sister: I'm doing something
welcome to Psych I.R.L.
and today we're going to be talking about Operant Conditioning
Let's review classical conditioning
so, classical conditioning is the assosication of stimuli
Meet Bob
So, Bob hears a song
He doesn't think its bad. He doesn't think it's good
All of a sudden Bob meets Linda
They fall in love and they get together
Linda gives Bob this happy feeling
One day Linda says to Bob
Hey bob, we should totes make
this song, our song
He agrees
and so everytime that
song comes on, on the radio
it gives him a happy loved feeling
so in summation, the song
gives him the happy feeling
because it's related to Linda
Classical Conditioning.
So, if you're still confused
Check out a video I did in the description
I talk about classical conditioning
more in detail
but for those of you that do get classical conditioning
Let's move on to Operant conditioning
E. L Thorndike is known for the beginnings of operant conditioning
but it's more associated with B.F. Skinner
Classical conditioning and operant conditioning have a difference
In operant conditioning
the subject has a choice to respond
it actively does the behavior
but in classical conditioning
it doesn't
in the Bob and Linda example
Bob doesn't choose when to be happy or when to be sad
Definition of Operant conditioning
Operant conditioning is a type of learning
in which the organism learns
through the consequences of its behavior
B.F. Skinner made this device called
the Skinner Box
the Skinner Box was a device
used to teach animals
and modify their behavior
Now, Skinner put a rat in this box
This box has a lever
a bowl
and an enclosed chamber
if you pull the lever
the chamber opens and it dispenses food
but of course the rat doesn't know this information
So, being a rat it walks around
and accidentally, it hits the lever
the rat notices, "hey there's food in my bowl"
and it takes the reward
after a few more of these accidents
the rat notices
that every time it hits the lever
food comes out from the dispenser
eventually, the rat learns
If I pull this lever, I get food
so, let's break down operant conditioning
Operant conditioning can be divided into 2 categories
Reinforcement and punishment
those categories can be further divided
into positive and negative
reinforcement is defined as
something that strengthens the behavior
reinforcement can be positive
and positive reinforcement means the addition of a positive stimulus
and that's what you see in Skinner's box
the addition of a positive stimulus is that it gets the food
So, how does this apply to humans
Operant conditioning I.R.L.
In elementary school
we had spelling tests every Friday
Now, I hated these tests
but I knew if I got 100% on these tests
I would get a dollar from my parents
So the behavior was spelling each word correctly and getting 100%
and the addition of the positive stimulus was getting the dollar
Now, reinforcements can also be negative
and that's the removal of an unpleasant stimulus
So, back to elementary school
I actually went to a Christian elementary school
and we were made to memorize the books of the bible in order
I'm still waiting to use that in real life by the way
same thing with proofs in geometry
Anyway, back to my story
My dad would not stop nagging me
He nagged me until I did this 3 times perfectly
So, the behavior I had to learn was to learn all those books in order
and the removal of the unpleasant stimulus was that my dad would stop nagging me
Operant conditioning also includes punishment
Now, punishment is used to reduce a behavior
Punishment can be positive
and positive punishment is the addition of an unpleasant stimulus
so, i have these two younger cousins
which are twins
and they were over for a birthday party
I was in my room and in my room I have this lamp that gets really hot
You touch it, you get burned
One of the twins comes in my room, I tell her not to touch that lamp
she touches the lamp
her sister comes along
I tell her the exact same thing
In the end, they learned not to touch the lamp
The heat or pain from touching that lamp
was the addition of an unpleasant stimulus
Punishment can also be negative
Negative punishment is the removal of a rewarding stimulus
Now, I was never negatively punished
I was mostly positively punished
so an example of this is when some kid does something really really bad
and he or she gets their phone taken away
they learn that doing something really bad
results in the removal of a pleasant stimulus
or their phone getting taken away
If you want to learn more about operant conditioning, I'll leave a link in the description
That's the end of the video
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BYE!