Operant Conditioning in Day to Day Life

Kumari KarandawalaBA Psychology (Hons) (US)

MSc.(MSSW) In Social Enterprise Managementand International Social Work / Development

Higher National Diploma in PsychologyModule Code GP003

Lecture Contents

• Human Behavior and Emotions explained in terms of Motivation

• Operant Conditioning for Motivating Students• Operant Conditioning for Motivating

Employees• Learned Helplessness

Human Behavior and Emotions explained in terms of Motivation – Some Terminology

• Motivation involves goal-directed behavior• Acquired motivation: Motivation that originates from

experience with reinforcers or punishers in instrumental learning tasks

• Incentive motivation: Motivation for instrumental behavior created by anticipation of a positive reinforcer.

• rG-sG mechanism*: A theoretical process that allowed Hull, Spence, and others to explain in S-R terms how “expectations” of reward motivate instrumental responding

Human Behavior and Emotions explained in terms of Motivation

Positive Emotional Response = Reinforcement

When a stimulus elicits a positive emotional response, the organism will be reinforced by contact with the stimulus. We see this with food, water, and sexual stimuli. For example, the sight of an apple on a table invokes or elicits a positive emotional response in the hungry child. Then, approaching the apple, grasping and biting into the apple will result in reinforcement for the child.

Learning & Emotion

This experience for the child produces 2 types of learning for the child:1) First the child would have LEARNED*

to approach the apple. This type of learning is specific: the child has learned a specific response to a specific stimulus.

2) The EMOTION** the child experiences on seeing the apple constitutes a stimulus.

Emotional responses, in fact most responses, have or produce stimulus properties.

Positive emotional Response (Stimulus) + Approach Behavior

• When the child is reinforced for approaching the apple, the child is also being reinforced for approaching a stimulus that elicits a positive emotional response.

• Through this experience the child will learn an association between the stimulus of the positive emotional response and an approach behavior

Emotional Response & Stimulus and Motor

• Anything that elicits a positive emotional response will automatically tend to elicit approach behavior – the stronger the emotional response, the stronger elicitation of the behavior.

• S------------ R ----------------S ------------- R• Emotional response

motor• & stimulus

Stimulus ERStimulus incentive

• If a stimulus elicits an emotional response, in addition to being a reinforcer, the stimulus will also serve as a directive (incentive) stimulus to elicit either approach or avoidance behavior.

Operant Conditioning for Motivating Students - classroom

• PSYCO 281 Project: Learning Strategies in the Classroom.m4v (7 minutes)

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXwzHlTIIxQ

Activity reinforcers!!• Allow students to participate in preferred activities • Make your expectations clear and explain how the

reinforcer will only occur if good behavior is evidenced• Make reinforcer unexpected, periodically• Always follow-through with your reinforcement eg. Give

early recess/breaktime • As promised to ensure the validity of the reinforcement.• Change-up reinforcements so old reinforcements don’t

become boring!

• Don’t punish but reinforce!!

Breaking the Silence: Using a Token Economy to Reinforce Classroom Participation – Boniecki & Moore (2009)

• Boniecki and Moore proposed a procedure for increasing student participation, particularly in large classes.

• The procedure establishes a token economy in which students earn tokens for participation and then exchange those tokens for extra credit.

• The researchers evaluated the effectiveness of the procedure by recording the degree of participation in an introductory psychology class before, during, and after implementation of the token economy.

Breaking the Silence: Using a Token Economy to Reinforce Classroom Participation – Boniecki & Moore (2009)

• Results revealed that the amount of directed and nondirected participation increased during the token economy and returned to baseline after removal of the token economy

• Furthermore, students responded faster to questions from the instructor during the token economy than during baseline, and this decrease in response latency continued even after removal of the token economy.

Journal Articles:

• “A Descriptive Approach to Classroom Motivation”

• By David G. Ryans

• Sir, tell them we are rising!": Situated descriptive accounts of how K--2 "balanced literacy" classrooms constructed success in three urban schools that serve low SES students

• By Jean M Landis, University of Pennsylvania

Operant Conditioning for Employees

• “Positive Reinforcement in the workplace”• Positive reinforcement is a key element in behavioral analysis. It is

the most powerful interpersonal tool. It can be a word of encouragement, reward or praise - that charges nothing but puts up individual to go as far as they are capable.

• So, what are the other factors of positive reinforcement that can help in changing and improving an individual's behavior? Here we have the presentation that emphasizes on positive reinforcement and its factors.

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XbjuziVtzKA

Operant Conditioning for Motivating Employees

• “Employee Motivation: The Power of Encouragement”

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Ysn8BPOozM

• How to Motivate Your Employees• http://www.youtube.com/watch?

v=iU7a5vrk9LU

Operant Conditioning for Motivating Employees - Basic steps

• Motivate you first! Focus on yourself!• Get to know your employees. Get some

insight into the lives of your employees (and what motivates them!)

