Conditioning is one way of controlling a person or animal’s behaviors, actions, and responses. While classical conditioning forms an association between two stimuli in the environment, operant conditioning forms an association between behaviors and resulting events, essentially a reward-punishment system. In operant conditioning, certain actions are rewarded and consequently are more likely to occur, which is deemed the law of effect from Thorndike’s experiments. In contrast, other actions are punished, and the person is less likely to do it again. Thus, the person/animal is trained whereby an appropriate or desired response is learned. Often, when this occurs in a step-by-step process, it is called shaping whereby each rewarded step is a successive approximation.
Source: https://www.verywellmind.com/operant-conditioning-a2-2794863
In the scope of operant conditioning, there are reinforcers that result in strengthened behavior, and there are punishments that result in decreased behavior. In both cases, “positive” means adding something, while “negative” means removing something accordingly. Therefore, a positive reinforcement adds something positive or desirable to strengthen a behavior, while a negative reinforcement removes something negative or aversive to strengthen a behavior. Meanwhile, a positive punishment adds something negative or aversive to decrease a behavior, while a negative punishment removes something positive or desirable to decrease a behavior.
Since I do not have a dog, when we discuss conditioning through rewards and punishment, the first thing I think of is my baby cousins. I come from a very large family with a lot of cousins, so all my life, there have been children of all ages running around the house at family parties. I’ve learned the ropes when it comes to teaching kids to adopt certain behaviors, but it wasn’t until Psych 100 did I learn that these techniques were legitimate terms with research behind them!
Easter, one of the most chaotic family parties of the year, sees every technique in action through our family’s annual egg hunt. First, my older cousins hide all the eggs in the backyard. My young cousins who are participating in the hunt are always tempted to look outside a window upstairs to see where the eggs are being hid, so to prevent this cheating, it is the middle-aged cousins like me who are tasked with the job of confining all of the participants in one bedroom with the blinds drawn.
1. The boys are always the ones who try to distract us so they can make their way to the window and peek through the blinds. However, we announce that whoever cheats in this way will be held back for 10 seconds at the beginning before they can start the hunt. With this positive punishment, we add a penalty to condition them, thus teaching them that cheating is not the right thing to do.
2. Second, in the egg hunt, we always have the Giant Egg as the grand prize, and it is always hidden in the hardest spot. With this positive reinforcement, we present a positive reward to encourage the children who think outside the box, using creativity and strategy to find the egg instead of pure luck.
3. At the end of the hunt, there are some children who have a lot more eggs than others, and in the past, we’ve had problems with kids who purposefully brag to make the other kids feel bad. Therefore, to decrease this behavior, we implement negative punishment by withdrawing their object of desire: if you purposefully make someone else feel bad about having less eggs, you have to give them one of yours to show you’re sorry for being mean. We teach them that it is good to be humble, not arrogant.
4. Finally, there was one year where my 12-year-old cousin was extremely generous and gave the Giant Egg he found to his 7-year-old sister. To reward this benevolent behavior, his mother instilled a negative reinforcement: he had previously had TV privileges taken away as a punishment from the day before, so his mother now took away that restriction to encourage this generous side of him.
In these ways, it is apparent that operant conditioning and basic psychology is prevalent in everyday life!
Source: https://gloucestervillage.com/event/easter-egg-hunt-main-street/
