Experimental psychology

My sister has trained a few strayed cats to come to the porch. She has given positive reinforcement by giving them food every time they come to the porch. We can say that she has done operant conditioning by training the cats to come on the porch and letting her pet them, where the cat food and treats are the positive reinforcement. By giving a few strayed cats, food as a reward she has caused others stray cats to start coming in hope that they too will receive food. The cats have associated…

There are four different types of operant responses; positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment. There are also, four schedules of partial reinforcement; fixed ratio, variable ratio, variable interval, and fixed interval. “Positive reinforcement is the addition of a reward following a desired behavior with the purpose of increasing the likelihood the behavior will occur again.” Positive reinforcement is rewarding someone for something even if…

Operation conditioning helps us to explain the voluntary behaviour. This type of learning can be used to change the behaviour of pets, children, and adults. According to Huitt and Hummel, the theorists of operant conditioning are Edward Thorndike, John Watson, and B. F. Skinner. They proposed that learning is the result of the application of consequences; that is, learners begin to connect certain responses to certain stimuli. Thorndike labelled this type of learning instrumental by using…

Bullying in the workplace refers to a situation where a targeted employee is subjected to negative acts by superiors and/or colleagues repeatedly over a period of time, and the confronted employee finds it difficult to take a stand against or cope with such negative acts (Hauge, Skogstad, & Einarsen, 2010; Loerbroks et al., 2015). One possible consequence of experiencing workplace bullying is depression. This paper will address depression within the context of bullying and will review types of…

Operant conditioning is a type of learning where behavior is controlled by consequences. The purpose is to strengthen the behavior and make it happen more often. There are different consequences you can use are positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, and negative punishment. If you are trying to teach someone something the best way is to use positive reinforcement. Research shows that rewards are more effective than punishment. When using positive reinforcement, it…

I interviewed my CT, Mrs. P about a time she was challenged by a student’s behavior and her answer presented a challenging behavior indeed. She told me about a student, who I will refer to as student D, she had several years ago who use to interrupt instruction on a daily basis in what she believed to be an attempt to get attention. His disruptive behavior occurred on a daily basis but the intensity varied from day to day. Some days he would stand up in front of the white board while Mrs. P was…

Influential psychologist, B.F. Skinner developed the theory of operant conditioning. It’s the idea that behavior is determined by its consequences, reinforcements or punishments which make it less likely that the behavior will occur again. A positive reinforcement is one of the best ways to encourage your kids. It allows the child to grow more confident and independent. Skinner designed an Operant Conditioning Box - also known as Skinner's Box - to prove his theory. He placed a rat that…

I also used the ERIC database to find a journals entitled, Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review and School Psychology Quarterly. Finally I searched Google News to find the popular journal entitled, International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences. After finding all of the journals I planned on using I researched each journals’…

Positive punishment is basically the opposite of reinforcement since you have a decrease of a certain behavior because, but the bad thing is you get a punishment. In the World of Psychology it explains the topic of the matter more briefly (1995) “ Positive punishment, behavior decreases after the addition of a consequence, usually an unpleasant one. For example, a driver avoids taking a particular route (decreased behavior) because…

Do as you are told and you shall receive an award, however break these rules and you shall receive a punishment. The Law of Effect states that when we do something that satisfies us that we will be more likely to keep doing it in order to get that response, and if it discomforts us in any way we will be less likely to do it again. Within this law comes the theory of Operant Conditioning, meaning that we learn that our behaviors will either earn us rewards or punishments. How this works is we…