Operant Conditioning

Watson’s Extreme Environmentalism “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well- formed, and my own special world to bring them up in, and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to be any type of specialist I might select - doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and yes, beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors.” –John Broadus Watson, 1928

Operant Conditioning Learning associations between actions and consequences

Operant Conditioning Behavior followed by Reinforcement Increases chances of

Law of Effect Underlies all of operant conditioning “Behavior that is rewarded will be repeated”

Reinforcement Reinforcement always seen by target as a GOOD thing Used to INCREASE a desired behavior Two types of reinforcement

Types of Reinforcement Positive Reinforcement adds good things Examples: Money, Praise, Food Negative Reinforcement takes bad things away Examples: removing pain, toothache, hunger

Reinforcement Increases Behavior Add Stimulus Positive Reinforcement Remove Stimulus Negative Reinforcement

Reinforcement & Punishment Increases Behavior Decreases Behavior Add Stimulus Positive Reinforcement Positive Punishment Remove stimulus Negative reinforcement Negative Punishment

Types of Punishment Positive Punishment adds bad things Examples: spanking, bad taste Negative Punishment takes good things away Examples: grounded from car, time-outs

Extinction Behaviors that are neither rewarded or punished will also decrease

Reinforcement versus punishment What works better, reinforcement or punishment?

Shaping Rewarding successively closer approximations of a desired behavior Useful for teaching new behaviors Exp: puppy paper training

Let’s take a moment to recap

Rate of reinforcement Continuous reinforcement: reward after every response Intermittent reinforcement: only sometimes reward Intermittent better Exp: kids and temper tantrums, icky boyfriends/girlfriends

Reinforcement Schedules Fixed Ratio Variable Ratio Fixed Interval Variable Interval

Fixed Ratio Reinforcement Reward after a set number of responses Exp: Frequent shopper at Subway

Variable Ratio Reinforcement Reward after a varying number of responses Exp: “Good job”

Fixed Interval Reinforcement Reward after a specific time interval Exp: Reward at the end of a half hour of studying

Variable Interval Reinforcement Reward after a variable time interval Exp: Reward at the end of a 15 minutes, then 10 minutes, then 25

Schedules of Reinforcement Steeper lines mean higher response rates Ratio schedules produce higher response rates than interval schedules

Extinction More rapid to fixed ratio than variable ratio reinforcement

Thus, best is variable ratio An example of variable ratio…