Last week I introduced classical conditioning as one of the fundamental forms of learning. This week I’m going to present the second major form of learning developed by psychologists as a response to classical conditioning.

In the early 20th century a behaviorist psychologist called B.F Skinner emerged with a different set of views that he developed into a learning theory that is now taught in virtually every introduction to psychology class. Skinner believed that it is more productive to study observable behaviors rather than internal mental processes. He thought that one of the best ways to understand observable behaviors was to examine the causes of an action and its consequences. Skinner named this approach operant conditioning. This theory of operant conditioning is heavily based on the work of another psychologist, Edward Thorndike. Thorndike is known for his studies of learning in animals. However, B.F. Skinner is largely considered the father of operant conditioning. Essentially he reasoned that behavior that is reinforced tends to be repeated (strengthened) while behavior that is is not reinforced tends to die out or weaken.

Skinner designed a chamber he coined the “Skinner Box.” Pictured below, it is this box by which Skinner studied operant conditioning through conducting experiments with animals.

By using different types of reinforcement, Skinner could change the behavior of rats inside his box. Before I describe what that looks like, let me just clarify some vocabulary first.

Reinforcers: These increase the probability of a behavior being repeated. Reinforcers can be positive or negative.

Punishers: Punishers decrease the likelihood of a behavior being repeated. They are often confused with negative reinforcement but it is important to remember that punishment weakens behavior.

Positive Reinforcement—Skinner demonstrated how positive reinforcement exists by putting a hungry rat in his box. Inside the box was a level that triggered a food pellet to drop into the box next to the lever. Eventually, rats learned to go directly to this lever to get the food after only a few times in the Skinner Box. The positive consequence of being rewarded with food after pressing the lever taught the rats to repeat that action over and over again.

An example of this in a more realistic situation is receiving an allowance after completing your chores for a week. If your parents give you $10 for finishing your chores (the reward), then you are more likely to repeat this behavior. Essentially the behavior of completing your chores has been strengthened through positive reinforcement.

Negative Reinforcement—This is the removal of an unpleasant reinforcer. Essentially, removing an adverse stimulus is rewarding to the animal/person, thus strengthening a particular behavior. Skinner demonstrated negative reinforcement by subjecting the rat in his box to an electric shock which could be turned off with the knock of the lever. Unsurprisingly, the rats learned to run straight to the lever to turn off and escape the shock.

To better understand negative reinforcement, picture a mother and a young child in line at the grocery store. The child is cranky and keeps whining and crying to his mother about wanting one of the candy bars on the checkout shelf. To silence the child’s irritating cries the mother gives in and purchases the candy. This removes the adverse stimulus of the child’s cries, while reinforcing the behavior of the mother to give in to her child.

Punishment—Most of us have a pretty good understanding of what punishment is if your parents have ever disciplined you. Simply put, it is designed to weaken or eliminate a behavior rather than increase it. The first example that comes to mind is parents taking away their teenager’s cell phone for doing poorly in a class. The teenager now has more incentive to do better in school in order to avoid getting his phone taken away again.

Learning is vital to us as both college students trying to ace our classes and humans adapting to our ever-changing environments. In psychology there are countless theories on how people learn but today I’m going to discuss one of the most renowned ways we learn that shape our behavior every day.

In the 1890s Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov was researching digestion patterns and stumbled upon one of the most fundamental psychology findings to date. While working with hungry dogs, he discovered that the dogs began to salivate right before he presented them with meat powder. Eventually the dogs would salivate without the presentation of the meet power at all, starting to salivate as the person who fed them walked into the room. Essentially his findings suggest that we develop responses to specific stimuli that are not naturally occurring. For example, if you touch a hot stove, the natural reflex is to pull your hand back—there is no learning involved. However, some people, after getting burned, may pull their hands away from the stove even when the burner is not on. Pavlov reasoned that people make associations that cause us to generalize our response from one stimuli onto a neutral stimuli it is paired with. Basically: hot burner =pain, stove=burner, stove=ouch. This type of learning is known as Classical Conditioning.

Pavlov continued his experiment by pairing a bell with the meat powder, and discovered that even when the meat powder isn’t given, the dog eventually starts salivating after hearing the bell. In the classical conditioning model, the meat powder is called the unconditioned stimulus (because it naturally results in salivation) and the salivation is called the unconditioned response. Conversely, the bell and salvation are not naturally occurring as the Pavlov conditioned the dog to respond to the bell. Thus, the bell becomes the conditioned stimulus and the salivation becomes the conditioned response.

All that can be quite a handful to fully comprehend at first so let me point out some more common examples. Have you ever walked by someone wearing a specific cologne or perfume and suddenly felt an wave of emotions? Or how about a song you used to listen to coming on shuffle? Neither the smell of the perfume nor the song are causing all these emotions. It’s what you associate these smells and sounds with that trigger your response. Maybe that was the cologne your ex boyfriend used to wear and the sudden smell of it triggers all kinds of intense emotions you once felt for that person. Certain songs absolutely have this effect on me—the opening chords take me right back to a moment (which can be both a good or bad thing). All of this is classical conditioning.

