The thing that I love most about children is watching them learn. Watching how one day they might be having a hard time with a task, and the very next day- they can master it. Other times, its necessary to help them along the way, by conditioning them to have certain behaviors. Cognitive psychology has many topics, but the one I chose to focus on is B.F Skinner’s operant conditioning.
B.F Skinner used rats to show how behavior can be strengthened by the use of positive reinforcement. I, however, used something along the lines of this method, to help my son with his social skills. I noticed when he was around one year old, that he was already a loner. He loved to play by himself and never interacted with the children around him, except his brother. I didn’t become concerned until the behavior was still happening when he was two years old. At that point, I decided to see if there was anything that I could do to help him develop his social skills a bit.
He always responded very well to positive reinforcement when it came to correcting BAD behavior. I would tell him “no” and when he finally stopped doing the undesirable behavior- we would give each other hugs and high fives and I would tell him how proud I was of him. Even though he was not presenting any BAD behavior, it was still something that I thought needed a little work. So, at home with his brother, I started positively reinforcing him each time he played nicely with his brother. Then, at the park, or anywhere there were other children to play with, anytime I noticed him interacting with someone- even if it was just a few words spoken- I gave him high fives and told him I was proud of how nice he was playing with the other children. After a few months, I started to notice that each time we went to the park, he was playing more and more with the other children. I encouraged both his independent play and his social play, because both are very important.
He is three and a half now, and I love listening to him and his brother tell stories to their friends and giggle together. And I love, just as much, watching him go off and be completely comfortable being on his own and being independent. The method I used can be classified as operant conditioning because it perfectly demonstrated the relationship between the positive reinforcement and the desired behavior. Although, I never did introduce negative reinforcements the way that Skinner did to his rats. It was a fascinating process to experience!
Goldstein, E. (2011). Introduction to Cognitive Psychology. In Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research, and everyday experience (3rd ed.). Belmont: Wadsworth Cengage Learning.
I really enjoyed reading your post. I am a mother of 6 children and it always amazes me how different they are and how differently they learn. I tried the positive reinforcement as well, with pretty good results. My children are friendly, respectful, polite and rarely raise their voice.
I have also used the word ‘no’ when they misbehaved or showed other bad behavior. They learned what was the proper way to conduct themselves by having this positive and negative reinforcement taught to them at an early stage.
Using BF Skinners approach to positive reinforcement in behavior, such as the rat experiment, is a good tool to use on children. By reinforcing the positive behavior, my children did really well. By using his operant conditioning, the positive reinforcement was repeated and they learned quickly how to behave proper, especially outside of the home. They knew that something would always come out of their actions, whether it be good or bad and they have a choice to make.
References:
Cherry, K. (2014) http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/introopcond.htm
Tira , I appreciate your post and opinion very much. As a special needs therapist your post was refreshing to read because I felt that your experience as a parent and mine as a therapist were similar. Operant conditioning was a very appropriate choice to use with your son to promote his positive sense of self and will also increase his self esteem over time. Is this something that you plan on applying in the future if needed?
In my line of work I utilize Skinner’s operant conditioning on a daily basis. I feel like in some ways we as a society use it all the time and that some of us never know it. Whereas you use it for your son to promote positive social behavior, I use it for positive reinforcement as well as promoting compliance during my daily treatment plans with my clients.
As you stated in your second paragraph you used the word “no” to correct the bad behavior. Did that work for you at one point? I choose not to use the word “no” during my treatment sessions. One reason is because I want my clients to always have a positive experience during therapy even though it is very challenging, and other reason is because some of my clients are unable to receptively understand the word “no”.
When your son acted as you expected (positively) you gave him a hug or a high five, which is really a great way for him to learn. Does he always respond like that 100% of the time? Does he have the same response for his teachers, grandparents and other people that he is familiar with? I ask this because most of my clients that I have, I have made it imperative to build a great relationship with them. This will also make them aware of my boundaries and expectations.
I may only get 50% compliance while using the operant conditioning method in a thirty-minute period with a regular client (It depends on the day and task presented). During one of my many treatments, I have a particular client who every time she is able to maintain her grasp in the flexion swing, grab a beanbag and throw it in the target she gets verbal praise and a token. It’s very exciting when she does a great job. I’m sure you’re just like that with your son. There must have been times where you didn’t get the response you were hoping for, but you just continued to be positive.