• Use smarter goals – realistic and measurable• Delegate authority – provide ENTERPRISE and

INITIATIVE among your employees• Work out a reward system!

Journal Articles:• Employee Reactions to Leader Reward Behavior -Keller and Szilagyi• Abstract• Relationships between positive and punitive leader

rewards and employee role conflict and ambiguity, expectancies, and job satisfaction were investigated. The data showed positive leader rewards to be more strongly related to role and satisfaction variables. Punitive leader rewards were more strongly related to effort-to-performance expectancy. Implications are discussed.

Study: Motivation in Public and Private Organizations – A Comparative Study

• Jurkiewicz et al (1998) cited Kovach (1995) for the motivators indicated here. Their study sample size was 1000 employees:

• -Good wages (5th)• -Job Security (4)• -Promotion and growth in the org (6)• -Good Working conditions (7)• -interesting work (1)• -Personal loyalty to employees (8)• -Tactful discipline (9)• -Full appreciation of work done (2)• -Sympathetic help with personal problems (10)• -Feeling of being in on things (3)

Operant Conditioning in Advertising

• When we see a commercial on television, hear an ad on the radio, or read an ad in the newspaper, we often encounter a person who has received a reinforcement (or avoided a punishment) by using a particular product. Via observational (or vicarious) learning, we are led to believe that if we use the product, we too might experience the same benefit as the person in the advertisement.

• Skinner’s premise of “consequence” or “contingent” (i.e. conditional) • explicitly or implicitly, through words or images, the purpose of these ads is to

communicate an "if … then…." statement: “…if we use the product, we will receive the specified benefit.”

• Some of these contingencies seem reasonable.• Eg. an ad for a particular brand of shampoo may promise clean hair if we use the

product

• Source: http://college.cengage.com/psychology/engler/personality_theories/7e/students/learn_more/ch08.html

Operant Conditioning in Advertising

• However, many ads suggest contingencies that appear far-fetched.

• they promise an outcome that the product couldn't realistically deliver. For example, the shampoo or jeans ads described above might implicitly promise that if you use the product being advertised, a stunningly beautiful person would suddenly find you irresistibly attractive.

• This outcome may not be impossible, but most would agree that it is far from automatic, and in fact is largely false.

Operant Conditioning in Advertising

• Not many of us meet the stunningly beautiful woman the stunningly handsome man, so why then, do we continue to buy them?

• Perhaps the answer to this question relates to the fact that the products do, in fact, provide reinforcement, but it is more modest and less fantastic than the reinforcement promised in the ads.

• For example, if the shampoo ad promises instant sex appeal, and the shampoo fails to deliver on that promise but it does deliver clean hair at a reasonable price, perhaps the latter reinforcement is sufficient to cause us to buy the shampoo again.

Extinction• extinction process also depends upon the reinforcement schedule of the

behavior.• Ads that imply a fixed schedule of reinforcement suggest to the viewer that

if a product is used a certain number of times or for a certain length of time, the reinforcement should predictably be delivered.

• For example, an ad for a facial scrub that promises clearer skin if the product is used for 30 days indicates to the consumer that if more than a month passes with no results, the scrub isn't working, so extinction is likely to follow.

• However, ads with less predictable promises, those that states or implies something along the lines of "results may vary," make it more difficult for the consumer to know when to give up hope that they will receive the reinforcement. Thus, the behavior of buying the product may continue for a relatively long time.

Learned Helplessness

• Definition:• Learned helplessness is the condition of a human or animal

that has learned to behave helplessly, failing to respond even though there are opportunities for it to help itself by avoiding unpleasant circumstances or by gaining positive rewards. Learned helplessness theory is the view that clinical depression and related mental illnesses may result from a perceived absence of control over the outcome of a situation.

• Organisms that have been ineffective and less sensitive in determining the consequences of their behavior are defined as having acquired learned helplessness.

Learned Helplessness• A condition in which a person or animal has come to believe

he or she is helpless in a situation, even when this is untrue. The first person to do research on this topic was Martin Seligman. He found that when animals were given shocks that they were not able to prevent in any way they tended to react similarly in situations where they could have taken control.

• He did further research on the subject and found that this type of learned helplessness could apply to humans as well and that it can start as early as infancy. This type of issue can be caused by many things such as a distant mother or a way of thinking that includes broad generalizations based on previous experiences

Learned Helplessness• For instance, a person who keeps failing drivers ed would say

“I can’t drive” and therefore never take the initiative to learn how to parallel park correctly, thus insuring that they pass next time.

• Example: One theory to explain why some people remain in situations where domestic abuse is present is learned helplessness; that is, the victim sees no way out of the situation.

Learned Helplessness• Charisse Nixon, Ph.D Developmental Psychologist at Penn State Erie, The

Behrend College and Director of Research and Evaluation for The Ophelia Project discusses the phenomenon of learned helplessness. (Shot by Mark Steensland) 6 mins…

• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gFmFOmprTt0

References• Behavior and Personality: Psychological Behaviorism By Walter W. Staats, Arthur

W. Staats