Operant Conditioning

B.F. Skinner described Operant Conditioning as changes in behavior to be determined by an individual's response to events (stimuli) in a given environment. The actions of an individual is called a response, and when a desired stimulus response is reinforced the individual may respond in a certain way. In Operant Conditioning there are two different types of reinforcement, positive and negative. Positive Reinforcement (reward) involves presenting a motivating object/item to a person after the desired behavior is given, such as instructing your dog to sit and once your dog sits you reward him immediately with a treat (increasing behavior). Negative Reinforcement involves removing something like an object/item in order to increase a response, such as a child finally cleaning up their toys in order to stop their mother from nagging about the uncleaned toys. …show more content…
There are two types of Punishment, being positive and negative. Positive Punishment is by presenting a negative consequence right after an undesired behavior is given which further prevents this undesired behavior happening again. An example of Positive Punishment would be running late to work causing you to speed in your car resulting in a police officer pulling you over and giving you a ticket. Negative Punishment occurs whenever a desired item is taken away after an undesired behavior occurs in order to decrease the undesired behavior from happening again. An example of Negative Punishment would be staying out past the curfew that your parents gave you, resulting in your parents grounding you for the next two weeks. These two types of Punishment both similarities and differences, but the major purpose of the two is to decrease the rate of an undesired