Operant Conditioning
Hi,
This week’s email is about one of the main psychological mechanisms behind behavioral change.
Here are the key practical points you should know:
Operant conditioning is a learning process where behavior is shaped by associated rewards and punishments.
For example, operant conditioning occurs when someone is praised for making an effort, which encourages them to do the same in the future.
Operant conditioning involves reinforcements (which encourage a behavior) and punishments (which discourage a behavior). Both can be either positive (when they add something) or negative (when they remove something).
Positive reinforcement involves encouraging a behavior by adding something rewarding (like praise), while negative reinforcement involves encouraging a behavior by removing something aversive (like restrictive oversight).
Positive punishment involves discouraging a behavior by adding something aversive (like verbal scolding), while negative punishment involves discouraging a behavior by removing something rewarding (like privileges).
Understanding the concept of operant conditioning can help modify people’s behavior, including your own. It’s also useful for understanding and predicting behavioral change, especially given how most people are unaware of the various forms of operant conditioning that they naturally go through every day.
Note that operant conditioning is contrasted with classical conditioning, where a stimulus is paired with an involuntary response. The best-known example of this comes from an experiment by psychologist Ivan Pavlov's, who rang a bell each time he was about to feed his dogs, which led the dogs to start salivating as soon as they heard the bell.
As always, I'm happy to hear your thoughts.
Have a great week,
Itamar