Operant conditioning Flashcards
What is its learning down to?
Down to the consequences of behaviour through reinforcement and punishment
What does positive reinforcement refer to?
Anything which is rewarding to the individual and therefore strengthens the learned behaviour
What is positive reinforcement?
When the required behaviour is rewarded with something pleasant which strengthens the behaviour
Example of positive reinforcement?
Skinners box where he rewarded the animals for pressing the lever with a food pellet
what are the 2 types of Positive reinforcement?
- Primary reinforcer
- Secondary reinforcer
What is a primary reinforcer?
Such as food and water which fulfil a basic need so strengthen behaviour
What is a secondary reinforcer?
- Something that rienforcers behaviour because it has been associated with a primary reinforcer
- In skinners box the click sounded each time the rat received food for pressing the lever the click may become a secondary reinforcer
- Money would be one for humans
- Stickers adding up to win food could be one
What is negative reinforcement?
- Also strengthens behaviour but involves something unpleasant being removed
- removal of unpleasant stimulus to encourage a certain behaviour
- Skinner would run a small electric current along the bottom of the box until the lever was pressed
What is punishment?
An unpleasant consequence give to stop a behaviour
-Skinner used punishment to stop the rat pressing the lever passing an electrical shock through the floor of the box every time the animal pressed the lever making it unlikely to do it again
What happened in skinner?
- he placed rats or pigeons into a specially designed box and trained them to show specific behaviours
- they had to press or peck the lever to obtain food
- he demonstrated that it is possible to shape an animals behaviour by rewarding behaviours close to the required one for instance he rewarded them whenever they went anywhere near the lever and would eventually accidently press it
What is reinforcement?
-anything that will increase the probability that a required behaviour would be repeated again in a similar circumstance (Told a joke and someone laughed)
