Psychology 1000 Chapter 7: OPERANT CONDITIONING

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 1000
• Professor: Mike Atkinson

Document Summary

Classical conditioning cannot explain many behaviours that involve emitted (voluntary) responses. Edward thorndike was studying how animals learn to solve problems built a puzzle box, which. Thorndike"s law of effect could be opened from the inside by pulling string or stepping on a lever. He places a hungry animal inside the box, and food outside the animal eventually opened the door by chance, and got its food. With repeated trials, performance improved as the animal learned to perform actions that worked to get them a positive outcome. Called this type of learning instrumental learning. Skinner coined the term operant behaviour, meaning that an organism operates on its environment. Skinner"s analysis of operant conditioning in some way emits responses that produce certain consequences. Consequences: determining how to respond there is positive and negative punishment and reinforcement: positive = something is added and negative = something is being taken away.