My roommate has a bad tendency of “pulling all-nighters” in order to complete assignments at the last minute and cram for exams that are scheduled the next day. This has become a habit that is stressing and tends to lead to negative outcomes, such as a lack of sleep and being unable to learn material effectively. However, there is one way to stop this unhealthy habit. How you may ask? With a little something I like to call, operant conditioning.
What is operant conditioning? Operant conditioning is the type of learning that involves associating a voluntary response and a (good or bad) consequence. With operant conditioning, there are two types of schedules of reinforcement: continuous and partial. Continuous involves always reinforcing the
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My roommate loves to watch Netflix (why do you think she leaves her work for last minute?), especially starting addicting shows. In this case, I would add Netflix as a reward to increase my roommate’s completion of assignments before bed time. I will start a new show with her, rewarding her with an episode (or two) every day after she finishes her assignments and studies for at least an hour each day. Positive reinforcement would be appropriate in this case because adding something she enjoys to do will cause her to willingly start doing her work earlier. Alternatively, I can also use a positive punishment approach, which decreases the probability that the preceding action will be repeated in the future by adding something to change behavior. The positive punishment would decrease the amount of times she “pulls an all-nighter.” One possible positive punishment I can implement would be to make my roommate take out the trash every time she stays up doing homework or studying for an exam. Since taking out the …show more content…
This approach focuses on the social and cultural influences on behavior and mental processes. If it was not for my suggestion to watch Netflix, my roommate would have kept staying up at night to do her work. My social influence on her will make her change her behavior, causing her to associate completing her work with being able to watch an episode of a Netflix show with me. As a result, I hypothesize that if I suggest to watch Netflix every time she finishes her assignments, she will do her work during the day time and will avoid pulling all-nighters. In order to see if my hypothesis is correct, I will have to test it by using an experimental research method. By using this kind of method, I would establish a cause and effect to see if suggesting to watch Netflix every time she completes her work (independent variable) will cause her do complete her work earlier (dependent variable). The independent variable is what is manipulated and the dependent variable is the outcome. Furthermore, for one week I will ask her to watch Netflix after she finishes her assignments to see if that will cause her to finish her work earlier. The following week, I will skip a day of asking her to watch Netflix with me to observe whether she will pull an
“Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior” (Cherry). Positive reinforcement which is praising a person for doing something good verses negative reinforcement which is an unpleasant remark a punishment. B.F. Skinner did an experiment on a rat, the rat was taught to push two buttons, one to receive food and the other was a light electric shock. The rat tried both buttons and realized which button was good and which one was bad. This experiment goes to show that upon the rewards and punishment system one can learn their rights from their wrongs through a series of lessons. Kincaid and Hemingway both use operant conditioning to show human behavior under stimulus control.
Operant conditioning is a kind of conditioning, which examines how often a behavior will or occur depending on the effects of the behavior (King, 2016, pg. ). The words positive and negative are used to apply more significance to the words reinforcement or punishment. Positive is adding to the stimulus, while negative is removing from the stimulus (King, 2016). For instance, with positive reinforcement, there is the addition of a factor to increase the number of times that the behavior occurs (King, 2016). An example of positive reinforcement is when a child is given an allowance for completing their household chores. The positive reinforcement is the allowance which helps to increase the behavior of doing chores at home. In contrast with negative
Operant conditioning is when your behavior is based on consequences. If Zane has never been praised for playing his oboe well, then he might not be as confident as if he had been complimented. If he has gotten compliments from playing before then he is expected to do better during his evaluation.
Most of the things we daily perform are due to habits. Experts in psychology have suggested several theories to explain the process in which humans and animals shape such habits. Among those theories are classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning. As humans it is almost inevitable to fall into bad habits, either consciously or unconsciously. Fortunately science has demonstrated that we can change or modifying unwanted behaviors through conditioning, (Whitbourne, 2012). Operational conditioning underlines how a behavior is strengthened or weakened by the use of rewards or punishments; shaping, modeling, and extinction are some of the techniques utilized to achieve these behavioral alterations, (Cherry, n.d.). Key points to consider for effective behavior modification are: clear identification of behavior to change, the use self-control, and punishments or reinforcements, (Cherry, n.d.; Selig, 2012). This paper shows how operant conditioning has been effective modifying behaviors either by rewards, extinction, or shaping.
The first systematic study regarding operant conditioning was taken place in the 1800’s by the Psychologist, Thorndike. Thorndike formally defined operant conditioning as a type of learning that is controlled by the consequences of an organism’s behavior. However according to lecture, operant conditioning can be simply thought as performing an action in order to receive a reward. Operant conditioning can be useful when trying to deal with procrastination, increase efficacy of teaching, or to improve motivation. Therefore, operant conditioning can be used as a behavioral modification program to devise a more specific weight loss program to increase the roommate’s chances of making it on the football team. The program will include the following
The two main forms of conditioning, are classical conditioning (learning by association), and operant condition (learning from consequences).Classical conditioning, is the learning process in which one is conditioned (learns) to respond to a neutral stimulus as if it were a meaningful stimulus. In operant conditioning, learning occurs through associations made between a behavior and the consequence that follows.
