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Psychology Assingment
Psychology Assingment
UNIVERSITY
MPU 2063
PSYCHOLOGY
Famous Behaviorism Theory:
Operant Conditioning by B.F. Skinner
PREPARED BY:
Mohammed Ridzuwan Bin Abdul Rahaman
(930221055461)
Degree in Science (Biotechnology)
TABLE OF CONTENT
NO
CONTENT
PAGE
INTRODUCTION
SKINNERS BOX
10
MY OPINION ON THEORY
12
CONCLUSION
13
REFERENCE
14
INTRODUCTION
earliest Russian psychologist who started work on behaviorism. Pavlov's research on the
digestive systems of dogs led to his discovery of the classical conditioning process, which
demonstrated that behaviors could be learned via conditioned associations. Pavlov
demonstrated that this learning process could be used to make an association between and
environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus.
negative or positive reinforcement. Responses from the environment that decrease the
likelihood of a behavior being repeated and weakens the behavior is known as punishers.
Punishments can be either positive or negative.
Operant conditioning depends on a simple principle where actions that are followed
by reinforcement will be strengthened and more likely to occur again in the future. If you tell
a horror story in class and everybody scared, you will probably be more likely to tell that
story again in the future. Conversely, actions that result in punishment or undesirable
consequences will be weakened and less likely to occur again in the future. If you tell the
same story again in another class but nobody scared this time, you will be less likely to
repeat the story again in the future.
B.F. Skinner (Burrhus Frederic Skinner) is a American psychology, best known for
developing the theory of behaviorism, and for his utopian novel Walden Two (1948). He was
born on March 20, 1904, in the small town of Susquehanna, Pennsylvania, where he also
grew up. His father was a lawyer and his mother stayed home to care for Skinner and his
younger brother. As a student at Hamilton College, B.F. Skinner developed a passion for
writing. He tried to become a professional writer after graduating in 1926, but with little
success. Two years later, Skinner decided to pursue a new direction for his life. He enrolled
at Harvard University to study psychology.
At Harvard, B.F. Skinner looked for a more objective and measured way to study
behavior. He developed what he called an operant conditioning apparatus to do this, which
became better known as the Skinner box. With this device, Skinner could study an animal
interacting with its environment. He first studied rats in his experiments, and continue with
pigeons. After finishing his doctorate degree and working as a researcher at Harvard,
Skinner published the results of his operant conditioning experiments in The Behavior of
Organisms (1938). His work drew comparisons to Ivan Pavlov, but Skinner's work involved
learned responses to an environment rather than involuntary responses to stimuli.
There are two main components or key concepts in operant conditioning theory,
which are reinforcement and punishment. Those two components are divided into positive
and negative key concepts. As a summary, positive punishment and positive reinforcement
is a method which adding something to decrease or increase likelihood of behavior. While,
negative punishment and negative reinforcement is a method which removing something to
decrease or increase likelihood of behavior. In other word, punishment is a method which
decreases likelihood of behavior by addition or removal something. While, reinforcement is a
method which increases likelihood of behavior by addition or removal something.
Reinforcement
Reinforcement is an operant conditioning process (or procedure) in which behavior is
strengthened by its consequences or stimulus. The response - strengthening effects of
reinforcement typically involve an increase in the future rate of occurrence of the response,
although other changes in behavior may also be indicative of a reinforcement effect. The
event that intensifies the likelihood of the behavior to be repeated is called a reinforcer.
There are two types of reinforce, positive reinforce and negative reinforce.
Positive reinforce is encouragement that are given after the behavior and strengthens
the behavior by means of the addition of something, such as praise or a direct reward.
Skinner showed how positive reinforcement worked by placing a hungry rat in his Skinner
box. The box contained a lever in the side and as the rat moved about the box it would
accidentally knock the lever. Immediately it did so a food pellet would drop into a container
next to the lever. The rats quickly learned to go straight to the lever after a few times of being
put in the box. The consequence of receiving food if they pressed the lever ensured that they
would repeat the action again and again. Example of positive reinforcement in daily life is
when you won in a sport competition, your dad rewards you by gift you a pair of new sport
shoes. After this, on next competition you practice hard again and also won in that
competition. Now your mom rewards you by gift you a jersey shirt that you like. For your next
competitions, you will practice hard once more. Other examples are such as, going to work
every day and punch card on time to receive the full salary without any excision, receiving
praise after a dance performance would increase the amount that you perform, and a
teacher complimenting students with sweets or chocolates when they answer correctly will
increase that behavior.
