1. Overview of the Day Learning - Part 2 Operant conditioning Observational learning

2. Operant Conditioning  Why is it called "operant" conditioning?  Operant: an organism learns to operate on the environment  Associating a behavior with a consequence  A response is followed by a consequence  How does operant conditioning work?  Law of effect: a behavior is likely to be reproduced when it has positive consequences and vice versa

3. Key Terms  Reinforcer: any event that increases the frequency of a preceding response  Primary reinforcer: something that is innately satisfying (food and sex)  Secondary reinforcer: something we learn to like (money)  Punishment: any event that decreases the frequency of a preceding response

4. Positive and Negative Reinforcement and Punishment  Positive (reinforcement and punishment)  present something  Negative (reinforcement and punishment)  remove something

5. What works best: Reinforcement or Punishment?  Punished behavior is suppressed, not forgotten, may increase aggressiveness (abusive parents tend to produce abusive children),anger, and fear of person doing the punishing  However, swift and sure punishment can be effective.  When should it be used and how?  When it is so sure and effective that it deters unwanted behavior.

6. Shaping  A procedure in which reinforcers are used to gradually guide behavior toward a desired behavior.  Teach a child to play quietly by presenting her with an ice cream cone at longer and longer intervals of quiet play (10, 20, 30 minutes)

7. Examples of Interval and Ratio Schedules  Asking women for dates  variable ratio  A house painter being paid by how many square feet of surface area she paints  fixed ratio  Receiving a paycheck every two weeks  fixed interval  Pop quizzes  variable interval

8. Observational Learning  Modeling: observing and imitating a specific behavior  By observing, we learn to anticipate a behavior’s consequences (on other and ourselves)  We tend imitate people who are successful admirable, or similar to ourselves

9. Summary  Operant conditioning  reinforcer, punishment  positive and negative  Shaping  Schedules of reinforcement  continuous and partial (FR, VR, FI, VI)  Observational learning