Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning, on the other hand, does not use a stimulus to prompt behavior. Rather, it employs a 'reward' after the desired behavior, or sometimes a punishment to discourage inappropriate behavior. Examples of operant conditioning are the 'puzzle box' experiments conducted by the American psychologist Edward Thorndike in the late 1800s. Thorndike placed a hungry cat or other animal in a box that could only be opened if the animal pulled on a string or a latch, or performed a combination of similar actions. The first time the animal was placed in the box, it usually took some time to escape and enjoy some nearby food. But over time, the animal learned to escape within seconds. In these experiments, behavior was modified through the rewards of escape and food.
Operant conditioning can be used, among other things, to shape the behavior of cocaine users or patients with severe behavioral problems.
Many (perhaps doubtful) stories are told of how college and university classes use operant conditioning to shape the behaviors of their professors. In one such story, students in an introductory psychology course agreed to 'reinforce' their professor for each move to the left by nodding approval and paying attention, ignoring him and stopping their note-taking if he moved to the right. According to the story, recounted in a popular textbook about the psychology of learning, the professor got midway through the lecture and then fell off the left side of the stage.
Conditioning seems to explain more about how laboratory animals learn during laboratory experiments than how animals might act in the wild. Yet more sophisticated experiments in the 1990s have led to tantalizing insights into how the brain works in response to conditioning. So-called expectancy theory tries to explain what the brain believes about the immediate future. Medical researchers in the United States in the late 1980s studied such theories as the helpful effects of placebo drugs, and posited that the brain is organized to work in response to what it assumes will come next, as well as in response to what it actually senses. In the case of placebos, humans are conditioned by the sight of a doctor in a white coat, the prick of a needle, or the smell of antiseptic, for example, to expect to get relief from pain or illness. In many cases, a patient given a placebo improves just as dramatically as a patient given a proven drug because the patient is in some way conditioned to get well. Expectancy theory gained ground in the late 1990s, supported by fascinating research from around the world. Whereas the earliest conditioning experiments studied relatively simple and observable responses to stimuli, researchers in the late 1990s were able to study the brain's chemical reactions and related responses in the immune, endocrine, and hormonal systems.
Operant conditioning, on the other hand, does not use a stimulus to prompt behavior. Rather, it employs a 'reward' after the desired behavior, or sometimes a punishment to discourage inappropriate behavior. Examples of operant conditioning are the 'puzzle box' experiments conducted by the American psychologist Edward Thorndike in the late 1800s. Thorndike placed a hungry cat or other animal in a box that could only be opened if the animal pulled on a string or a latch, or performed a combination of similar actions. The first time the animal was placed in the box, it usually took some time to escape and enjoy some nearby food. But over time, the animal learned to escape within seconds. In these experiments, behavior was modified through the rewards of escape and food.
Operant conditioning can be used, among other things, to shape the behavior of cocaine users or patients with severe behavioral problems.
Many (perhaps doubtful) stories are told of how college and university classes use operant conditioning to shape the behaviors of their professors. In one such story, students in an introductory psychology course agreed to 'reinforce' their professor for each move to the left by nodding approval and paying attention, ignoring him and stopping their note-taking if he moved to the right. According to the story, recounted in a popular textbook about the psychology of learning, the professor got midway through the lecture and then fell off the left side of the stage.
Conditioning seems to explain more about how laboratory animals learn during laboratory experiments than how animals might act in the wild. Yet more sophisticated experiments in the 1990s have led to tantalizing insights into how the brain works in response to conditioning. So-called expectancy theory tries to explain what the brain believes about the immediate future. Medical researchers in the United States in the late 1980s studied such theories as the helpful effects of placebo drugs, and posited that the brain is organized to work in response to what it assumes will come next, as well as in response to what it actually senses. In the case of placebos, humans are conditioned by the sight of a doctor in a white coat, the prick of a needle, or the smell of antiseptic, for example, to expect to get relief from pain or illness. In many cases, a patient given a placebo improves just as dramatically as a patient given a proven drug because the patient is in some way conditioned to get well. Expectancy theory gained ground in the late 1990s, supported by fascinating research from around the world. Whereas the earliest conditioning experiments studied relatively simple and observable responses to stimuli, researchers in the late 1990s were able to study the brain's chemical reactions and related responses in the immune, endocrine, and hormonal systems.
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