Operant Conditioning – Reinforcement

Need help preparing for the Psych/Soc section of the MCAT? MedSchoolCoach expert, Ken Tao, will teach everything you need to know about Operant Conditioning and Reinforcement for Associative Learning. Watch this video to get all the MCAT study tips you need to do well on the psychology section of the exam! BF Skinner is the behavioral psychologist most associated with operant conditioning. Operant conditioning is learning based on the consequence of behavior. Recall that for another type of learning, classical conditioning, animal behavior was not important. Animals simply learned to associate a conditioned or neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus. Operant conditioning seeks to modify an animal's behavior by either strengthening or weakening the frequency of that behavior. Reinforcement is the use of stimuli to strengthen or increase the frequency of a behavior, and there are several types of reinforcement. First, positive reinforcement occurs when a positive stimulus is added after a behavior takes place. For example, giving a student a cookie after getting a good grade on an exam. Next, negative reinforcement occurs when a negative stimulus is removed after a behavior takes place. For example, if a child is currently grounded to their room, if they do some chores and the parents unground the child, the child will feel more positively about doing chores, increasing the frequency of that behavior. In summary, reinforcement is used to increase the frequency of a behavior, and positive reinforcement is the addition of a desirable stimulus, while negative reinforcement is the removal of a negative stimulus. Reinforcement can be delineated between primary and secondary (conditional) reinforcement. In primary reinforcement, and unconditioned stimulus is used as the reinforcer. Remember, an unconditioned stimulus is one that an animal responds to innately and does not require teaching. For example, food is a positive stimulus with an innate response, so it is a primary reinforcer. This is different from secondary or conditional reinforcement, where a conditioned stimulus is used as the reinforcer. A conditioned stimulus is one that an animal has acquired a conditioned response to through classical conditioning. For example, when a student gets a good grade you can reward the student with money. Money is just paper which isn’t intrinsically rewarding, but money can be used to purchase an unconditioned stimulus, such as food. MEDSCHOOLCOACH To watch more MCAT video tutorials like this and have access to study scheduling, progress tracking, flashcard and question bank, download MCAT Prep by MedSchoolCoach IOS Link: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.htd.medschoolcoach&hl=en_US Apple Link: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/mcat-prep-by-medschoolcoach/id1503000883 #medschoolcoach #MCATprep #MCATstudytools