Psychology Assignment: Behaviorism, Conditioning, and Reinforcement

This psychology assignment delves into the concepts of operant and classical conditioning. It explains the principles of reinforcement, including positive and negative reinforcement, and how they influence behavior. The assignment discusses how operant conditioning, as described by B.F. Skinner, involves changing behavior through rewards and punishments. It provides a practical example of applying operant conditioning to a roommate's goal of losing weight, detailing the use of both primary and secondary reinforcers. The assignment also contrasts operant conditioning with classical learning and discusses different reinforcement schedules, emphasizing the importance of a high response rate and a moderate extinction rate, and suggesting the use of Fixed Ratio Reinforcement for optimal learning outcomes. The paper references relevant psychological studies and texts to support its arguments and explanations.

Running Head: psychology
psychology assignment
Operant and classical conditioning

Psychology 1
6.1 Psychology Assignment
Operant conditioning was discovered by BF Skinner which is based on Thorndike's (1905) law
of effect. He introduced a new term by the name of Reinforcement (Law of Effect). Behavior is
called strengthened when it is reinforced; behavior called weakened when it is not reinforced.
B.F. Skinner brainstorms the operant conditioning term which means changing of behavior with
the use of reinforcement given after the coveted result. McLeod, S. A. (2007).
He has developed three types of responses as follows:
1. Reinforcers: Responses that increases the probability of behavior of being repeated.
There can be positive or negative reinforcers.
2. Neutral Operants: Responses that never increase or decrease from the probability of
behavior.
3. Punishers: Responses that decreases the behavior of being repeated. Basically, it weakens
the behavior.
"If a tone sounds, food is likely to follow."- By Pavlov's
Operant behavior is a process of rewarding and punishing the behavior as per requirement. For
the healthy eating and doing exercise and to achieve his goal to increase the chance of making
the football team, my roommate should have reward himself for doing good practices which are
in favor of losing weight. In spite of setting new rules, I suggested him to make a set goals before
heading. For example, let's say he should set a goal of losing three pounds weight in a week in
prescribed manner that is by following particular diet chart and doing a workout when he set a
goal for a week then he can take a day off and can lay on the couch without doing anything. This
process is known as positive reinforcement; basically there are two types of reinforcement

Psychology 2
positive and negative in positive there is a reward, and in negative reinforcement, punishment is
there, which gives him something to look forward other things and something to seek it. This
makes the learner repeat the behavior again as he knew that he could enjoy after as he can take a
whole day off and being lazy on the couch. This is known as primary reinforcement. But if he
fails to lose three pound weight minimum in a week then he would skip out of something
rewarding like sweets or chocolates after dinner for one night, he would get after he loses a three
pound weight in a week which is called as secondary reinforcement which comes after primary
reinforcement or which is connected with primary reinforcement only. (Wolf, M et al..1963)
Operant conditioning is different from classical learning as the learner is teaching himself
independently which an opposite of learning from dependency behavior is.
Behaviorists have discovered different schedules reinforcement which had a different effect on
the speed of learning. In this there are two types of rate one is response rate and the second one is
extinction rate. In this situation learner should follow that schedule in which response rate is fast
i.e. learner should work hard, and the extinction rate is medium i.e. how soon the learner gave
up. The learner should adopt Fixed Ratio Reinforcement. Fixed Ratio Reinforcement refers to
giving after a fixed time interval providing at least one reward for the correct response in this
response rate.

Psychology 3
REFERENCES
Wade, C., & Tavris, C. (2011). Invitation to psychology. Pearson Higher Ed.
Weiss, S. J. (1972). Stimulus compounding in free-operant and classical conditioning: A review
and analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 78(3), 189.
Wolf, M., Risley, T., & Mees, H. (1963). Application of operant conditioning procedures to the
behavior problems of an autistic child. Behavior Research and Therapy, 1(2), 305-312.