1. Operant Conditioning
A method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior.
The theory was developed by B.F. Skinner – who was a Behaviorist.
Skinner was interested in objectively measuring human behavior – and rejected the idea that internal thoughts and motivation explained behavior.
He only wanted to examine the observable causes of human behavior and was interested in how the consequences of people’s actions influenced their behavior.
Divide behavior into measurable units. Developed Skinner Box.
BF Skinner
Skinner constructed a Skinner Box where he put rats and pigeons to observe their behavior.
Rat in box with lever, bowl and closed chamber.
If rat pulls lever, the chamber opens and it dispenses food
Initially – the rat doesn’t know that if it pulls the lever the food is dispensed.
The rat discovers this accidentally though.

2. Positive Negative Reinforcement Punishment
The rat then realizes after several times of pulling the lever, food is dispensed. This is called conditioning.
We can now see the rat learns to pull the lever to get the reward which is the food pellet.
Reinforcement and Punishment
Reinforcement Punishment
Positive
Negative
Positive Reinforcement
Adding a pleasant
Stimulant
Win employee of month - $50.00
Positive Punishment
To decrease occurrence of a behavior.
Add an unpleasant stimulus
You are seen texting in class and teacher takes your cell phone away.
Negative reinforcement
Removal of an unpleasant stimulus – father nagging you.
Having to learn capitals of states and dad nagging you to learn them. Once you learned them – dad stops nagging you.
Negative Punishment
Removal of a pleasant stimulus
Mom and dad take their son’s cell phone away for misbehaving
Son learns to stop the misbehavior

3. Responses can be modified by their consequences Turn door knob is desirable response to enter a room. So you now increase the frequency of turning knobs on doors. But you have turn the knob – pushing the door will not open it. You are conditioned to turning the door knob to enter the room. We can call this a positive consequence. What is Shaping? A situation where we successively reinforce behaviors that lead up to or approximate the desired behavior. Put rat in a box and when rat looks toward the lever, a food pellet is released. You only release the food pellet when the rat looks or moves in that direction. Next - you only reinforce the rat when it moves toward the lever – sniffs the lever --- then touches the lever. You stop reinforcing the rat when it sniffs the lever but only when it touches the lever. The rat now knows to push the lever to get the pellet.

4. Reinforcement Schedules
Skinner identified several different schedules of reinforcement:
Definition of Terms: Ratio = number of responses Interval = time
Fixed = consistent Variable = variation
Fixed-ratio schedules are a type of partial reinforcement. Responses are reinforced only after a specific number of responses have occurred. This typically leads to a fairly steady response rate.
Example: Car salesman gets a bonus every time he sells 5 cars. It doesn’t matter how long it takes him to sell the cars. A piecemeal worker gets paid depending on how many pieces they produce.
Fixed-interval schedules are another form of partial reinforcement. Reinforcement occurs only after a certain interval of time has elapsed. Response rates remain fairly steady and start to increase as the reinforcement time draws near, but slow immediately after the reinforcement has been delivered.
Example: The car salesman gets a paycheck every 2 weeks and only needs to sell 1 car.

5. Variable-ratio schedules are also a type of partial reinforcement that involve reinforcing behavior after a varied number of responses. This leads to both a high response rate and slow extinction rates.
Example: The car salesman has to sell 5 cars to get the first bonus, 3 cars for the second bonus, 4 cars and so on. You then add up the cars sold and the average is 3. Slot machines pay out after an average number of plays.
Variable-interval schedules are the final form of partial reinforcement Skinner described. This schedule involves delivering reinforcement after a variable amount of time has elapsed. This also tends to lead to a fast response rate and slow extinction rate.
Example: The supervisor at car dealership randomly shows up and each time he sees the car salesman talking to a customer, the car salesman gets a bonus. Since the car salesman never knows when the supervisor will show up, he is always trying to be talking to a customer.
Also – if I said we’re having pop quizzes – it’s the same thing. You will study all the time because you’ll never know when I’ll give the pop quiz during the semester.