B.F Skinner again starved a rat and placed it in a box with a lever. Whenever the lever was pressed by the rat, a small pellet of food dropped into a tray for the rat to eat. The rat soon learnt that when it pressed the lever it will receive food. In this experiment the lever pressing behaviour was reinforced by food, which again through operant conditioning the rat’s behaviour was shaped. In my opinion Skinner’s target was met because his aim or purpose was to shape the rat’s behaviour.
This is because reinforcement is done so that the behaviour occurs more, but punishments are given to decrease certain behaviour. Positive reinforcement is, instead of taking something away, you add something so that behaviour will occur again in the future. This means that you get a reward for
. As one of the oldest theories of personality, behaviourism dates back to Descartes, who introduced the idea of a stimulus and called the person a machine dependent on external events whose soul was the ghost in the machine. Behaviourism takes this idea to another level. Although most theories operate to some degree on the assumption that humans have some sort of free will and are moral thinking entities, behaviourism does not accept that maladaptive characteristics are inherent in a persons nature. “In the mind of the behaviourist, persons are nothing more than simple mediators between behaviour and the environment (Skinner, 1993, p 428).
2. Operant Behaviourism is a term used to define how we learn. It’s a theory of learning that a person’s behaviour can be altered though conditioning (classical & operant). Operant conditioning is a theory that moderates behaviour though giving an award or punishment. Behaviour that’s seen as acceptable results in positive reinforcement which is a pleasurable reward, so behaviour is repeated.
Unit 8 P1 :Explain the principal psychological perspectives INVAN PALOV – CLASSICAL CONDITIONING [pic] Key words :Stumulus ← Classical conditioning is a automicatic type of learning in which a stimulus would gain the ability to remind a response that was originally called by another stimulus . ← Creator and Key Constitutors First described by Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) Russian physiologist in 1903 and studied in infants by John B. Watson (1878-1958) : Behavior is learnt through seeing what someone else does. This can be explained further through the experiment of classical conditioning. Classical conditioning was developed by Invan Pavlov . Pavlov used the experiment of dogs and food as to measure the levels of salivation that a dog .
There are two different types of reinforcements, which are positive and negative. B.F. Skinner main body of work came from operant conditioning that he performed in the early 20th century. Skinner designed what he described as an operant chamber, which in time would become known as a Skinner box. The box housed a rat and contained a lever that would deliver food. The rat became conditioned to press the lever.
They believed that behaviour is learned through our environment through operant or classical conditioning and that behaviour is just a response to a stimulus. Operant conditioning is a learning method to change behaviour through reinforcement to produce the desired response. Classical conditioning requires a stimulus to trigger a response by pairing with an unconditional stimulus. Skinner and Harlow’s aims were to look into the understanding of the different influences on human behaviour. Skinner was interested in the behaviourist way of observing and measuring behaviour.
Outline and Evaluate the Learning Theory Explanation of Attachment Attachment is a special kind of affectional bond or relationship between two people. The Learning Theory argues that attachment is learnt rather than innate. There are two main types of behavioural approaches which are classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is a form of associative learning where we are pre-conditioned to unconditionally respond in certain ways to stimuli. Classical conditioning in other words causes a response from a stimulus where there is a neutral stimulus.
Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Through this process, an association is formed between the behavior and the consequences for that behavior. A famous American psychologist, B.F Skinner demonstrated an experiment with his animals. For example, Skinner placed a pigeon in a box with a disk that a pigeon can peck to receive bits of grain from a food tray. He noticed
Behaviourists focus on two key concepts – classical and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is learning associations between events that occur in the environment. This can be best shown in a diagram: UCS (unconditioned stimulus) → UCR (unconditioned response) UCS (unconditioned stimulus) + NS (neutral stimulus) → UCR (unconditioned response) CS (conditioned stimulus) → CR (conditioned response) Pavlov demonstrated this by showing that dogs have a reflex response which means they salivate (UCR) to food (UCS). When a neutral stimulus (e.g., a bell) is repeatedly associated with the unconditioned stimulus (food), dogs learn to salivate (CR) simply at the ringing of a bell (CS). Operant conditioning is learning due to the consequences of behaviour.