Download Operant Conditioning (BF Skinner)

Behaviourism
Behavioural (or "behavioral") theory in psychology is a very substantial field: follow the
links to the left or right for introductions to some of its more detailed contributions
impinging on how people learn in the real world. How I have the effrontery to produce a
single page on it amazes even me, whatever my reservations about it!
Behaviourism is primarily associated with Pavlov (classical conditioning) in Russia and
with Thorndike, Watson and particularly Skinner in the United States (operant
conditioning).
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Behaviourism is dominated by the constraints of its (naïve) attempts to
emulate the physical sciences, which entails a refusal to speculate about
what happens inside the organism. Anything which relaxes this
requirement slips into the cognitive realm.
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Much behaviourist experimentation is undertaken with animals and
generalised.
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In educational settings, behaviourism implies the dominance of the
teacher, as in behaviour modification programmes. It can, however, be
applied to an understanding of unintended learning.
For our purposes, behaviourism is relevant mainly to:
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Skill development, and
The "substrate" (or "conditions", as Gagné puts it) of learning
Classical conditioning:
is the process of reflex learning—investigated by Pavlov—through which an
unconditioned stimulus (e.g. food) which produces an unconditioned response
(salivation) is presented together with a conditioned stimulus (a bell), such that the
salivation is eventually produced on the presentation of the conditioned stimulus alone,
thus becoming a conditioned response.
This is a disciplined account of our common-sense experience of learning by association
(or "contiguity", in the jargon), although that is often much more complex than a reflex
process, and is much exploited in advertising. Note that it does not depend on us doing
anything.
Such associations can be chained and generalised (for better of for worse): thus "smell
of baking" associates with "kitchen at home in childhood" associates with "love and
care". (Smell creates potent conditioning because of the way it is perceived by the
brain.) But "sitting at a desk" associates with "classroom at school" and hence perhaps
with "humiliation and failure"...
This site goes further into Watson's ideas, beyond Pavlov, and the "Little Albert" experiment.
Operant Conditioning
If, when an organism emits a behaviour (does something), the consequences of that
behaviour are reinforcing, it is more likely to emit (do) it again. What counts as
reinforcement, of course, is based on the evidence of the repeated behaviour, which
makes the whole argument rather circular.
Learning is really about the increased probability of a behaviour based on reinforcement
which has taken place in the past, so that the antecedents of the new behaviour
include the consequences of previous behaviour.
Summary of Skinner's ideas On operant conditioning Skinner's own account Wikipedia on operant
conditioning And here with diagrams of experimental set-ups and video
The schedule of reinforcement of behaviour is central to the management of effective
learning on this basis, and working it out is a very skilled procedure: simply reinforcing
every instance of desired behaviour is just bribery, not the promotion of learning.
Withdrawal of reinforcement eventually leads to the extinction of the behaviour, except
in some special cases such as anticipatory-avoidance learning.
Notes
Two points are often misunderstood in relation to behaviourism and human learning:
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The scale: Although later modifications of behaviourism are known as S-OR theories (Stimulus-Organism-Response), recognising that the organism's (in this
case, person's) abilities and motivations need to be taken into account, undiluted
behaviourism is concerned with conditioning and mainly with reflex behaviour.
This operates on a very short time-scale — from second to second, or at most
minute to minute — on very specific micro-behaviour. To say that a course is
behaviourally-based because there is the reward of a qualification at the end is
stretching the idea too far.
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Its descriptive intention: Perhaps because behaviourists describe experiments in
which they structure learning for their subjects, attention tends to fall on ideas such
as behaviour modification and the technology of behaviourism. However,
behaviourism itself is more about a description of how [some forms of] learning
occur in the wild, as it were, than about how to make it happen, and it is when it is
approached from this perspective that it gets most interesting. It accounts
elegantly, for example, for ways in which attempts to discipline unruly students
actually make the situation worse rather than better.
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(This point is heretical!) For human beings, reinforcement has two components,
because the information may be cognitively processed: in many cases the "reward"
element is less significant than the "feedback" information carried by the
reinforcement.
Applied to the theory of teaching, behaviourism's main manifestation is "instructional
technology" and its associated approaches: click below for useful guides.
For practical illustration of reinforcement as feedback, look here. Instructional Design & Learning Theory
(Mergel 1998) Gagné's model as an example of instructional technology
Online accessed 2-12-10 at http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/behaviour.htm
Operant Conditioning (B.F. Skinner)
Overview:
The theory of B.F. Skinner is based upon the idea that learning is a function of change in
overt behavior. Changes in behavior are the result of an individual's response to events
(stimuli) that occur in the environment. A response produces a consequence such as defining
a word, hitting a ball, or solving a math problem. When a particular Stimulus-Response (S-R)
pattern is reinforced (rewarded), the individual is conditioned to respond. The distinctive
characteristic of operant conditioning relative to previous forms of behaviorism (e.g.,
Thorndike, Hull) is that the organism can emit responses instead of only eliciting response
due to an external stimulus.
Reinforcement is the key element in Skinner's S-R theory. A reinforcer is anything that
strengthens the desired response. It could be verbal praise, a good grade or a feeling of
increased accomplishment or satisfaction. The theory also covers negative reinforcers -- any
stimulus that results in the increased frequency of a response when it is withdrawn (different
from adversive stimuli -- punishment -- which result in reduced responses). A great deal of
attention was given to schedules of reinforcement (e.g. interval versus ratio) and their effects
on establishing and maintaining behavior.
One of the distinctive aspects of Skinner's theory is that it attempted to provide behavioral
explanations for a broad range of cognitive phenomena. For example, Skinner explained
drive (motivation) in terms of deprivation and reinforcement schedules. Skinner (1957) tried
to account for verbal learning and language within the operant conditioning paradigm,
although this effort was strongly rejected by linguists and psycholinguists. Skinner (1971)
deals with the issue of free will and social control.
Scope/Application:
Operant conditioning has been widely applied in clinical settings (i.e., behavior modification)
as well as teaching (i.e., classroom management) and instructional development (e.g.,
programmed instruction). Parenthetically, it should be noted that Skinner rejected the idea of
theories of learning (see Skinner, 1950).
Example:
By way of example, consider the implications of reinforcement theory as applied to the
development of programmed instruction (Markle, 1969; Skinner, 1968)
1. Practice should take the form of question (stimulus) - answer (response) frames which
expose the student to the subject in gradual steps
2. Require that the learner make a response for every frame and receive immediate feedback
3. Try to arrange the difficulty of the questions so the response is always correct and hence a
positive reinforcement
4. Ensure that good performance in the lesson is paired with secondary reinforcers such as
verbal praise, prizes and good grades.
Principles:
1. Behavior that is positively reinforced will reoccur; intermittent reinforcement is
particularly effective
2. Information should be presented in small amounts so that responses can be reinforced
("shaping")
3. Reinforcements will generalize across similar stimuli ("stimulus generalization")
producing secondary conditioning
References:
Markle, S. (1969). Good Frames and Bad (2nd ed.). New York: Wiley.
Skinner, B.F. (1950). Are theories of learning necessary? Psychological Review, 57(4), 193216.
Skinner, B.F. (1953). Science and Human Behavior. New York: Macmillan.
Skinner, B.F. (1954). The science of learning and the art of teaching. Harvard Educational
Review, 24(2), 86-97.
Skinner, B.F. (1957). Verbal Learning. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Skinner, B.F. (1968). The Technology of Teaching. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
Skinner, B.F. (1971). Beyond Freedom and Dignity. New York: Knopf.
Online accessed 2-12-10 at http://tip.psychology.org/skinner.html