Operant Conditioning or Instrumental Conditioning is a type of learning in which a learner's behavior is shaped and affected by reinforcements are punishments.
Burrhus Frederic Skinner or B.F. Skinner is not the first person to discover this type of learning. It was Jerzy Konorski. However, B.F. Skinner is the one who popularized this with his experiments with pigeons and rats.
To understand Operant Conditioning, one must be familiar with different terms related to this type of learning. Here's where a lot of misconceptions are made, especially between negative reinforcement and punishment.
Reinforcement is a consequence of an action that causes the behavior to occur with greater frequency.
Examples of reinforcement:
1. Teacher A gave a student a book for topping the final examination.
2. Teacher B told her students, "Since you cleaned the room without me asking you to do so, I am now removing the restriction in using the TV until 4:00 this afternoon."
Punishment is a consequence of an action that causes the behavior to occur with less frequency.
Examples of punishment:
1. Teacher C made the first group of students clean the comfort room because of breaking the television.
2. Teacher D lessened the morning snack time from 15 minutes to 10 minutes because his students were late for his class.
Positive is a insertion or a delivery of a stimulus after a response.
Negative is a deletion or a removal of a stimulus after a response.
Positive reinforcement, also known as only reinforcement, is the insertion or a delivery of a favorable condition (for the learners) to make a desired behavior occur more frequently. An example of a positive reinforcement is when Teacher E gave an additional point for a student who honestly declared his error in the test paper.
In B.F. Skinner's Box Experiment, the rat in the cage received a pellet of sugar for each instance that it pulled a lever. It was observed that because of such system of reinforcement, the rat pulled the lever very frequently.
Negative reinforcement, also known as escape, is the deletion or a removal of a unfavorable condition (for the learners) to make a desired behavior occur more frequently. An example of a negative reinforcement is when Teacher F removed a quiz for tomorrow because of the students' initiative to clean the room without having ordered to do so.
In B.F. Skinner's Box Experiment, a loud, sharp noise is played towards a rat in the cage. The rat noticed that every time it stepped on a lever, the noise died out. Due to such system, the rat stepped on the lever very frequently.
Positive punishment, also knows as only punishment, is the insertion or delivery of an unfavorable condition (for the learners) to make a undesired behavior occur less frequently. An example of positive punishment is when Teacher G commanded a student to pick up the pieces of paper in the classroom for being noisy during the discussion.
In B.F. Skinner's Box Experiment, an electric shock is given to a rat in a cage whenever it gets near to certain items in it. Because of this, it seldom got near to such items.
Negative punishment, also known as penalty, is the removal or deletion of a favorable condition (for the learners) to make an undesired behavior occur less frequently. An example of a negative punishment is when Teacher H lessened the snack time from 15 minutes to 10 minutes because they were late.
Remember, positive reinforcement is used by adding a favorable condition to sustain a desirable behavior. Negative reinforcement is used by removing an unfavorable condition to sustain a desirable behavior. Positive punishment is used by adding an unfavorable condition to cut off an undesirable behavior. Negative punishment is used by removing a favorable condition to cut off an undesirable behavior.
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