Author: Alex Shaffer

Operant Conditioning – Shaping

Shaping is a type of operant conditioning that is used as a way to guide a subject’s behavior to have them do what you want them to do. In order to achieve this desired outcome, you must use successive approximations. Using these reinforcers to guide the actions means that you reward behavior that is nearing the desired outcome up to the point where that outcome occurs.

An example of shaping from my own life experiences occurred when I was training my dog to play fetch. First, I would train her to sit on the floor next to where I was standing by rewarding her with a treat. Next, I would train her to wait until I instructed her to run after the ball. After she successfully performed this step, I would again reward her with a treat. Once she was able to complete both of those previous steps consistently, I trained her to fetch the ball and return to me with it. Upon successful completion of these steps, she then received another treat. I then gave her an additional treat when she dropped the ball at my feet. Finally, I trained her that after giving me the ball, she should sit beside me again to wait for the next round of play. Once she performed this step, I would feed her another treat. Once she was used to regularly performing these steps, I would slowly start removing the treat rewards for each step. Eventually, she would play fetch following the steps outlined above without a reward.

In the example described above, rewarding my dog with treats was my way of using successive approximations to shape her to play fetch. During this training, the reinforcers I used were treats. I rewarded her with them whenever she completed an action that would lead to the overall behavior I wanted her to achieve: playing fetch. Rewarding her with those treats reinforced the behaviors that I deemed were important and useful to the overall goal.

Growing Up with Authoritative Parents

In class, we discussed three child-rearing practices that parents use when raising children and exerting control over them. These parenting styles are authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative. Parents using the authoritarian style set rules for their children to follow and expect them to obey at all times. Permissive parents do not set rules for their children to follow and instead do whatever their children want to do. Parents following the authoritative style of parenting lie in between the other type styles. Authoritative parents set expectations for their children, but they also listen to their children and respond to their needs. Comparing the three child-rearing practices, authoritarian is too hard on the children, permissive is too lax with the children, but authoritative is just right. Of the three styles, authoritative is the most ideal parenting practice to follow because it best prepares children for the future. While many factors contribute to a child’s characteristics, the authoritative parenting style often positively influences a child’s self-esteem, independence, and social skills.

I was raised by parents using a mostly authoritative parenting style. While I did have guidelines that I had to follow, my parents were also willing to hear my thoughts and opinions on things and respond to each situation in a reasonable way. This meant that I didn’t always get my way on things, but I knew that my parents heard my feelings on the matter and were acting with my best interest in mind. Sometimes this didn’t help at the time, but looking back, it makes sense. For example, I wanted a cell phone in elementary school. I argued that many of my friends were getting them, so I should too. My parents heard me out, but determined it wasn’t time yet. We talked about it and determined that I would get a cell phone once I was in middle school and would be further from home and more likely to need it to reach them between classes or after school. While it didn’t seem fair at the time, in retrospect, it really was for the best, as we didn’t need that added expense and I didn’t need that added responsibility at the time.

Attention

An important factor that affects our everyday lives is where we focus our attention. Are we focused on one thing at a time, or many things at a time? Trying to focus on many things at once can result in us not focusing on any one thing well. How much effort we put into our attention is also important. In other words, are we trying to focus and pay attention, or are we distracted by other things in our surroundings? While our brains are incredibly powerful, they can only allow us to process a little bit of information at a time from our environments. Selective attention allows us to focus in on something specific while blocking out other, less important, information. When a person experiences selective attention, it can be positive or negative. When selective attention allows a person to gather more details about the main subject, it is a positive experience. However, when selective attention prevents a person from gathering all the information necessary, it is a negative experience.

A friend of mine shared an example that illustrates attention, or lack thereof, from her work. She was attending a meeting with a large group of people that covered an important project that applied to everyone at the meeting to some degree. While my friend came to the meeting prepared to take notes with a pen and paper, almost everyone else brought their laptops. You would think this would be fine and shouldn’t create a problem, right? Unfortunately, that appears to have not been the case for everyone. My friend, as usual, sat in the back of the room. This gave her, unintentionally, a view of many people’s laptop screens. She noticed that many people appeared to be using their laptops not to take notes on the meeting, but rather, to work on other projects during the meeting.

This example relates to the class topic of attention. During this meeting, many people were not focusing their attention where it belonged – on the meeting presenters. In addition, by trying to pay attention to multiple things at once, were the attendees really listening to or doing any of them well?  Finally, those members of the audience using selective attention techniques were not getting the complete message of the presentation.