by adding a pleasant stimulus, which is allowing myself to watch an episode of Shameless after I am done with my workout. Positive reinforcement is more likely to help me form a workout schedule because I reward myself after I finish with something pleasant and …show more content…

I know that if I just get through that 45 minutes I can happily leave the gym and return to my Netflix addiction. This is an example of a continuous learning schedule. This means that the reinforcement (an episode of Shameless) comes after every instance of the behavior (45 minutes at the gym daily). Every single day when I leave the gym, I know that right when I get home, I get to pull out my laptop and watch an episode of Shameless. It is good to use this schedule especially when learning a new behavior because the more frequent the reinforcement, the more frequent the behavior. Another aspect I employ when using positive reinforcement is called the Premack Principle. The principle states that a more frequent behavior can reinforce a less frequent behavior. In my case, the more frequent behavior would be watching Netflix, which I have been doing for years. The less frequent behavior would be working out for 45 minutes daily, which I have honestly never done before. The reward for completing the behavior I prefer less is the behavior I am interested in the

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