Goldstein, B. (2011). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience (3rd ed.). Wadsworth, Inc. ISBN: 9780495502968.
Hi Tira,
I just loved reading your blog. Although I had my children 9+ years apart, I was able to watch how each of them interacted socially as individuals, my daughter first (she’s 23) and then my son (he’s 14). Each of them had such different personalities so when it came to conditioning them, good and bad; it was a bit of a challenge because they each had their own unique social skills.
In reading BF Skinner’s demonstration of behavioral approach through a positive reinforcement, the rat experiment, I though of how a dog would be trained. It worked for my dog because she was well behaved. Skinner’s idea was “that the best way to understand behavior is to look at the causes of an action and its consequences. He called this approach operant conditioning” and his reinforcement produced repeated behavior (McLeod, 2014). Just like the way you were with your son. What a genius move. I was the same way with my kids, continuous positive reinforcement for a job well done or a behavior that was pleasing. I taught my kids that there is always a consequence to every behavior, whether it is a good one or a bad one.
Now that they are older, I can see the fruits of my labors have paid off. They are well mannered and responsibly social, great kids.
References
McLeod, S. (2014). Skinner-Operant Conditioning. Retrieved 10 10, 2014, from Simply Psychology: http://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html
Hi Tira,
Your parenting skills are commendable. You developed an intrinsic (top-down processing) attribute for your child to enjoy social interaction through developing his top-down processing of external stimuli (other children) by giving him good explicit (conscious) and good implicit memories (unconscious). So, perhaps, when other children are present, his bottom-up processing is pleased, and he seeks interaction. Goldstein (2012) described top-down processing as how we interpret external stimuli based on LTM, and bottom-up processing on how the external stimuli in the present affects us physiologically (pp. 50-53). You have enhanced his bottom-up processing through providing the right positive cues to perhaps alter his physiological response to seeing other children.
Your post demonstrates how a child’s motivation can be built through intrinsic and extrinsic influences. When the right care is taken to build a child’s motivational behavior, top-down processing will intrinsically give them an advantage; and this is what it sounds to me you have done for your youngest son.
There is interesting reading on extrinsic and intrinsic motivation coming out these days. Theories that a child’s motivation built upon extrinsic rewards diminishes when the external reward is removed, even when there was an intrinsic motivation to begin with. This has been demonstrated in scenarios where children are rewarded to read. Once the reward to read is removed, even the children with intrinsic motivation to read will demonstrate a decline in their motivation to read (Durek and Harachiewicz, 2007).
This is why I like the subtlety of your direction, because it did not create an over-justification effect (Harachiewicz, 1979) of having him wanting only your high-fives. It sounds as if you integrated his top-down and bottom up processing to overlap which has been demonstrated to be the right approach to behavioral change (Freeman, n.d.; Otto et al., 2014).
(300 words)
References
Durik, A. and Harachiewicz, J. (2007). Different strokes for different folks: How individual interest moderates the effects of situational factors on task interest. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 99, No. 3, 597-610. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.99.3.597.
Freeman, J. (n.d.). Social Cognitive and Neural Sciences Lab. New York University. Retrieved from http://psych.nyu.edu/freemanlab/research.htm.
Goldstein, B. (2011). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience (3rd ed.). Wadsworth, Inc. ISBN: 9780495502968.
Harachiewicz, J.M. (1979). The effects of reward contingency and performance feedback on intrinsic motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 37, 1352-1363. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.37.8.1352.
Otto, B., Misra, S., Prasad, A., and McRae, K. (2014). Functional overlap of top-down emotion regulation and generation: An fMRI study identifying common neural substrates between cognitive reappraisal and cognitively generated emotions. Cognitive Affective Behavioral Neuroscience. DOI 10.3758/s13415-013-0240-0.
Hi Tira,
Your parenting skills are commendable. You developed an intrinsic (top-down processing) attribute for your child to enjoy social interaction through developing his top-down processing of external stimuli (other children) by giving him good explicit (conscious) and good implicit memories (unconscious). So, perhaps, when other children are present, his bottom-up processing is pleased, and he seeks interaction. Goldstein (2012) described top-down processing as how we interpret external stimuli based on LTM, and bottom-up processing on how the external stimuli in the present affects us physiologically (pp. 50-53). You have enhanced his bottom-up processing through providing him with the right positive cues to perhaps also alter his physiological response to seeing other children.