Basically what I’m getting at is that we make these associations all the time without realizing the effect these connections have on us. If you have any fun/funny/interesting/whatever examples of how you’ve experienced classical conditioning, comment them below!

This Wednesday I, after wandering around the business building for ten minutes trying to find the classroom, I attended the 50 Shades of Consent deliberation on sexual assault. As sexual assault is a very pressing matter on campus, and one I am personally fearful of when walking alone late at night, I was truly excited to see what suggestions the team had come up with to combat the issue. The three approaches this groups suggested are as follows:

1. Focus on the Offenders. A plan to increase punishments and the number of offenders reprimanded. The first approach considers how most sexual assaults on college campuses are handled strictly by the college’s administration. This leaves much interpretation up to the individual colleges as well as failing to take any legal action against the offender. However, if sexual offenses are immediately documented and reported to a third party police, the case can be dealt with according to the full extent of federal and state laws. I subscribed strongly to this approach because by cracking down on offenders and increasing the severity of punishment for these crimes, future offenders might potentially be deterred from committing crimes. Some people in the group countered by saying that this approach focuses too much on the aftermath of the assault rather than taking any preventative measures.
2. Focus on education. Make people aware of how frequently it occurs and how to avoid it. The tenet of this approach is to further the knowledge of what actually constitutes sexual assault and how often it actually occurs. In many cases, victims are unaware that they were assaulted at first, and don’t realize till days or weeks later. Further suggestions included education through mandatory training sessions for all students, such as at NSO or even in Freshman English class. There was discussion on increasing events throughout the year on sexual assault awareness and prevention, as well as requiring clubs and sports teams to attend workshops. I am a fond believer that knowledge is power, and if we can get people to fully understand sexual assault and consent through these educational programs, then we can make a drastic difference.
3. Focus on prevention strategies. Installing blue lights and campus walk. The third and final approach reasoned that prevention was the most logical. It proposed preventative strategies such as increasing the funding for escorts to safely walk people home, or installing more blue lights across campus and in the dorms. Some people in the deliberation criticized that most assaults happen in dorms or other residence areas and not outside in the open, so blue lights wouldn’t be effective in that case. While I thought these criticisms were valid I do agree that it is better to attempt further prevention strategies as to try and stop as many of these assaults as possible.

Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this deliberation and mostly everyone contributed meaningful ideas and perspectives to the discussion. We had comments from females, males, athletes, as well as people involved in the Greek life system.

There seems to be a perpetual battle going on between the various different majors and schools in terms of academic difficulty. Namely, the business, liberal arts, communications, science, and engineering majors (who for some reason insist on calling themselves engineers even thought they haven’t earned their degree yet???). Whether it occurs on Yik Yak, another social media platform, or in person, these groups are constantly at odds putting each other down. Claims that the business/communications majors are “too easy” and have hardly any work are thrashed out by the engineering and science majors. Likewise, there are similar negative comments at liberal arts majors.

Heres a fine example if you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about:

I was out at a social one night and started talking to this other freshman. Of course the classic “What’s your major” question popped up pretty shortly into conversation and when I replied with “psychology” I was appalled at his response. “That’s a bad major. You wont get a job,” said the accounting major I’d just met about ten minutes ago. First of all, to make that kind of comment with know knowledge of my work ethic, resume, or what I plan on doing with my psychology degree is extremely ignorant and rude. Secondly, there is a slew of career paths and fields I can go into with my degree. SO, Mr. Accounting Major, you are very wrong.

Psychology degrees are actually pretty flexible and adaptable. There is the professional path in which a bachelor’s degree is a stepping stone towards further education in graduate school (like the kind needed to actually call yourself a psychologist—you need a  pH.D for that). About 40 percent of psychology majors continue to either business school, law school, or another graduate program. But this is a relatively small number considering the sheer popularity of psychology as a major. USA Today actually ranked the second most popular major last year. However, there are other options for people who don’t choose the professional route. According to The College Majors Handbook, the top employment options for people with a bachelor’s degree are as follows:

1. Top- and mid-level management and administration
2. Sales
3. Social work
4. Human resources occupations
5. Labor-relations, personnel and training
6. Administrative positions
7. Real estate, business services and insurance
8. Marketing or advertising
9. Research

The most important thing to remember is that this major teaches a broad set of general skills including research and writing that become useful in an array of occupations. Its merely applying these skills to a particular job. Comprehending the psychology of human development can provide a foundation for teaching elementary and secondary school teachers. The foundation in research methods and statistics can lead to careers in marketing research, business consulting, and program evaluation. Combining a psychology program with business classes or even a business major is perfect for laying the groundwork to going into graduate school for Industrial-Organizational psychology (which is potentially what I plan on going into). This field happens to be one of psychology’s highest paying sub-specialties and is one of the top 10 occupations with the highest projected growth.

These were just a few careers in psychology, not to mention the many sub fields of professional psychology you could practice in. For more information or just to explore what you could do with a psychology degree check these out:

http://careersinpsychology.org

http://www.apa.org/careers/resources/guides/careers.aspx

http://www.apa.org/science/resources/careers/index.aspx