PSYC 1010 Chapter Notes - Chapter 22: Operant Conditioning, Reinforcement, Operant Conditioning Chamber

• School: York University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1010
• Professor: Rebecca Jubis

Document Summary

Teaching a child to learn how to say please and an elephant to walk on its hind legs is operant conditioning. It is a form of associative learning (learning that certain events occur together. The events may be two stimuli or a response and its consequence) Living things associate their own actions with consequences. Skinner had elaborated on edward l. thorndike"s law of effect- thorndike"s principal that behaviours followed by a favourable consequence become more likely and behaviours followed by unfavourable consequences become less likely. Rewarded behaviour is likely to re-occur and punished behaviour will less likely occur. Skinner had designed the operant chamber where there is a box with a lever that an animal presses on to release a reward. Reinforcement: any event that strengthens (increases the frequency) of a preceding response. You can teach an animal to do a desired behaviour by rewarding it as it gets close.