Learning and Memory

Operant conditioning as developed by B .F . Skinner have stood the test of time and have found its way to a number of different fields such as education , psychotherapy , animal learning , skills training and etc Operant conditioning is a method by which conditions within the environment can be manipulated to produce the desired behavior and to diminish the unwanted behavior (Carpenter , 1994 . Simply put , operant conditioning involves rewarding the desired behavior and punishing the unwanted behavior and through which desired behavior is strengthened and the unwanted behavior is weakened . Within the process

of rewards and punishment are the provision of the stimulus that would elicit the desired behavior and a positive reinforcement of that behavior usually in the form of praise or tokens . The reward reinforces the behavior while a negative reinforcement means that a positive reinforcement is removed and would diminish and eventually extinguish the behavior associated with the stimulus . Operant conditioning also explains that to strengthen behavior it must be given consistently and follow a reinforcement schedule , in due time the individual learns the desired behavior and can transfer the learned behavior to similar situations which Skinner refers to as generalization (Huitt Hummel , 1997 Operant conditioning lends itself well to practical applications and has been used to train children and adults over the years

A practical application of operant conditioning is found in a research study by Michael Himle , Raymond Miltenberger , Christopher Flessner and Brian Gatheridge (2004 ) wherein they used operant conditioning to teach safety skills to children to prevent gun play . The purpose of the study was to develop an instructional program that would effectively enable children to learn

the appropriate behavior in response to the presence of a gun in a room The desired behaviors were not touching the gun , leaving the room immediately upon seeing the gun and telling an adult of the presence of the gun . The researchers devised a program wherein children were taught the importance of staying away from guns and by modeling the desired behavior . Each time the child displayed the desired behavior , praise was given to the child while incorrect responses were given corrective feedback and additional rehearsals . The child was trained for a certain period and was then introduced to the stimulus after a few days to test whether the desired behaviors were generalized . In this study , the presence of the gun is the stimulus , the positive reinforcement was the praise and negative reinforcement was corrective feedback and more rehearsals

The results found that of the 8 children who participated in the study only 3 of them was able to retain the learned desired behavior and to elicit the said behavior in a similar situation , while the other 5 children had problems with transferring the learned behavior and needed more training sessions . The children who successfully learned the desired safety behavior was positively affected by operant conditioning in this study the positive reinforcement was the descriptive praise this reinforcement strengthened the behavior since children are receptive to praise and...