Operant Conditioning: Skinner's Personality Development

Raising a young ten year old child to develop a personality that includes having a good work ethic, caring towards others, and a sense of responsibility can seem like a difficult task for a young parent. However, Skinner’s principles of operant conditioning can be effectively implemented, even from birth, to help parents influence their child’s personality development. Effective and ethical use of operant conditioning, schedule of reinforcement, and other behavioral concepts can help parents shape the behaviors of their children throughout their childhood.

Operant Conditioning First of all, operant conditioning is often considered an effective method of shaping the behaviors of children and has concepts that are often taught to teaching professionals. Operant conditioning refers to the process of changing consequences of response, or behavior, to dictate how often that response or behavior

Reinforcements that include physical harm, mental harm, or encourage delinquent or harmful behaviors should never be implemented as the negative consequences of those reinforcements heavily outweigh the potential positive consequences. Physical harm includes spanking children or even beating them when they act undesirably. Mental harm can also occur from physical abuse, but constantly berating a child for undesirable behavior is likely to harm their self-esteem. Encouraging children to engage in addicting behaviors such as alcohol consumption or smoking to fit in, or encouraging dangerous behavior such as speeding when driving is likely to lead to hardships later in life or even death at a young age. The end goal of parenting should be to help children develop in healthy, well-adjusted, and ethical adults and using operant conditioning with their best interests in mind is the most effective way to ensure that goal is