Operant Stressing: What Is Operant Conditioning?

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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 …show more content…

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

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