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Operant Conditioning
Operant Conditioning
Billy: “Dad, can you tie my shoes?!”
Dad: (Reads paper)
Billy: “Daaaad! Tie my shooooes!”
Dad: “Just a second!”
Billy: “Daaaaaad! Come on!”
Dad: “I’m almost finished Billy! Hang on!”
Billy: “Daaaad! Tie my shoes!”
Dad: “How many times have I told you not to whine? Now, which
shoe should we do first?”
Operant Conditioning
What is the basic difference between “classical” & “operant”
conditioning?
Basic concept of operant conditioning: responses (behaviors)
come to be controlled by their consequences…
Begins with Thorndike, his cats, & his “puzzle boxes”
Operant Conditioning
Skinner Box
Operant Conditioning
Operant Conditioning
Elements
 Operant Response: behavior we’re interested in
 Consequence: what “happens” as a result of the
behavior
Types of Consequences
 Reinforcers: increase tendency to make a response
 Primary
 Secondary
 Punishers: decrease tendency to make a response
Operant Conditioning
Reinforcement: increases likelihood behavior will be
repeated
 Positive: something rewarding is added
 Negative: remove something negative (this is good!)
 Study nags, whining, seatbelts
 Mowrer’s 2-Process Theory (phobias)
 May lead to escape/avoidance learning
o Phobia “maintenance”
o Learned helplessness
Punishment: decreases likelihood behavior will be
repeated
 Best if immediate, consistent, not too severe
 Possibility of negative consequences
Operant Conditioning
Response Rate
Increase
Decrease
Stimulus
Added
This is known as:
This is known as:
________________ ________________
Taken Away
This is known as:
This is known as:
________________ ________________
Operant Conditioning
The Steps (which should look familiar…)
 Acquisition: may occur through shaping
 Discriminative stimuli
 Extinction: often preceded by an increase in
response/behavior
 Some responses have high resistance to extinction
 Largely based on schedules of reinforcement
 Stimulus Generalization/Discrimination
Operant Conditioning
Schedules of Reinforcement
 What does this mean?
 When/how often do we reinforce the behavior?
 Every time we see it?
 After a set or variable period of time?
 After a set or variable number of behavioral
responses?
 How does the timing affect the behavior?
Operant Conditioning
Schedules of Reinforcement
 Schedules can be either:
 Fixed or variable
 Fixed: always the same
 Variable: uh, variable (usually around some
“average”)
 Interval or ratio
 Interval: based on time – reinforcement occurs
only after some period of time has
elapsed
 Ratio: based on number of behavioral responses
Operant Conditioning
Schedules of Reinforcement
 Fixed Interval: based on fixed amount of time
 Variable Interval: based on a variable amount of time
 Fixed Ratio: based on a fixed number of responses
(including continuous reinforcement)
 Variable Ratio: based on a variable number of
responses
 Which types of schedules are most resistant to
extinction & why?
 Which types of schedules lead to faster response
rates & why?
Operant Conditioning
Operant Conditioning
So let’s talk about whiny kids…
• Kids whine, you don’t give in…
• Kids whine, you give in all the time…
• Kids whine, you give in sometimes…
Operant Conditioning
Other Concepts
 Cognition & Operant Conditioning
 Evidence of cognitive processing has been seen in
maze studies of rats
 Rats in a maze with no obvious reward will
wander at leisure
 They apparently develop a “cognitive map” of the
maze, because…
 When a reward is present, they will get through
the maze quickly, thus they “learned” despite a
lack of reward
 Latent Learning: learning occurs but no incentive
to demonstrate it