Operant Conditioning- Danielle, Jen, Brooke

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By: Danielle Plahs, Jen Locascio, Brooke McGivney

OPERANT CONDITIONING

B.F Skinner

Characteristics Strengths and Weaknesses of Operant Conditioning Operant Conditioning and Directed Instruction Integrating Technology

Introduction and Description

The major theorist for the development of Operant Conditioning was B.F Skinner. Skinner proposed that Operant Conditioning forms an association between a behavior and its response. “The behavior is followed by a consequence, and the nature of the consequence modifies the organism’s tendency to repeat the behavior in the future.” In other words, learning is a function of change in behavior, and those changes are the result of the individual/organisms stimuli that occur in the environment.

Skinner experimented with pigeons in order to explore the effects of the theory. During his experiment, Skinner trained pigeons to play table tennis, and then rewarded them with food. Skinner was interested in the “the changes in frequency, with which learned behaviors were exhibited.” The results of the experiment helped Skinner conclude that the whether the pigeon was hungry or not, and the rate at which the behavior was reinforced affected the pigeons behavior. The hungrier the pigeon was, the more likely they were to perform the behavior. The more reinforcement for the behavior, the more often the conditioned behavior was exhibited. Skinner proposed that reinforcement increases the frequency of behavior.

One of Skinners best known inventions is known as the ‘Skinner Box’. The Skinner box was used in a laboratory to observe an organism’s natural flow of behavior. Within the box, there is a lever for the animal to pull in order to obtain food and water, the reinforcer and stimulus lights. All presses on these levers can automatically be detected and recorded. Skinner experimented this box with a rat. When the rat would press down the lever, pellets would be dropped down into the tray. The rat learned that every time the lever was pressed down, food would come out.