Author Archives: Tabitha Lundstrom

My Parents and Operant Conditioning

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Operant conditioning can be defined as the increasing or decreasing appearance of behaviors due to the association with positive or negative stimuli.  The two forms of operant conditioning are reinforcement and punishment. In reinforcement, the behavior is strengthened by either presenting positive stimuli or removing negative stimuli. In punishment, the behavior is decreases by adding in a negative stimulus or removing a positive one. My parents were always efficient in their punishment and reinforcement methods.

When I did something wrong when I was younger, my parents would make me stand in the corner of a room or sit on the couch for a certain amount of time. This may not seem that painful, but, for a kid, it was torturous. These are forms of negative punishment because I was restricted from doing what I wanted to do. Technically, my parents temporarily took away my freedom, a desirable stimulus for me. My parents have never spanked me, but spanking would be a form of what is known as positive punishment. “Positive” meaning that a stimulus (the act of spanking) is added to the environment in order to diminish a particular response (the behavior that needs to be disciplined).

My parents always gave monetary rewards to me for my positive behaviors. We had a whole system planned out for the amount of money I would get for good grades in school. An A would be worth $20, a B worth $10, a C worth $5, and anything less would not count for anything. I would get rewards for each semester all the way up through my senior year of high school. This definitely helped me want to succeed in school. I graduated in the top 5% of my class and now I am a student at the best university ever! They would also give me an allowance of $50 each month for being well-behaved. My mom would also make deals with me that if I did the chores she asked me to do, she would give me money in return. This shows how positive reinforcement is really helpful in promoting desirable behaviors.

Mood-Dependent Memory

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Last year, my AP Biology exam was scheduled for 8:00 AM on a Monday morning. Around this time, I was incredibly sick, I was having problems with a close friend, and I had just broken up with a boyfriend. I woke up late on the morning of my exam. Luckily, I was able to get into the classroom before 8:00 AM. By the time I got to the school, I looked and felt completely terrible. I was in the worst mood. I ended up basically failing the exam. I do not think that it was because of my lack of knowledge of the material. I had an A in the class. I was very confident that I knew the subject. My poor test score was only because of the given circumstances around that time that put me in a bad mood. The majority of the time that I was studying for the exam, I was in a great mood. I was doing great in my classes, my relationships were intact, and I was healthy. This is an example of mood-dependent memory.

Mood-dependent memory was researched by Eric Eich and Janet Metcalfe. They found that people perform better on assessments when their moods are similar when they study AND when they take the test. When we encode information, we associate it with the current emotional state we are in. If our mood changes when it is time to recall the information, it is harder to remember. We can’t bring those memories back as efficiently because we don’t feel the same way anymore. On the other hand, if our mood stays consistent, it is easier to recall information because we are still in the same state of mind. This is why I was unable to perform well on my AP Biology exam; I was in a positive mood when I was studying and a negative mood when I actually took the exam.

Nature vs. Nurture

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Aristotle believed that human beings gain everything they know through personal experiences. He developed this idea of empiricism, which most people will refer to as the nurture side of the Nature vs. Nurture debate. Besides looking nearly identical to my mom, I also act a lot like her. We share the same interests, ranging from what type of movies we want to watch to our favorite types of food to our views about the world. I believe that I adapted these preferences because that’s what I grew up around the most. We almost have the same clothing style. We have the same sense of humor.  We are both very interested in health and nutrition. We both enjoy cooking. We have the same love for shopping. We have similar tastes in music too. There are so many learned behaviors that I now possess because of the time I have spent with my mom.

On the other side of the spectrum, Plato and Socrates gave us the idea that behaviors and thoughts are inborn. They described this as nativism, which was the nature side of the debate. I believe this also has a strong effect on people. I think the way I handle my emotions is incredibly similar to the way my mom handles situations. We very rarely get angry. If we do, we just end up crying because we get so stressed out. However, my sister and my dad are both incredibly short-tempered. They are definitely yellers when they get frustrated. The two of them have also had to deal with depression, while my mom and I have never had to go through that. I believe that the ways my sister and I handle our emotions were completely genetic.

Obviously, both nativism and empiricism come into play with developing a person’s behavior. It’s difficult to pinpoint which traits are learned and which traits are innate. People change their behaviors daily. We don’t change drastically, but we are all constantly trying to be the person we aspire to be. We observe the people around us, and we may begin to pick up their admirable traits as our own. We can never completely alter who we were born as though because, as we all know, some things just can’t change.