In negative reinforcement, the behavior or response is activated by the removal of
something and strengthen the behavior. Negative reinforcement strengthens behavior
because it stops or removes an unpleasant experience. Skinner showed how negative
reinforcement worked by placing a rat in his Skinner box and then subjecting it to an
unpleasant electric current which caused it some discomfort. As the rat moved about the box
it would accidentally knock the lever. Immediately it did so the electric current would be
switched off. The rats quickly learned to go straight to the lever after a few times of being put
in the box. The consequence of escaping the electric current ensured that they would repeat
the action again and again. One of example of negative reinforcement in daily life is, if you
speak in Malay language in English class, you have to give 50 sens to your teacher. So, next
time you will never speak in other language in your English class to avoid paying, thus
strengthening the behavior of speaking in English. Other examples are such as, a lecturer
deduct student's assignment marks if they did plagiarism. So, the teacher is taking away
something unpleasant to increase behavior. And in a mathematics class, students who
managed to get more than 10 correct answer on the quiz did not have to stay back for extra
class. The similarity between the two type of reinforcements is, in both the behaviour is
increased.
Punishment
Punishment is an operant conditioning process (or procedure) in which behavior is
weakened by a stimulus is presented after the behavior and causes to weaken in the
likelihood of behavior to occur. Punishment is also defined as opposite of reinforcement
because it is weaken or extinguish a response rather than increase it. There are two types of
punishments, positive and negative.
Positive punishment is the addition of something which will reduce in repeating the
behavior that was shown. Positive punishment, sometimes referred to as punishment by
request, involves the presentation of an unfavorable event or outcome in order to weaken
the response it follows. Examples of positive punishment is, a child pee on the bed, the
mother spanked him on his buttocks because of this. The child will never pee on the bed
again. Other than that, A boy gets a spanking when he touches things in a shop. And in a
television game show, the competitor received a slight punch when they got an answer
wrong.
Negative punishment is a method which decreases likelihood of behavior by
removing something pleasant after the behavior. Examples of negative punishment are such
as, a teenager is caught when smokes, his parents then reduce his pocket money. The
teenager does not smoke after that. Other than that, an employee is habitually late for work,
so he has no time to take his breakfast and he feel hungry while working. The behavior will
decrease because of losing a breakfast. And a boy doesn't study well so the parents hijack
his playstation for a certain time. The parents took away something pleasant to decrease
behavior.
SKINNERS BOX
Skinner (e.g., 1938) demonstrated that hungry rats confined in small chambers could
easily be trained to depress levers located on the chambers' walls when such responses
produced food when a tone present and electric current when light is on.
If lever presses produced food when a tone was present, but not when it was absent,
most lever pressing came to be confined to periods when the tone was present. The
consequences of receiving food (a desirable stimulus) for lever pressing when a tone
present ensured that it would repeat the action. Skinner was initially using a continuous
positive reinforcement schedule. Initially behavior was random, but can inadvertently tripped
lever and was rewarded with a food pellet.
Rat was subjected to unpleasant electric current, so electric current is used in the
skinner box as a negative reinforcement. When electric current switched on and a light also
on subsequently, the rat accidentally press the liver and the current switched off. The
consequence of escaping the electric current (an aversive stimulus) ensured that it would
repeat the action (of lever pressing) and pressing lever after the light on.
This example demonstrates the three term contingency that describes stimulus
response- stimulus relations in time. The three term contingency is central to operant
conditioning and often is summarized by the mnemonic A B C: antecedent stimulus (A)
operant behavior (B) consequence (C).
MY OPINION ON THEORY
According to my own opinion, I did not fully believe to the behaviorism theory as
researched by B.F. Skinner. This is because, I believe that the behavior of a person is
depends on own thinking and feelings, so will be not same with others. But according to the
B.F. Skinners research, he assume that all the people will react same as others to a certain
reinforcement or punishment. In other hand, the psychologist also predict that behavior
which form by reinforcement and punishment will be repeated on future. But I disagree with
the approach because in my point of view any behavior that forms by reinforcement or
punishment can be diminished after a certain time. This is because people memory power is
limited, can forget easily any action they did in past. Moreover, B.F. Skinner has come out
with this theory by using rat in his experiment. Im not convince with the experiment because
animal (rat) will not think or feel as human being, so the action will not same with human.
And also I feel that people reaction or behavior change time to time according to the
surrounding environment. But skinner just did his studies in a box (Skinners box), so how it
can show the behavior of a person in different environment. Last but not least, I also believe
that peoples behavior not just influenced by feeling and thinking but it is matter of how
people react with environment using their knowledge and inner feelings and ritual believe.
CONCLUSION
REFERENCES
Skinner B.F. Science and human behavior. New York: Macmillan; 1953.
Skinner B.F. Verbal behavior. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts; 1957.
Skinner B.F. Cumulative record (Enlarged ed., pp. 272286) New York: AppletonCentury-Crofts. Originally published in 1945; 1961/1945. The operational analysis of
psychological terms.
Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms. New York: Appleton-CenturyCrofts.
Weiner, H. (1970). Instructional control of human operant responding during
extinction following fixed-ratio conditioning. Journal of the Experimental Analysis of
CA: Thomson/Wadsworth.
Skinner, B. F. (1938). The Behavior of Organisms: An Experimental Analysis.
Cambridge, Massachusetts: B.F. Skinner Foundation.