operant conditioning (Skinner)

What is operant conditioning?

Learning through consequences - behaviour is shaped and maintained by reinforcement and punishment

Who developed operant conditioning?

Skinner through experiments with rats and pigeons

What is positive reinforcement?

Adding a pleasant stimulus to increase behaviour (e.g. giving food for pressing a lever)

What is negative reinforcement?

Removing an unpleasant stimulus to increase behaviour (e.g. switching off a loud noise when a lever is pressed)

What is a punishment?

Applying an unpleasant consequence to decrease a behaviour (e.g. electric shock when lever is pressed)

Steps of Skinner box experiment

Rats pressed a lever - received food (positive reinforcement) or avoided shock (negative reinforcement). Behaviour increased

Strengths of this experiment

Scientific credibility: based on controlled lab experiments producing reliable, replicable data

Practical applications: used in education (reward systems), prisons and therapies

Influence: foundation for behaviourist psychology and applied behaviour analysis

Limitations of this experiment

Animal research: findings may not generalise fully to humans - ethical concerns too

Reductionist: ignores cognitive and emotional factors, focusing only on observable behaviours

Deterministic: suggests behaviour is entirely shaped by reinforcement/punishment, ignoring free will