Conditioning

Psychology is the study of the mind, brain, and behavior. There are many branches that make the topic a whole including all of its terms and theories. Psychology wouldn’t be where it’s at today if it wasn’t for two important psychologists Edward L. Thorndike and behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner. Operant conditioning was devised and studied by psychologist Edward Thorndike and behavioral psychologist B.F Skinner (Charles Strangor, 2010). Operant Conditioning is also known as instrumental conditioning (Kendra Cherry, 2013), a different term but the same meaning. It is a term for a method in which involves punishment and rewards for different types of behavior both negative and positive. This learning process helps identify the consequence for different behaviors. There are four different learning processes which include positive punishment, negative punishment, positive reinforcement, and negative reinforcement. An example of operant conditioning is a dog who is rewarded with a treat after he uses the training pad. Another example will be an award or certificate given to a student who has straight A’s. Positive punishment was established by Thorndike but became more complex when behaviorist B.F Skinner’s created his own theory. Skinner expanded the ideas of Edward. L Thorndike to develop a more complete set of principles to explain operant conditioning (Charles Strangor, 2010). Positive punishment is behavior that is changed by adding some sort of stimulus. The concept of positive punishment can difficult to remember, especially because it seems like a contradiction. How can punishment be positive? The easiest way to remember this concept is to note that it involves an aversive stimulus that is added to the situation. For this reason, positive punishment is sometimes referred to as punishment by application (Kendra Cherry, 2013). An example of positive punishment is extra homework given to a student who was late for school and missed what was reviewed