To further discuss operant conditioning, I will be writing about punishment seen throughout the movie Blackfish in this section of the paper. Blackfish tells the story of Tilikum, a killer whale used for entertainment and the use of operant conditioning to obey orders. Tilikum was first placed in a pool with an already trained whale to learn and perform tricks. Because Tilikum failed to perform, all whales were held from food and led to teeth rakes on Tilikum. This is an example of negative punishment, with food being the removed consequence which leads to a decrease of disobedience from the whale. Later in the movie, Tilikum is performing with his trainer and misses an important cue and was not rewarded fish. Another use of negative punishment