Your post demonstrates how a child’s motivation can be built through intrinsic and extrinsic influences. When the right care is taken to build a child’s motivational behavior, top-down processing will intrinsically give them an advantage; and this is what it sounds to me you have done for your youngest son.
There is interesting reading on extrinsic and intrinsic motivation coming out these days. Theories that a child’s motivation built upon extrinsic rewards diminishes when the external reward is removed, even when there was an intrinsic motivation to begin with. This has been demonstrated in scenarios where children are rewarded to read. Once the reward to read is removed, even the children with intrinsic motivation to read will demonstrate a decline in their motivation to read (Durek and Harachiewicz, 2007).
This is why I like the subtlety of your direction, because it did not create an over-justification effect (Harachiewicz, 1979) of having him wanting only your high-fives. It sounds as if you integrated his top-down and bottom up processing to overlap which has been demonstrated to be the right approach to behavioral change (Freeman, n.d.; Otto et al., 2014).
(300 words)
Tira,
Reading your blog post made me realize something about my parenting skills that should have been so obvious. Many parents are so quick to give consequences such as time out, no sweets, etc, to toddlers who misbehave but often forget to praise the good behaviors. I am one of these parents and although I have read of Skinner and his method in regards to classical conditioning, I never thought of switching it around as you did. As adults we are often reminded of what we do wrong, especially at the workplace, but how many times have we asked ourselves, “Geez I do 100 things right and the one thing I do wrong they are quick to bring it to my attention?” I remember asking myself this plenty when I was a pre-teen, teen, and even now as an adult at work or in personal relationships. Praise and positive reinforcement is such a good way to show that good actions and behavior can be repaid in the form of a good consequence. I have a soon-to-be two year old and I plan on making it a point to point out the good things he does with high fives (he loves high fives!) and kisses as well and distribute the positive and negative reinforcements equally. I’m so glad for you and your child and hopefully it works for me and mine as well.
Tira,
Your parenting skills are to be commendable. You have developed an intrinsic (top-down processing) attribute for your child to enjoy social interaction. You have developed his top-down processing to the external stimuli of other children through giving him explicit (conscious) and implicit memories (unconscious). So, when other children are present, his bottom-up processing tells him this is a good thing and he seeks interaction. Goldstein (2012) described top-down processing as how we interpret external stimuli based on LTM, and bottom-up processing on how the external stimuli in the present affects us physiologically (pp. 50-53). You have enhanced his bottom-up processing through providing him with the right positive cues to alter his physiological response to playing with other children.
A child’s motivation can be built through intrinsic and extrinsic influences. When the right care is taken to build a child’s motivational behavior, top-down processing will intrinsically give them an advantage, and this is what you have done with your youngest son. This is because the desire to do an activity is something that has already been instilled (top-down processing). Yet, when the child’s motivation is built upon extrinsic rewards, the motivation diminishes when the external reward is removed. This has been proven in scenarios where children are rewarded to read. Once the reward to read is removed, even the children with intrinsic motivation to read will demonstrate a decline in their motivation to read (Durek and Harachiewicz, 2007). Yet, you did so without creating an over-justification effect (Harachiewicz, 1979) of having him wanting only your high-fives. You have integrated his top-down and bottom up processing to overlap which has been demonstrated to be the right approach to behavioral change (Freeman, n.d.; Otto et al., 2014).
References
Durik, A. and Harachiewicz, J. (2007). Different strokes for different folks: How individual interest moderates the effects of situational factors on task interest. Journal of Educational Psychology, Vol. 99, No. 3, 597-610. doi: 10.1037/0022-0663.99.3.597.
Freeman, J. (n.d.). Social Cognitive and Neural Sciences Lab. New York University. Retrieved from http://psych.nyu.edu/freemanlab/research.htm.
Goldstein, B. (2011). Cognitive psychology: Connecting mind, research and everyday experience (3rd ed.). Wadsworth, Inc. ISBN: 9780495502968.
Harachiewicz, J.M. (1979). The effects of reward contingency and performance feedback on intrinsic motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 37, 1352-1363. DOI: 10.1037/0022-3514.37.8.1352.
Otto, B., Misra, S., Prasad, A., and McRae, K. (2014). Functional overlap of top-down emotion regulation and generation: An fMRI study identifying common neural substrates between cognitive reappraisal and cognitively generated emotions. Cognitive Affective Behavioral Neuroscience. DOI 10.3758/s13415-013-0240-0.