There are many bad habits these days and the most serious one for me is stay up late all the time and not energetic enough in the morning. This behavior is called sleep procrastination. Just as the words from the researchers at Utrecht University, “pre-bed procrastination is the latest diagnosable strain of mismanaged time, stopping us from shutting off when we should and causing us to fritter away valuable snoozing opportunities on unnecessary tasks.” Indeed, such tiny behavior has already spread out the entire campus and wastes energy and time. Therefore, trying to correct this behavior by using psychological ways, I decided to use operant conditioning, the process of associating
Operant conditioning, which is called instrumental conditioning; similar to ontogenetic selection (B.F. Skinner), is a type of learning to obtain an achieved behavior as goal-oriented; strengthens behavior through rewards or punishments. These rewards and punishments that control behaviors are antecedents (discriminative stimuli) signaling those consequences. All life forms strive for goal-oriented conditioning The bacterium finds its way, somewhat inefficiently, up a chemical gradient; the dog begs for a bone; the politician reads the polls to guide his campaign (Wikipedia). The examples given are known as ontogenetic selection that is guided by consequences through a lifeform 's life.
In order to be the best, he knew he had to work for it. It soon becomes a regular occasion for everyone is say goodnight and leave my brother downstairs hovering over a computer in the living room trying to finish his homework so that he may even get an ounce of sleep. It becomes even more common to wake up began getting ready for school, only to discover him downstairs still typing away on the computer. At first, I blamed it on his organizing skills and choose to believe that if he didn’t procrastinate so much he wouldn’t be up all night trying to complete assignments that were given two days ago. It all came to halt when I noticed the due data of one particular assignment. The paper carried bright bold lettering on the top stating that the assignment wasn’t until another three class periods. Why was he choosing to pull an all-nighter now rather than working on it periodically? When I later questioned him, it all began to make sense. Realizing that he was going to be very busy the next couple of days he had chosen to lose sleep now rather than later. On top of that, with a number of AP classes he is taking, he is required to complete five AP assignments over the course of two days. The workload had become so familiar to him that experiencing regular all-nighters every other day had become a natural habit. Don’t believe he was aware himself
For example, a mother’s 11th grade son wakes up late every day for school which results in him missing the bus. To properly study this behavior, the mother will have to develop a consequence if the young man wakes up late and misses the bus. If he begins to improve his behavior, we then know that that the consequence was effective.
In order to develop a fixed negative reinforcement schedule, I divided my cigarettes into groups allowing myself only three cigarettes a day. I placed my daily ration of cigarettes into envelopes and labeled them for each day of the week. I smoked one cigarette after lunch, one after dinner, and one later at night. I would reward myself with a cigarette after attending classes and eating lunch. I would then reward myself with another cigarette after homework and dinner. Through the course of my week, I violated my regimen only twice. On Wednesday and Friday, I “bummed’ a cigarette from one of my friends. After feeling guilty about violating my regimen, I repented for hours, and swore to myself that I was going to beat my addiction. Primary negative reinforcers also helped me stick with the plan such as improved stamina during physical exercise and more money in my pocket.
2011, p281). Regardless of their differences or similarities however, both have played an important part in the study of learning. With operant conditioning allowing to condition more complex behaviours that can be done with classical conditioning, and with classical conditioning being what helped discover operant conditioning in the first place, it can be argued here that the two are complementary. Indeed, one cannot speak of operant conditioning without mentioning classical conditioning, and vice
Operant conditioning is a system of learning that transpires through punishment and rewards for behaviors (Kalat, 2011). Through this, a connection linking a behavior and a consequence is made. For instance a kid could be told that she will not get recess privileges if she talks in class. This possibility of being punished leads to decrease in disruptive behaviors from her. The major components of operant condition are punishment and reinforcement (Kalat, 2011).
In operant conditioning, there is an association between an individual’s behavior and its consequence. A consequence can either be reinforcement or punishment (233). Positive and negative reinforcements will increase the behavior. When an individual is reinforced, they will continue to repeat the behavior to receive the reinforcement again. Punishment, on the other hand, will decrease the behavior. If an individual is punished after a particular behavior, they will behave that way less often to avoid the punishment.
In contrast to classical conditioning, operant conditioning, discovered by B.F Skinner, is a learning process that involves either an increase or decrease in some behavior as a result of consequences (Amabile, 1985). Operant conditioning attempts to elicit new behavior through use of reinforcers and punishments.