Operant Conditioning Theory In Psychology

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An infant whom I have observed was a 2-year-old boy. When both naturalistic and structured observations took place at 5pm at the infant’s house, at his playroom filled with his toys and books, he was with his mother who is 32 years old. During the naturalistic observation, the infant and the mother played with a bead maze, which is made of a variety of colors, shapes, and textures. During the play, the infant sat close to his mother and stayed calm and focused when running one bead from one end of the wire to the other. Although successfully moving the beads along the wire from one side to the other is a simple task, the mother continuously praised the infant, encouraging the infant to repeat his actions. This demonstrated operant conditioning theory, which involves …show more content…

Furthermore, secure attachment was observed when the infant did not hesitate to ask his mother for help when the beads got caught in the wire because Tharner et al. (2012) suggested that since securely attached children use their mental representation of a parent being available when needed to cope with distress, they are capable of dealing with stress. In addition, parental sensitivity, which is the most essential factor in promoting secure attachment, was also observed. For example, the mother often smiled back at the smiling infant, and even when the infant spoke words that made completely no sense, the mother sympathetically reacted and responded to the child. Moreover, when the mother left the room, the infant did not get anxious or irritated. This behavior that I have observed is consistent with what I know about development at this age because according to Bowlby’s attachment theory, from 2 years on, most infants show a decline in separation anxiety (Dallaire & Weinraub, 2006), due to reciprocal relationships in which the infants show cognitive and language abilities to understand their parents’ feelings and goals.

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