What is Operant Conditioning? How We Learn

In this video, we learn about a third form of learning: operant conditioning. Operant conditioning involves the use of reward and punishment to increase or decrease behavior and is used by animal trainers, parents, and many other groups of people all around the world. We go over many practical examples to help understand a variety of key terms related to operant conditioning.

E. L. Thorndike’s Law of Effect: If a response, in the presence of a stimulus, is followed by a satisfying state of affairs, the bond between stimulus and response will be strengthened.

Operant Conditioning: A form of learning controlled by the consequences of an organism’s behavior, such that reinforcement (i.e., reward) or punishment of that behavior influences the likelihood of behaving similarly in the future.

Positive Reinforcement: Adding something pleasant to increase behavior (e.g., giving a dog a treat if they sit).

Negative Reinforcement: Taking away something unpleasant to increase behavior (e.g., allowing a child to skip chores if they do their homework).

Positive Punishment: Adding something unpleasant to decrease behavior (e.g., spanking a child after they threw a tantrum).

Negative Punishment: Taking away something pleasant to decrease behavior (e.g., taking away a child’s video games after they hit their sibling).

Schedules of Reinforcement: The patterns of delivering reinforcement.

Continuous Reinforcement: Delivering reinforcement after every behavior.

Partial Reinforcement: Delivering reinforcement only some of the time.

Fixed Interval: A schedule of reinforcement in which you reinforce if the organism produces at least 1 desired behavior in a specified time interval.

Variable Interval: A schedule of reinforcement in which you reinforce if the organism produces at least 1 desired behavior in an average time interval.

Fixed Ratio: A schedule of reinforcement in which you reinforce after the organism produces the desired behavior a specified number of times.

Variable Ratio: A schedule of reinforcement in which you reinforce after the organism produces the desired behavior an average number of times.

Acquisition: Learning phase where a response is established.

Extinction: Reduction or elimination of response after stimulus presented without reinforcement.

Spontaneous recovery: Sudden emergence of extinguished response after a delay.

Stimulus Generalization: Responding to similar but non-identical stimuli.

Stimulus Discrimination: Responding less to stimuli that differ.