PSY 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 27: Operant Conditioning

• School: EKU, Eastern
• Department: PSY—Psychology
• Course: PSY 200
• Professor: Matthew Moran

Document Summary

Operant conditioning involves active learning: operant conditioning (instrumental conditioning): a learning process in which the consequences of an action determine the likelihood that it will be performed in the future. Law of effect: law of effect: any behavior that leads to a satisfying state of affairs is likely to occur again, and any behavior that leads to an annoying state of affairs is less likely to occur again. Reinforcement increases behavior: skinner developed a more formal learning theory based on the law of effect, he objected to the subjective aspects of thorndike"s law of effect, states of satisfaction are not observed empirically. Shaping: shaping: an operant-conditioning technique that consists of reinforcing behaviors that are increasingly similar to the desired behavior.